Keene, Melanie (Author)
Familiar chemistry flourished in early Victorian Britain. This set of texts an practices advocated drawing scientific lessons from the habitual activities of daily life, in which the hidden chemical contents of common objects and quotidian processes were revealed. Through sensory interactions in the family environment --- enlightening conversation and hands-on explorations --- a wide range of phenomena could be introduced to childish bodies and minds. A close reading of texts such as Albert J. Bernays' Household Chemistry (1852), alongside a consideration of everyday artefacts, as well as novel specialist objects such as Robert Best Ede's Youth's Laboratory (ca. 1837-1845), allows a discussion of this educational style, and an introduction of this new analytic category. In particular, I argue, familiar chemistry succeeded by reworking the popular literary genre of the familiar introduction with an emphasis on embodied interactions with emphatically real things, and gave a central role to the familial domestic context. From candles to cabinets, and beyond, in this article I will demonstrate that familiar chemistry provides a new perspective on scientific education and participation in the nineteenth century.
...MoreDescription On scientific education in a domestic context.
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