Article ID: CBB711343544

Science in Glass: Material Pathologies in Laboratory Research, Glassware Standardization, and the (Un)Natural History of a Modern Material, 1900s–1930s (2022)

unapi

At the turn of the twentieth century, so-called “glass diseases” seriously affected the use of scientific and technical glassware. It had become apparent by 1900 that glass, a supposedly neutral and inert material, not only interacted with its environment but also interfered with anything it contained—chemically, physically, and biologically. Starting from the assumption that modern laboratory research depends on containers that regulate the spatial, material, and epistemic enclosure of its experimental milieus and objects, this essay argues that the standardization of glass quality from the 1900s to the 1930s must be understood as a reconfiguration of a “marginal” but nonetheless constitutive element of modern laboratory environments. The aim here is thus to weave various threads together into an (un)natural history of a modern material, one that considers epistemology, technology, and ontology—or, more specifically, the changing requirements and functions of glassware in the modern laboratory, the invention of specifically adapted glass substances, and the parallel advancement of glass science and its theories of what glass actually is.

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Authors & Contributors
Bruyninckx, Joeri
Robbins, Amy S.
Umberto Veronesi
Verena Wasmuth
Smart, Pamela G.
Viel, Claude
Concepts
Scientific apparatus and instruments
Laboratory techniques and procedures
Laboratories
Glass and glassmaking
Material culture
Materials science
Time Periods
19th century
20th century, early
20th century
18th century
17th century
Ancient
Places
Oxford (England)
Czechoslovakia
Prussia (Germany)
Europe
Egypt
Great Britain
Institutions
Corning Museum of Glass
Oxford University
Lehigh University
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
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