Integrative Themes in the Sciences

In keeping with the University’s research mission, it is important for the Hay to have relevance across all academic divisions. Accordingly, the strategic collecting areas incorporate three strong throughlines supporting integrative scholarship in the sciences:

Climate Change

Rooted in the University’s Sustaining Life on Earth initiative, this theme recognizes the historical, current, and future impacts of climate change. The Hay’s strategic collecting directions will include material supporting research on climate change, and the principle of sustainable collecting will encourage the Hay to consider the environmental footprint of its collections. The Hay has a strong foundation for this theme through collections like the Morse Whaling Collection, which comprises all aspects of the historical whaling industry; the Lownes Science Collection, which has particular strength in natural history, most notably for botany and ornithology; and the Swan Antarctic Collection, which documents the historical geography and exploration of Antarctica.

Collections as Data

The methods and practice of data science are of growing import in many fields, and the University is investing in Advancing Computational and Data Sciences. The Hay will purposefully collect data created by scholars and will work to make its collections and metadata open to large-scale computational analysis. The Hay also holds important collections in the global history of mathematics, notably the David E. Pingree Collection, which comprises more than 22,000 items of rare and unique material related to mathematics in the ancient world with a focus on India and the relationship of Eastern mathematics to the development of mathematics and related disciplines in the West.

Health and History

Brown’s Warren Alpert School of Medicine and the School of Public Health are recognized leaders in their fields, and they are significantly expanding their impact through Building on Distinction’s investments under Deciphering Disease and Improving Population Health. The Hay has a strong foundation in the history of medicine, in particular through the Significant Books in the History of Science bequeathed by Albert Lownes and the rare books, records, and historical medical objects donated by the Rhode Island Medical Society. In addition, due to numerous gifts by Dr. David Lewis, founding director of the Brown Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies, and the acquisition of collections like the personal papers of Alcoholics Anonymous co-founder Robert Holbrook (“Dr. Bob”) Smith, the Hay has become a hub for the study of alcoholism and its treatment. The Hay will continue to grow its holdings in these areas within and across the strategic collecting directions. These collections will also be an important source for supporting the growing importance of humanistic inquiry in the health and life sciences.

Integrative Themes in the Sciences Anchor Collections

Climate Change

Carleton D. Morse Whaling Collection: The Morse Collection of books, manuscripts and periodicals relating to the whaling industry was presented as a memorial to Carleton D. Morse (Brown Class of 1913), by his widow and daughter in 1958. It includes personal narratives and classics of whaling literature, along with correspondence; manuscript logbooks and journals; commercial papers; legal documents; memoranda; reports; personal memoirs; photographs; engravings; clippings and ephemera. Among the commercial papers are invoices and receipts for ships’ outfits, merchants’ records for repairs, freight, passengers, fuel, and taxes; Charter Party documents; as well as correspondence of a personal nature.

Lownes History of Science: In January of 1979, the Collection of Significant Books in the History of Science arrived as a bequest from Albert E. Lownes. His final gift of over 5,000 volumes plus hundreds of prints and manuscripts spanned the centuries of scientific thought from Ptolemy to Einstein. This was one of the three most important private collections of books of science in America and ranks as one of the most significant single collections ever received by the Brown University Library. Its greatest strength and depth is in natural history although its scope embraces significant works in all scientific fields. Lownes defined significance as being “books that have changed the world or man’s way of seeing it. Significance also meant books that I found interesting.” The collection contains over three-quarters of those texts recognized by scholars as the “great books” of science published since the middle of the 15th century.

Bradford Swan Antarctic Collection: Collection of materials, primarily books in English, relating to the exploration of Antarctica. The collection is concentrated on the period from the turn of the 20th century to the early 1960s. It includes more than 200 books, all but a handful in English, on the expeditions of Scott, Shackleton, Amundsen, and others, as well as later exploratory and scientific expeditions and facilities. Also included are a small number of minor manuscripts (uncataloged as of May 2002) as well as two boxes of press releases of the National Science Foundation and U.S. Naval Support Force, Antarctica, and Operation Deep Freeze, and two boxes of U.S. Navy official Antarctic photographs, and a souvenir photo book that belonged to Swan.

Collections as Data

Ladd Observatory Records: Correspondences, articles, scrapbooks, course material, photographs, offprints, newspaper clippings, etc. Includes correspondence, professional papers and photographs of and relating to the research and teaching of Brown University astronomers Winslow Upton (founding director of Ladd Observatory), Charles Hugh Smiley, and Clinton Harvey Currier.

David E. Pingree Collection on the History of Mathematics: The late David E. Pingree chaired the Department of History of Mathematics at Brown, and acquired a scholarly reputation of international renown from his own research into the history of mathematics and the exact sciences. In the course of his research, he compiled a research collection of books, pamphlets and manuscripts (many in photocopy format)in a variety of languages, some exceedingly rare and others found nowhere else in North America. The collection comprises more than 22,000 items, and is a remarkable resource for the study of mathematics in the ancient world. Its special focus on India and the relationship of Eastern mathematics to the development of mathematics and related disciplines in the West makes it of unique and particular importance for the study of the history of science.

William Whitman Bailey papers: These papers of William Whitman Bailey (1843–1914), Brown University professor of botany, consist of correspondence, diaries (20 vols), manuscripts, addresses, poems, drawings, paintings, sketches, notebooks, and scrapbooks dating from 1856 to 1914, that document the professional activities and family life of botanist William Whitman Bailey. In his letters, Bailey wrote about his reading and other literary pursuits; his publications; plants and botany; professional activities at Brown University; West Point; and excursions in New England, including Mt. Wachusett; Conway; and Cumberland, R.I.

Health and History

Chester H. Kirk Collection on Alcoholism and Alcoholics Anonymous: In 1995, Chester H. Kirk, in a generous contribution to the Brown University Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies, established the Chester H. Kirk Collection on Alcoholism and Alcoholics Anonymous. The 15,000 items purchased initially with Chester Kirk’s gift were amassed over two decades by Charles Bishop, Jr., an antiquarian bookseller and author of several research tools on Alcoholics Anonymous and related groups. Acquisition of this collection, one of the largest of its kind in the country, made Brown a center for the study of addiction to alcohol and other substances and for the history of attempts to treat or prevent addiction.

Davenport Collection: The Davenport Collection, an endowed gift from Dr. James Henry Davenport, containing “books on medical history, medical biography and extra-curricular writings of physicians.” It is these extra-curricular writings that give the collection its eclectic flavor. Included are books by physician authors in the fields of history, biography, travel narratives, fiction, poetry and drama, as well as many other works from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (London, 1892) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to Oliver Wendell Holmes’s The Poet at the Breakfast-Table (Boston, 1872). Part of the Rhode Island Medical Society Collection.

Rhode Island Medical Society Collection: Rare and unusual materials collection by the Rhode Island Medical society in its 175 years, including rare books, medical classics, the societies own records, and a substantial amount of medical pamphlets covering homeopathy, hydropathy, naturopathy, and other less orthodox medical doctrines practiced in the 18th and 19th centuries.