Over on the Science Museum Group Journal site, David Saunders (a PhD student at the Centre for the History of the Emotions, Queen Mary University of London), has written a good read entitled Wired-up in white organdie: framing women’s scientific labour at the Burden Neurological Institute. 

Using untapped photographic collections in the Burden Neurological Institute’s (BNI) papers, Saunders work addresses a lacuna in the historiography of science that has overlooked the prominent roles women have played in the history of the BNI. 

The work does not, however, treat the photos as “providing an unproblematic ‘window’ onto the experiences of these scientific workers, this article contends that the photographs in question ‘frame’ women’s labour in particular ways so as to devalue, obscure and erase their contributions to the BNI’s much-lauded achievements.” 

Rather, the article “considers three such frames: the objectification of women as the subjects, rather than the practitioners, of neuroscientific research; the elision of women’s scientific, domestic, and familial roles; and the visual equation of women’s labour with that of the machine.”

Read the entirety here!