Robert K. Wismer Collection of Chemical Museum Slides

This collection contains a selection of Dr. Wismer's photographs from his sabbatical project, in the form of 35mm transparencies, taken in the following institutions: Hunterian Museum of the University of Glasgow, Scotland; Museum of Science and Industry, Manchester, England; Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, England; Whipple Museum, Cambridge, England; Royal Institution, London, England; Teyler's Museum, Haarlem, Netherlands; Museum Boerhaave, Leiden, Netherlands; Museum of the History of Sciences, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium; Technisches Museum Wien, Vienna, Austria; Museum of the History of Science, Geneva, Switzerland; Pharmazie-Historisches Museum, Basel, Switzerland; University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany; and Liebig Museum, Giessen, Germany. The slides depict laboratories, scientific apparatus, instruments, glassware, molecular and atomic models, and other objects used and/or created by various chemists throughout history, notably James Joule, John Dalton, Michael Faraday, August Kekulé von Stradonitz, Justus von Liebig, and Robert Bunsen. The collection does not include photographs of the chemists themselves. The objects depicted in the slides date from the late seventeenth century through the early twentieth century, and pertain to a variety of chemistry-related subjects, including electricity, electrochemistry, heat, combustion, optics, and gases. Notably, there are several examples of voltaic piles, calorimeters, and both steam and atmospheric engines. The slides are arranged by institution, in the order Dr. Wismer took them, and are labeled with the title, slide number, and relevant institution Additionally, Dr. Wismer provided contextual descriptions for many of the objects; these descriptions are transcribed in the inventory that appears at the end of this finding aid.