Sally Gregory Kohlstedt
Sally Gregory Kohlstedt
Professor, Department of Earth and Environmental SciencesContact
John T. Tate Hall Room 375-02 116 Church Street SeMinneapolis, MN 55455
Education
PhD, 1972, University of Illinois
Professional Background
Scientific & Professional Societies
- American Association for the Advancement of Science;
- American Historical Association;
- Forum on the History of Science in America;
- History of Science Society;
- International Congress for the History of Science
Biography
Sally Gregory was named Sarton Medallist in 2019, an award given annually to an outstanding historian of science. She specializes in the history of the natural sciences, scientific institutional development, and the participation of women in science. With an undergraduate degree from Valparaiso University (1965), she received a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (1971). After a Smithsonian Fellowship and teaching for four years at Simmons College in Boston, she joined the History Department at Syracuse University. In 1989, she moved to the History of Science and Technology Program at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities where she also served in administrative roles, including Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the College of Science and Engineering. Her early articles explored the nineteenth intellectual and cultural framework that underpinned the rapid development of science and technology in the maturing United States, with attention to professionalization and both formal and informal education. Investigation led to publications on the participation of women in science, with attention to both their often-invisible contributions as well as the dynamics of gender influenced careers and research. A study of the introduction of science into elementary schooling, led her to emphasize its critical role in engaging local communities with science and the broad based efforts to support museums, zoos, and botanical gardens where science met the public. Fulbright fellowships allowed her to investigate parallel developments in Australia and New Zealand, as did a visiting professorship at the Maximillian University in Munich and fellowships at the Wilson Center and Smithsonian Fellowships in Washington, D.C. She engaged actively in national professional organizations, serving as President of the History of Science Society as well as on the Board of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences.
My primary teaching and research relationship is with the Program of History of Science and Technology, which teaches undergraduate courses but offers only graduate degrees with the History of Medicine (www.umn.edu/hstm) . My research is at the interface of science with American culture, particularly the practice of science in those institutions where there was a persistent and evident relationship with the larger society. This includes the demographics of scientific activity, including the participation of women and the impact their participation has had on the practice of science, as well as scientific activity at such sites as natural history museums, educational institutions, and popular publications. I have served on as an officer of Section L and was eleacted to the Council of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and I also served in several offices, including the presidency, of the History of Science Society. During my career I have had Fulbright fellowships to Australia and New Zealand, taught at the University of Munich on a faculty exchange, and participated in international workshops, including most recently the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin. For a detailed cv and curriculum information go to https://sites.google.com/a/umn.edu/sally-gregory-kohlstedt/
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Honors and Awards
- Sarton Medal for Lifetime Achievement, History of Science Society, 2018
- Hazen Award for Contributions to Education, History of Science Society, 2015
- Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Spring, 2015
- Council of Graduate Students, UMN, President’s Award for Contributions to Graduate Education, Spring, 2014
- Margaret Rossiter Prize for the Best Book on Women’s History, 2013
- Valparaiso University Outstanding Alumnae Award, 2011
- Ada Comstock Distinguished Woman Scholar Award, UMN, 2011
- UMN President’s Award for Outstanding University Service, 2004
- Mullen/Spector/Truax Women’s Leadership Award, UMN, 2002
- George Taylor Distinguished Service Award, IT, 2000
- American Association for the Advancement of Science, Fellow
- History of Science Society Distinguished Lecturer, 1988
- Smithsonian Institution Senior Fellow, Spring, 1987
- Woodrow Wilson Center Fellow, Fall, 1986
- American Antiquarian Society, Haven Research Fellow, October 1982; Elected Member, 1984
- National Science Foundation, Research Funding, Summer 1969, l978-l979, 1993-94, 1995, 2010; Conference Funding, 1984, 1995, 2000, 2012; PhD student dissertation enhancement grants, 1994-2008 (8)
- American Philosophical Society Research Grant, 1977
- Smithsonian Institution Pre-Doctoral Fellow, 1970-1971
Books
- Teaching Children Science: Hands-On Nature Study in North America, 1890-1930 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010). Winner of the 2013 History of Science Society’s Margaret Rossiter Prize for the Best Book on Women’s History
- Women, Gender, and Science: New Directions, Osiris 12, edited with Helen Longino (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997).
- Gender and Scientific Authority, edited with Barbara Laslett, Helen Longino, and Evelyn Hammonds, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996).
- The Origins of Natural Science in the United States: The Essays of George Brown Goode, edited with a biographical introduction (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991).
- International Science and National Scientific Identity: Australia between Britain and America, edited with Rod Home (Holland: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1991).
- Historical Writing on American Science, Osiris, edited with Margaret Rossiter, 2nd Series, 1 (l985). Reprinted as a paperback book (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, l986).
- *The Formation of the American Scientific Community: The American Association for the Advancement of Science (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, l976).
Selected Publications
- “Qualified Mentorship: Josephine Tilden and the Minnesota Seaside Station, 1901-1907,” Journal of the History of Biology (July 4, 2022). Open source at https://rdcu.be/cQZlN .
- “Mobile Botany: Education, Horticulture, and Commerce in New York City, 1890 to the 1930s” Mobile Museums: Collections in Circulation, ed. Felix Driver and Mark Nesbitt (London: University College London Press, 2021), pp. 178-204. Volume available as open access at https://www.uclpress.co.uk/products/141630; essay at https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv18kc0px.14
- “Otis T. Mason’s Tour of Europe: Observation, Exchange, and Standardization in Public Museums, 1889,” Museum History Journal 2 (2008): 181-208.
- *“‘A Better Crop of Boys and Girls:’ The School Gardening Movement, 1890s to the 1920s,” History of Education Quarterly 48 (February 2008): 58-93.
- Parlors, Primers, and Public Schooling: Education for Science in Nineteenth Century America," Isis, 81 (Fall, 1990): 424-445. (Plenary History of Science Society Lecture, 1989). Reprinted in The Scientific Enterprise in America, ed. Ronald L. Numbers and Charles E. Rosenberg (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996).
- International Exchange and National Style: A View of Natural History Museums in the United States, l860-l900,” in Nathan Reingold and Marc Rothenberg, eds., Scientific Colonialism: A Cross-Cultural Comparison (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, l987): 167-190.
- Australian Museums of Natural History: Public Priorities and Scientific Initiatives in the Nineteenth Century," Historical Records of Australian Science, 5 (l983): 1-29.
- "From Learned Society to Public Museum: The Boston Society of Natural History," in Alexandra Oleson and John Voss, eds., The Organization of Knowledge in Modern America, l860-l920 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, l979): 386-406.
- *"In From the Periphery: American Women in Science, 1830-1880," Signs, 4 (Fall, l978): 81-96.
- *"The Geologists' Model for National Science, l840-l847," American Philosophical Society, Proceedings, l28 (April, l974): l79-l95.
- *"A Step toward Scientific Self-Identity in the United States: The Failure of the National Institute," Isis, 62 (Fall, l97l): 339-362. Reprinted in Nathan Reingold, ed., American Science Since l820 (New York: Science History Publications, l976).