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SUMMARY:Greenwich as a home and observatory: the Airy family and the RGO c
 ollections - Megan Briers (Technische Universität Berlin)
DTSTART:20250428T130000Z
DTEND:20250428T140000Z
UID:TALK230335@talks.cam.ac.uk
DESCRIPTION:Recent literature has demonstrated the importance of assessing
  how narratives are impacted by the archiving and documenting practices of
  the actors and institutions we study. In the case of the Royal Observator
 y Greenwich\, George Airy\, the British Astronomer Royal from 1835 to 1881
 \, constructed a vast archive to justify the observatory&rsquo\;s existenc
 e in a period when its stability was under threat. This archive has been a
  key resource for historians of Victorian science\, and my paper will firs
 t highlight how it can reveal previously unacknowledged participation of t
 he broader Airy family in astronomical investigations.\nHowever\, I will a
 lso discuss the mechanisms by which the importance of family/domestic prac
 tices became concealed by practices of archival organisation and exclusion
 . There has been little critical attention to choices made in the formatio
 n of the observatory&rsquo\;s archives: Greenwich was also the site of the
  Airys' home but an artificial divide between institutional and domestic s
 paces endures in the organisation of the archives. By re-integrating exclu
 ded archive material\, I will demonstrate the centrality of family identit
 ies and domestic spaces in key episodes in the history of Greenwich and Vi
 ctorian astronomy\, centring women&rsquo\;s previously obscured labour in 
 shaping family members&rsquo\; reputations and historical memory.&nbsp\;
LOCATION:Seminar Room 1\, Newton Institute
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