P. Thomas Carroll's Vita

Table of Contents

(Click on any entry to jump to that section, or click here to return to P. Thomas Carroll's Contents Page .)

• Office Information
• Home Information
• Degrees
• Experience
• Professional Publications
• Honors
• Current Professional Societies
• Research Interests
• Teaching Competencies
• Professional Activities
• Selected Campus Service at Rensselaer
• Professional Presentations

Office Information

• Mail:
  • Hudson Mohawk Industrial Gateway
  • Burden Iron Works Museum
  • Foot of Polk Street
  • Troy, NY 12180-5539 USA
• Voice: 518-274-5267
• Fax: 518-271-9010 M-F 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Eastern Time only
• Email: carroll@rpi.edu
• Web home page: http://www.rpi.edu/~carroll/

Home Information

• Mail:
  • 99 23rd Street
  • Troy, NY 12180-1913 USA
• Voice: 518-272-7201
• Fax: Same as for office

Degrees

• BS 1972--California Institute of Technology
  • Daniel J. Kevles, undergraduate advisor
• MA 1976, PhD 1982--University of Pennsylvania
  • Arnold Thackray, graduate advisor
  • Dissertation: Academic Chemistry in America, 1876-1976: Diversification, Growth, and Change

Experience

• Executive Director, Hudson Mohawk Industrial Gateway, 1997-present.
• Associate Professor of History, Department of Science and Technology Studies, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. 1989-1996. Assistant Professor of History, 1982-1989. Instructor of History, 1980-1982. Adjunct, 1997-present.
• Exxon Research Fellow, Program in Science, Technology, and Society, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 1985-1986.
• Research Associate, Chemical Indicators Project, University of Pennsylvania. Quantitative study of chemistry in America since 1876; supported by the National Science Foundation. 1975-1980.
• Senior Tutor (special instructorship), University of Pennsylvania. Designed and taught core courses for undergraduate majors. 1976-1977.
• Assistant Editor, Darwin Correspondence Project, American Philosophical Society Library, Philadelphia. Launched program to locate, collate, transcribe, and publish the correspondence of Charles Darwin; supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, National Science Foundation, and other patrons. 1975-1976.
• Mellon Fellow, American Philosophical Society Library, Philadelphia. Prepared reference book on Charles Darwin. 1973-1975.
• Teaching Fellow, University of Pennsylvania. Course on science and literature. 1972.
• Assistant to Historian, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena. Developed computerized index for historical archives; wrote historical paper. 1970-1972.

Professional Publications

Monographs and Other Long Publications

• Guide to the History of Science, 8th Edition. Editor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, for the History of Science Society, 1992.
• Guide to the History of Science 1986. Editor. Philadelphia: History of Science Society, 1987. (See below for supplement published in 1988.)
• Chemistry in America, 1876-1976: Historical Indicators. With Arnold Thackray, Jeffrey L. Sturchio, and Robert Bud. Dordrecht and Boston: D. Reidel, 1985; paperback, Dordrecht and Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1988. Reviewed in Science 230 (October-December 1985) 800; Chemistry and Industry (21 October 1985) 683; Nature 318 (14 November 1985) 124; Ambix 33 (1986) 153-154; American Laboratory 18 (January 1986) 9-11; American Chemical Society, Journal 108 (1986) 2494-2495; Science, Technology, and Human Values 11, 3 (summer 1986) 68-69; American Historical Review 91 (1986) 998; Annals of Science 43 (1986) 598-599; British Journal for the History of Science 19 (1986) 235; Chemical & Engineering News 64, 23 (9 June 1986) 91-94; Chemistry in Britain 22 (1986) 663; Isis 77 (1986) 348-349; Scientometrics 10 (1986) 224-225; and Bulletin of the History of Chemistry 2 (1988) 22.
• A Calendar of the Correspondence of Charles Darwin, 1821-1882. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt and Sydney Smith. David Kohn and William Montgomery, Associate Editors. P. Thomas Carroll and Charlotte Bowman, Assistant Editors. Garland Reference Library of the Humanities, Vol. 369. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1985. Reviewed in The New Yorker 63, 41 (30 November 1987) 171-190.
• Guide to the History of Science 1983. Co-Edited with Ronald Calinger and Linda F. Stevens. Philadelphia: History of Science Society, 1983. Partially reprinted as Scholarly Journals in the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine: A Guide. Compiled by Roy E. Goodman. Philadelphia: International Union of the History and Philosophy of Science, Division of the History of Science, Commission on Publications, 1984.
• An Annotated Calendar of the Letters of Charles Darwin in the Library of the American Philosophical Society. Editor. Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, Inc., 1976. Reviewed in Isis 70 (1979) 183.

Periodical Articles and Other Short Publications

• "Pluralism, Profits, and Practicality: Science in the USA," in Trevor I. Williams, Science: Invention and Discovery in the 20th Century (London: Harrap Books Ltd., 1990), 154-155.
• "How Atoms Unite," in Owen Gingerich, ed., Album of Science: The Physical Sciences in the Twentieth Century (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1989), 156-165.
• "Historical Origins of the Sergeant Missile Powerplant," in Kristan R. Lattu and R. Cargill Hall, eds., History of Rocketry and Astronautics: Proceedings of the Seventh and Eighth History Symposia of the International Academy of Astronautics, AAS History Series, Vol. 8; IAA History Symposia, Vol. 3 (San Diego: Univelt, Inc., for the American Astronautical Society, 1989), 121-146.
• Society for Social Studies of Science, Directory of Members 1988 (co-edited with Edward J. Woodhouse) (Troy, N.Y.: Society for Social Studies of Science, 1988).
• Guide to the History of Science--1988 Supplement (Philadelphia: History of Science Society, November 1988), editor.
• "American Science Transformed," American Scientist 74 (1986) 466-485.
• "Incorrectness and Specific Doubts: Comment on Shapere," Science and Technology Studies 4, 1 (spring 1986) 10-14.
• "Organizational Notes: The Cambridge Meeting, November 14, 1984," Technology and Culture 26 (1985), 609-610.
• "Immigrants in American Chemistry," in Jarrell C. Jackman and Carla M. Borden, eds., The Muses Flee Hitler: Cultural Transfer and Adaptation, 1930-1945 (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1983), 189-203.
• "Organizational Notes: The Toronto Meeting, October 1619, 1980," Technology and Culture 22 (1981) 595-597.
• "The Sciences in America, circa 1880" (with Daniel J. Kevles and Jeffrey L. Sturchio), Science 209 (July-September 1980) 27-32. Reprinted in The Science Centennial Review, ed. by Philip H. Abelson and Ruth Kulstad (Washington, D.C.: American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1981).
• "Correction to Margaret A. Fay's Article," Journal of the History of Ideas 39 (1978) 675-676.
• "Further Evidence That Karl Marx Was Not the Recipient of Charles Darwin's Letter Dated 13 October 1880" (with Lewis S. Feuer), Annals of Science 33 (1976) 385-387.
• "On the Utility of Collating the Darwin Correspondence" (with Thaddeus J. Trenn), Annals of Science 33 (1976) 384-385.
• "Symposium on Quantitative Methods in History of Science" (with Robert F. Bud and Jeffrey L. Sturchio), 4S Newsletter 1, 4 (fall 1976) 10-12.
• "Historical Origins of the Sergeant Missile Powerplant," Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Report JPL/HR3, August 1972.

Book reviews have appeared in Isis, Physics Today, and Science.

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Honors

• Annual Sigma Xi Award Ceremony Lecturer, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, 1986; SUNY Albany, 1987.
• Exxon Research Fellow, Program in Science, Technology, and Society, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1985-1986.
• Voted one of the outstanding teachers of the year by the Rensselaer Provost Scholars, 1984.
• Outstanding Young Men of America, 1982.
• Who's Who in Technology Today, 1980.
• Honorable mention, Robert H. Goddard Historical Essay Competition, National Space Club, 1973.
• First place, Student Presentation Competition, Annual Meeting, Southern California Academy of Sciences, 1971.

Current Professional Societies

• American Association of Museums (AAM), since 1997.
• American Chemical Society (ACS), since 1988.
• American Historical Association (AHA), since 1978.
• Business History Conference (BHC), since 1985.
• History of Science Society (HSS), since 1972.
• Organization of American Historians (OAH), since 1980; life member.
• Society for Social Studies of Science (4S), since 1975.
• Society for History of Technology (SHOT), since 1972.

Research Interests

General Areas

• Cultural dimensions of American science and technology
• Science, technology, class, and community
• Chemistry and chemical technology since Liebig
• Sudden, comprehensive cultural transformations

Current Topics

• American graduate academic chemistry programs before World War II
• Careers of PhD chemists and chemical engineers in America
• Use of life course studies methods in science and technology studies
• Laboratory design in the United States since 1850

Teaching Competencies

• History of the United States
• American science, 19-20c.
• American technology, 19-20c.
• Thought in America
• Research careers in America
• Introduction to history of Western science and technology
• General history of science, 17c. to the present
• Technology in Western civilization, 19-20c.
• Quantitative methods in history of science and technology
• Science, technology, and values: introduction

Professional Activities

• Referee of grant proposal to the Spencer Foundation, March 1996.
• Referee of book proposal to Harwood Academic Publishers, March 1996.
• Commentator, session on "That Solid Rising Sensation: German and American Rocket Development," Annual Meeting, Society for History of Technology (SHOT), Charlottesville, Virginia, October 1995.
• Visiting Scholar, The National Faculty Delta Teachers Academy, Summer Science Institute, New Orleans, Louisiana, 09-21 July 1995.
• Visiting Scholar, The National Faculty Delta Teachers Academy, Pine Bluff, Arkansas, 13-14 March 1995.
• Visiting Scholar, The National Faculty Delta Teachers Academy, Summer Science Institute, Natchitoches, Louisiana, 17-29 July 1994.
• Visiting Scholar, The National Faculty Delta Teachers Academy, Osceola, Arkansas, 18-19 November 1993.
• Visiting Scholar, The National Faculty Boston Public Schools Program, Summer Institute, Brunswick, Maine, 27 June-02 July 1993.
• Organizer, Chair, and Commentator, session on "Intangible Risks Posed by Technology to the Quality of Life," Annual Meeting, Society for Social Studies of Science/European Association for Studies of Science and Technology, Göteborg, Sweden, August 1992.
• Member, Board of Directors, Dudley Observatory, 1992-present.
• Member, Board of Directors, Hudson Mohawk Industrial Gateway, 1992-1993. Chair, Collections Committee, 1992-1993.
• Referee for entire special issue of Social Studies of Science, 1991.
• Chair, session on "Small Countries in the International Web of Technology," 1989 Annual Meeting, Society for History of Technology (SHOT), Sacramento, October 1989.
• Referee for Social Studies of Science, 1989.
• Organizer, session on "Science and the Disenchantment with Progress between the World Wars," 1988 Annual Meeting, History of Science Society, Cincinnati, December 1988.
• Chair, session on "Works in Progress: Science and Institutions in Twentieth-Century America," 1988 Annual Meeting, History of Science Society, Cincinnati, December 1988.
• Consultant for exhibit on "Science in American Life," National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, 13 December 1988.
• Elected Member, Advisory Council, Society for History of Technology (SHOT), 1988-1993.
• Consultant to Director, Program in History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, National Science Foundation, concerning proposals to study the state of the art in the history of science and the history of technology, June 1988.
• Referee for paper presented at Symposium on the History of Electrochemistry, American Chemical Society, Toronto, April 1988.
• Member, Sites Committee, Society for History of Technology (SHOT), 1987-1988; Chair, 1988.
• Co-Director, Survey of Graduate Programs in History of Science, History of Science Society, 1987-1988.
• Co-Editor, Membership Directory, Society for Social Studies of Science (4S), 1987-1988.
• Chair, session on "Social Organization and Social Change in Scientific Communities," 1987 Annual Meeting, Society for Social Studies of Science (4S), Worcester, Massachusetts.
• Consultant, Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, regarding a centennial history of the department, fall 1986; invited historical observer (the only outsider in attendance), Symposium for the Centennial of Chemical Engineering at MIT, October 1988.
• Consultant to the Research Director, Forest History Society, Durham, North Carolina, concerning development of a computer-based bibliographic information bank, spring 1986.
• Member, planning group for Sigma Xi Centennial issue of American Scientist, 1984-1986.
• Member, Local Arrangements Committee, Society for Social Studies of Science (4S), 1985.
• Referee for Science, Technology, and Human Values, 1985, 1988.
• Chair, session on "Studies in Technology and Engineering Education," 1984 Annual Meeting, Society for History of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
• Member, Review Panel on Measures of Science Output, Division of Policy Research and Analysis, National Science Foundation, 1984, 1985.
• Member, Committee on Research and the Profession, History of Science Society, 1984-1987.
• Member, Subcommittee on Computers, Committee on Publications, History of Science Society, 1983-1987.
• Member, Study Panel on Engineering Interactions with Society, Committee on Education and Utilization of the Engineer, Phase II, National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences, 1983-1985.
• Editor, Guide to the History of Science, History of Science Society, 1983-1992.
• Referee for IEEE Spectrum, 1983.
• Referee for National Science Foundation, 1982, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1988, 1991, 1992.
• Invited participant, Proseminar in Space History, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution, May 1981. (See report in Isis 73 [1982] 96-97.)
• Referee for Technology and Culture, 1981, 1987.
• Consultant, contract report to the National Science Board concerning university-industry ties in the history of chemistry (see Arnold Thackray, "University-Industry Connections and Chemical Research: An Historical Perspective," in U.S. National Science Board, University-Industry Research Relationships: Selected Studies [the 14th NSB Report], NSB 82-2 [Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1982], 193-233).
• Chair, Works-in-Progress Session, 1980 Annual Meeting, Society for History of Technology, Toronto.
• Referee for Isis, 1980.
• Invited participant, Seminar on Research Needs and Applications for Indicators Based on the Scientific and Technical Literature, Institute for Scientific Information, Philadelphia, 09-10 April 1979.
• Invited rapporteur, Review Symposium on Science Indicators 1976, Social Science Research Council, Washington, D.C., 12-13 May 1978.
• Assistant Editor, Collected Letters of Charles Darwin Project, American Philosophical Society Library, 1975-1976.
• Corresponding Editor, Synthesis: The Undergraduate Journal in the History and Philosophy of Science, 1974-1975.
• Member, National Technical Committee on History, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1973-1975.

Selected Campus Service at Rensselaer

• Member, Presidential Search Committee, 1992-1993.
• Faculty Council/Senate, 1990-1994. Secretary-Elect, 1991-1992. Secretary, 1992-1993. Secretary of the Faculty, 1993-1994.
• Chair, STS Technology Studies Doctoral Field Examination Committee, 1989-1994.
• STS Department Scheduler, 1989-1992.

Professional Presentations

• "Chemistry Labs, Crises, and Career Trajectories, 1870-1990: What Has Most Affected the Professional Lives of American Chemists?" Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, D.C., 11 January 1996.
• "Careers in American Chemical Research, 1870-1995 (With Special Reference to Sydney Ross and His Students)," 69th Colloid & Surface Science Symposium, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, 12 June 1995.
• "You Are What You Program: Life Course Studies, Careers in Research, and Technological Lag," Annual Meeting, History of Science Society, Madison, Wisconsin, November 1991.
• "The Zen of Teaching Biology Studies at Rensselaer," Annual Meeting, International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology (ISHPSSB), Evanston, Illinois, July 1991.
• "When America Was a Developing Nation: Science, Technology, and the State in the USA, 1790-1889," XVIIIth International Congress of History of Science, Hamburg, Federal Republic of Germany, 5 August 1989. Invited paper.
• "The Science Holiday Episode: British and American Reactions" (with Lindy Biggs), 1988 Annual Meeting, History of Science Society, Cincinnati, December 1988.
• "I.R.I.'s Origin and the Competitiveness Question: The Price of Preparedness," Fall 1988 Meeting, Industrial Research Institute, Washington, D.C., 25 October 1988. Invited address.
• "New Materials and American Society: A Backwards Glance into the Future," Advanced Powder Processing Symposium, Center for Manufacturing Productivity, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 20 September 1988.
• "The Ecology of Research Careers: American Doctorate Chemists and Chemical Engineers, 1890-1941," Annual Meeting, History of Science Society, Raleigh, North Carolina, 31 October 1987. Repeated at Chemistry/Philosophy Joint Seminar, Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, 10 December 1987.
• "From Cheerleader to Critic to Management Consultant: The Metamorphoses of STS," Fellows Seminar, Vannevar Bush Fellowships Program in the Public Understanding of Technology and Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 18 April 1986.
• "Buildings and Bildung: Preliminary Speculations on How Laboratory Facilities Figure in the Evolution of Chemical Knowledge," Program in Science, Technology, and Society, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 09 December 1985. Repeated in revised form and with variant titles at: Fellows Colloquium, Department of History of Science, Harvard University, 21 March 1986; CHOC Conversazione, Center for History of Chemistry, 29 April 1986; Annual Sigma Xi Guest Lecture, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, 01 May 1986; Five Colleges Colloquium in History of Science, Smith College, 17 March 1987; Annual Sigma Xi Guest Lecture, Albany (New York) Chapter, 30 April 1987; Colloquium Series, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, 28 June 1988; RPI Chemistry Department Seminar, 4 November 1988; Chemical Engineering and History of Science Joint Colloquium, University of Minnesota, 24 February 1989; Departmental Colloquium, Department of History of Science, The Johns Hopkins University, 01 March 1989; Department of History and Department of Chemistry, Dartmouth College, 08 October 1992; Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, D.C., 11 January 1996.
• "Incorrectness and Specific Doubts: A Discussion of Dudley Shapere's 'External and Internal Factors in the Development of Science,'" Society for Social Studies of Science, Annual Meeting, Troy, New York, 26 October 1985.
• "Relativism in STS Disciplines," Stanley Fish Symposium, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, spring 1985.
• "'As the Twig Is Bent': The Emergence of Graduate Research Training in American Chemistry," Colloquium in Science, Technology, and Human Affairs, Man and Technology Program, New Jersey Institute of Technology, 11 April 1984; Colloquium in Science, Technology and Society, Cornell University, 26 April 1984; Colloquium in Science, Technology, and Society, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 9 May 1984; 18th Middle Atlantic Regional Meeting, American Chemical Society, Newark, 23 May 1984.
• "Audiences for and Entries in the Isis Guide: Trends and Prospects," International Symposium on Problems of Documentation in the History of the Sciences, sponsored by the Division of History of Science, International Union of the History and Philosophy of Science, Newbattle Abbey College, Edinburgh, Scotland, 1619 September 1983. Invited paper.
• "Orphaned Innovations: The Development of Large-Scale Solid Rocket Boosters at Jet Propulsion Laboratory," NRC Conference on the History of Engineering in America, Committee on the Education and Utilization of the Engineer, Phase II, National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C., 1921 July 1983. Repeated in revised form, and with variant title, at Lunch Seminar, Program in Science, Technology, and Society, Massachusetts Insitute of Technology, 16 March 1987.
• "The Swedish Eugenics Movement, 1910-1943: An Overview," Exxon Conference on the History of EugenicsWork in Progress, Department of History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 16-19 May 1983.
• "From Applied Science to Professional Engineering: RPI in the Nineteenth Century," one lecture in a series on Inventors, Entrepreneurs, and Industries of the Upper Hudson, New York State Museum, Albany, 19 February 1983.
• "Professors, Patrons, and PhDs: Institution-Building and Graduate Academic Chemistry in America," Workshop on Knowledge in American Society, 1920-1970, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 20-22 May 1982. Repeated before the Department of Chemistry, Williams College, 12 November 1982.
• "Professors, Patrons, and PhDs: The Building of Graduate Departments of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering in the United States before World War II," History of Science Society, Annual Meeting, Los Angeles, 28 December 1981. Repeated before the RPI Chemistry Club, 7 April 1982.
• "The Uses and Respectability of the History of Technology: An Introduction to the Course Connections," Capital District Humanities Program seminar, Schenectady Museum, Schenectady, New York, 5 October 1980.
• "The American Environment for Immigrant Chemists," Smithsonian Institution, The Muses Flee Hitler: Cultural Transfer and Adaptation in the United States, 1930-1945, a colloquium in honor of Albert Einstein during the centennial of his birth, Washington, D.C., 9 February 1980.
• "Indicators of Power and Structure: The American Chemical Society as a Case Study," Society for Social Studies of Science, Fourth Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., 4 November 1979. Similar presentations of this collaborative work with Robert F. Bud, Jeffrey L. Sturchio, and Arnold Thackray were made by other members of the research team at the American Chemical Society, 13th Middle Atlantic Regional Meeting, West Long Branch, N.J., 20 March 1979; at the British Society for the History of Science, Annual Meeting, Leicester, England, 8 April 1979; and at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Annual Meeting, San Francisco, 5 January 1980.
• "Indicators of Academic Chemistry," History of Science Society/Society for History of Technology (SHOT), Joint Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, 30 December 1976.
• "Historical Origins of the Sergeant Missile Powerplant," Eighth International Symposium on History of Astronautics, XXVth International Astronautical Congress, Amsterdam, 04 October 1974.
• "School for the V2," Southern California Academy of Sciences, First Annual Meeting, Los Angeles, 08 May 1971.