Report from the Conference

It was another great day at the History of Science Society conference. The day included a great presentation by Arlie Belliveau (York University) in which she looked at the micromotion films of the Gilbreths as a translation device for enabling communication between engineering Taylorists and psychologist industrial managers. And of course, no Gilbreth presentation would be complete without some great video (Belliveau showed footage from the Ball Brothers Mason Jar Factory in 1918 but I could only find bricklaying footage to share here)

There was also a Darwin session chaired by Bob Richards (University of Chicago) which featured a number of interesting talks. Personally I was particularly interested in Kathryn Tabb’s (University of Pittsburg) discussion of the influence of Darwin’s interest in insanity on the development of his later theory. She focused on the period between 1837-1839, drawing heavily from Darwin’s notebook M and notebook N.

That wrapped up the last full day of the HSS conference (Ah Montréal, tu me manques déjà!) – next year’s meeting will be held in Cleveland, Ohio.