Press Release
Ferguson prize awarded to The Papers of Joseph Henry
“The Ferguson Prize committee (Society for the History of Technology) has unanimously decided to award the 2007 prize to The Papers of Joseph Henry. From the very first volume, the project has consistently met superior standards for documentary history. Reviewers and scholars consulating the volumes over the decades have agreed: the editions have illuminating introductory essays, a careful selection of documents, and extensive annotations...the papers paint a richly detailed picture of how science and technology actually worked in the culture and national politics of nineteenth-century America, and in the crucial decades when the nation transformed to an international power...The volumes make rich primary source materials accessible from about 300 different repositories, but they also provide absorbing reading...The staff of the Henry Papers deserves high praise and congratulations for their well researched and superbly organized editions.”
Pamela M. Henson, Historian, Institutional History Division, Smithsonian Institution Archives; Kathleen W. Dorman, Associate Editor and Marc Rothenberg, Editor, The Papers of Joseph Henry, volume eleven; and Neale Watson, Publisher, Science History Publications/USA. Photo by Margaret J. Osler taken during the History of Science Society annual meeting, Washington, D.C., November 2007.