2000 HSS/PSA Program 1 - History of Science Society

Marsha␣ L. Richmond Wayne State University
HSS Abstracts
Cell Theory on the Eve of Genetics
A cardinal event in the early history of genetics was the recognition circa
1904 that the behaviour of the chromosomes during the process of replication
closely paralleled that expected of Mendelizing factors. Thus was founded the
new subdiscipline of cytogenetics, which mutually enriched classical genetics
and cytology. Yet for decades many biologists had accepted the idea that the
nucleus was the seat of heredity and development. Indeed, by 1900 Richard
Hertwig and his school at Munich were experimentally investigating the nature
of this control. In addition to Theodor Boveri and Richard Goldschmidt, the
young British zoologists Geoffrey Watkins Smith of Oxford and C. Clifford
Dobell of Cambridge went to Munich to study with Hertwig. Yet while Smith
accepted the nucleocentric model of the cell, Dobell subsequently became a
vocal critic. This paper will assess the status of cell theory on the eve of genetics
by comparing and contrasting the views of Goldschmidt, Dobell, and Smith.
It explores the extent to which an individual’s view of the organization of life
influences their understanding of “cellular reality.”
H
S
S
Michael␣ F. Robinson University of Wisconsin, Madison
Chicago’s Eskimo Village:
Reconsidering Race at the World’s Columbian Exposition, 1893
In 1893, over two dozen Innu villagers from Labrador settled into their new
home on the grounds of the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. They
took their place among a variety of transplanted “savage” and “semi-barbarous”
peoples who constituted the anthropology exhibits of the fair. Organizers set
the Eskimo Village on the main Exposition grounds, apart from other ethnic
villages on the Midway, and at a distance from the “White City,” the fair’s
shrine to Anglo-Saxon progress. In so doing, they used the fairgrounds to
represent a theory of cultural evolution still widespread within the
anthropological community. Within this theory, the Eskimo Village symbolized
human culture at its most primitive and offered white Americans a glimpse of
their own prehistoric past. Recent studies have made use of the racial symbolism
of the Columbian Exposition in interpreting professional and popular discourse
about race in late nineteenth century America. Yet few studies have looked
beyond the planning and production of the fair’s exhibitions to the agency of
native participants themselves. This paper examines the actions of the Innu
within the Eskimo Village and their effect upon popular discourse. It argues
that the Innu frequently acted in ways which undermined the “script” presented
by anthropologists and organizers, and suggests revisions to the historiography
of race at the Columbian Exposition.
149