History of Technology

Researching the 1934 Gresford Colliery disaster 
Researching the 1934 Gresford Colliery disaster  If you’ve watched the TV series Welcome to Wrexham you will know that it follows the fortunes of Wrexham AFC and the local community. If you made it past the disappointment of the football club failing to get promoted at ...
Seeking our future in the deep past
Seeking our future in the deep past Used to be, societies would recycle building materials. In Rome, St. Peter’s Basilica was made from the stones of the Colosseum. The Inca reused stones from one project to the next. Today we rarely do that.As MIT associate professor of ...
Walking through archived colonial histories, part 3: Tasmania to Perth
Walking through archived colonial histories, part 3: Tasmania to Perth I’ve been journeying through The National Archives inspired by historian Corinne Fowler’s latest talk with us, about her work ‘Walking through countryside’s forgotten colonial histories’. Collections experts Philippa Hellawell, Elizabeth Haines and Chris Day have joined me to re-enact one ...
Walking through archived colonial histories, part 2: Tolpuddle to Tasmania
Walking through archived colonial histories, part 2: Tolpuddle to Tasmania Inspired by our recent event with historian Corinne Fowler about her work ‘Walking through countryside’s forgotten colonial histories’, I invited collections experts Philippa Hellawell, Elizabeth Haines and Chris Day to join me to re-enact one of Fowler’s walks – in ...
Walking through archived colonial histories, part 1: Charborough to Barbados
Walking through archived colonial histories, part 1: Charborough to Barbados Methodologies is an exciting new event series by the The National Archives. It brings together researchers, practitioners, and creatives who generate new knowledge through the interrogation and disruption of archives.
In our event on 24 September we were joined by historian ...
Multisensory archive, part 2: Using our senses to access and engage with collections
Multisensory archive, part 2: Using our senses to access and engage with collections In a recent project at The National Archives, I’ve been exploring how the senses can be used to access, engage with, and understand the materiality of archival collections.
Having explored the sensory characteristics of archival documents in part one of ...
Multisensory archive, part 1: Sensory characteristics of archival documents
Multisensory archive, part 1: Sensory characteristics of archival documents Archival documents are multisensory objects, and interacting with them is a multisensory experience. How they feel, what they smell like, and the sounds they make when we handle them offer insights into their materials, production, condition, and history.
In my ...
Education in exile: Cataloguing Polish refugee education files
Education in exile: Cataloguing Polish refugee education files ‘The outbreak of War prevented the continuation of my studies. In 1942 I joined the resistance movement and took part in the Warsaw uprising and after its fall I was taken as prisoner of war to Stalag XB and then ...
Royal Flying Corps and Successors: World War One Gallantry Award Medal Index Cards Released
Royal Flying Corps and Successors: World War One Gallantry Award Medal Index Cards Released The National Archives, in partnership with Forces War Records, the leading military family history website from Ancestry®, has launched a digital collection of Royal Flying Corps and successors: World War One Gallantry Award Medal Index Cards. 
The collection contains almost 12,000 ...
Translating MIT research into real-world results
Translating MIT research into real-world results Inventive solutions to some of the world’s most critical problems are being discovered in labs, classrooms, and centers across MIT every day. Many of these solutions move from the lab to the commercial world with the help of over 85 ...
New initiative to improve access to Holocaust-related collections
New initiative to improve access to Holocaust-related collections We have become a founding member of EHRI-UK – the national body representing Holocaust-related collections in the United Kingdom. The other founding members are the Wiener Holocaust Library, the Holocaust Research Institute at Royal Holloway, University of London and the ...
The National Archives to create centre of excellence for heritage science and conservation research
The National Archives to create centre of excellence for heritage science and conservation research  
We have been awarded £1.3m to upgrade our analytical research laboratory creating a centre of excellence available to collections throughout the UK and beyond.
The award is part of the UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council’s new Research Infrastructure for Conservation ...
A Great Escape from Castello di Vincigliata
A Great Escape from Castello di Vincigliata Among the records of Prisoners of War (PoWs) during the Second World War held at The National Archives are accounts from Allied PoWs who escaped, evaded, or were liberated from Germany and Italy. Volunteers have been cataloguing the reports in ...
Home comforts: My Home and our partnership with Arts in Care Homes
Home comforts: My Home and our partnership with Arts in Care Homes What does home mean to you? What might it mean to somebody else? And how can collections from The National Archives evoke different thoughts and feelings around home? 
Between 2021 and 2023, The National Archives worked with Noel Hayden, specialist in ...
Tracing merchant seamen in the 19th century
Tracing merchant seamen in the 19th century Trying to trace a merchant seaman in the later parts of the 19th century is fairly difficult. There are no records of service, ‘pouches’, or central records. If you know the name of ship, then you can trace their service ...
Risk, culture, and control
Risk, culture, and control Some people think the world is wildly unpredictable, and are glad insurance can handle the risk and uncertainty they face. Other people believe their destiny is written in the stars, and consult a daily horoscope to reveal what is in ...
School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences welcomes nine new faculty
School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences welcomes nine new faculty Dean Agustín Rayo and the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences recently welcomed nine new professors to the MIT community. They arrive with diverse backgrounds and vast knowledge in their areas of research.Sonya Atalay joins the Anthropology Section as ...
Q&A: “As long as you have a future, you can still change it”
Q&A: “As long as you have a future, you can still change it” Tristan Brown is the S.C. Fang Chinese Language and Culture Career Development Professor at MIT. He specializes in law, science, environment and religion of late imperial China, a period running from the 16th through early 20th centuries.In this Q&A, Brown ...
Investigating the past to see technology’s future
Investigating the past to see technology’s future The MIT Program in Science, Technology, and Society (STS) recently organized and hosted a two-day symposium, The History of Technology: Past, Present, and Future.The symposium was held June 7-8 at MIT’s Wong Auditorium, and featured scholars from a variety of ...
The unexpected origins of a modern finance tool
The unexpected origins of a modern finance tool In the early 1600s, the officials running Durham Cathedral, in England, had serious financial problems. Soaring prices had raised expenses. Most cathedral income came from renting land to tenant farmers, who had long leases so officials could not easily raise ...

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