Conscientious workmen or booksellers' hacks? : the professional identities of science writers in the mid-nineteenth century
Abstract
Existing scholarship on the debates over expertise in mid-nineteenth-century Britain has demonstrated the importance of popular writings on the sciences to definitions of scientific authority. Yet while men of science might position themselves in opposition to the stereotype of the merely popular writer, the self-identity of the popular writer remained ambiguous. This essay examines the careers of William Charles Linnaeus Martin (1798-1864) and Thomas Milner (1808-ca. 1883) and places them in the context of others who made their living by writing works on the sciences for the general reader. Martin wrote on zoology and Milner moved between astronomy, geology, and geography. The essay unravels the close but ambivalent relationship between the professions of authorship and of science and highlights writing as another aspect of scientific practice. Both writers were moderately financially successful, but Martin's sense of failure and Milner's satisfaction reflect their contrasting images of their professional identity.
Citation
Fyfe , A 2005 , ' Conscientious workmen or booksellers' hacks? the professional identities of science writers in the mid-nineteenth century ' , Isis , vol. 96 , no. 2 , pp. 192-223 .
Publication
Isis
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0021-1753Type
Journal article
Rights
© 2005 by The History of Science Society. All rights reserved. This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Isis June 2005, available online: http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/10.1086/431532.pdf © 2005 by The History of Science Society. All rights reserved. The published version is made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies.
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