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SUMMARY:&quot\;No-one knows where to put his hand on any particular specim
 en he may want...&quot\;: How women corrected curatorial chaos in Oxford's
  geological collections\, 1813-1914 - Grace Exley\, University Library\, M
 unby Fellow\, Darwin College
DTSTART:20251202T131000Z
DTEND:20251202T140000Z
UID:TALK238678@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Janet Gibson
DESCRIPTION:When the illustrious geologist William Buckland (1784-1856) to
 ok up Oxford’s Readership of Mineralogy in 1813\, he found the Universit
 y’s selection of rocks\, fossils\, and minerals "sparse and piecemeal". 
 In contrast\, the 1889 annual report on the state of the collections (from
  which this talk takes its title) decried how decades of unfettered collec
 ting begun by Buckland had resulted in an intractable hodgepodge of boxes 
 and baskets entirely filling the basement corridors of the University Muse
 um. Using specimens still in Oxford’s ‘Buckland Collection’\, this t
 alk charts how the collections’ rapid expansion and the dire need for or
 ganisation this brought created opportunities for women\, especially in cu
 ratorial capacities. At a time when women were still barred from Fellowshi
 p of the Geological Society of London\, this paper argues that women – a
 nd particularly two late nineteenth-century museum assistants\, Maud Heale
 y and Hannah Byrne – exploited the opportunities offered by the low-paid
  curatorial posts men typically turned down to make scientific statements.
  Particularly\, this paper analyses how these women reinterpreted specimen
 s originally collected by William Buckland\, demonstrating that these wome
 n subtly re-wrote geological legacies through their meticulous labelling\,
  identification\, and research. To fully understand these Buckland specime
 ns\, I argue\, we must recognise that this collection is as much the ‘Ha
 nnah Byrne Collection’ and the ‘Maud Healey Collection’ as the 'Buck
 land Collection'
LOCATION:Richard King room\, Darwin College
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