Edwin Boring

Gatekeeping Psychology

In the mid-twentieth century, psychologist Edwin Boring attributed the limited role of female psychologists to issues other than discrimination.
An alchemist in his laboratory. Oil painting by a follower of David Teniers the younger.

When Did Alchemy End?

Despite royal prohibition, transmutation efforts continued underground long after the widely accepted dates for their demise.
Large crowds of people have gathered to watch a hot-air balloon

Hot Air Balloon Launch Riot!

In the early days of ballooning, launches were prone to failure. When failure looked imminent, the crowd’s mood would begin to turn.
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-1984-0216-004,_VEB_Elektronik_Gera,_Ingenieure.jpg

How Computer Science Became a Boys’ Club

Women were the first computer programmers. How, then, did programming become the domain of bearded nerds and manly individualists?
Photo taken in the Bourbaki Congress of 1938 in Dieulefit

The Mathematical Pranksters behind Nicolas Bourbaki

Bourbaki was gnomic and mythical, impossible to pin down; his mathematics just the opposite: unified, unambiguous, free of human idiosyncrasy.
Quaker tobacco farmers in Barbados

The Invention of the “Healthy” Caribbean

Europeans used to believe that "bad air" caused diseases, so they distrusted the Caribbean's air quality and land features like swamps.
Medieval depiction of Caesarian birth

How Medieval Surgeons Shaped Sex and Gender

Our ideas about surgically “correcting” intersex conditions go back to a shift in the profession of surgery seven centuries ago.
Suprematist Painting (with Black Trapezium and Red Square) by Kazimir Malevich

Dreaming of Spaceflight in 1920s Russia

Early in the 20th century, Cosmism was all the rage in Russia, inspiring a utopian and mystical view of interstellar travel.
Two scientists in a hot air balloon

When Victorian Scientists Caught Ballomania

In a moment when scientists were working to fashion a credible identity for themselves, they had to decide how much showmanship was too much.
Lick Observatory

The Women Who Made Male Astronomers’ Ambitions Possible

In the late 19th century, Elizabeth Campbell helped her astronomer husband run the Lick Observatory and lead scientific eclipse-viewing expeditions.