This Science and Society Dissertation Improvement Grant supports a dissertation student in completing her dissertation by providing funds to travel to archives in Alaska and other U.S. locations. The dissertation explores the ways in which natural science depended on place even as it probed for global phenomena and how, in turn, place inevitably shaped the science under scrutiny. The case under study is the development of American ecology and American glaciology through scientific studies done in Glacier Bay, Alaska, between 1878 and 1959. Drawing on the methodologies of the history of science, environmental history, and geography, this dissertation demonstrates that place, defined by both the physical location and the spaces constructed by scientists and others, played an important role in shaping scientific practice and theory. In turn, scientific practice also greatly shaped the place and how the American public came to know and understand Glacier Bay. To support these arguments, this dissertation will employ a large collection of primary materials from archives located across the United States,from Alaska to Baltimore,including correspondence and field notebooks that have not yet been accessed for such analysis. This dissertation will also rely heavily on analysis of scientific data gathered by the scientists, including maps, photographs, and species compositions lists, much of which is located at the World Data Center for Glaciolo gy (WDC) in Boulder, Colorado, and with Bruce Molnia of the United States Geological Survey (USGS). The intellectual merit of this dissertation lies in its contributions to a growing body of literature on the placedness of science, especially more recent analyses of field research by important historians of science. This dissertation will deepen and expand the understanding of place in field research. Within this broad framework and through its focus on place, this dissertation also makes several arguments that challenge and enhance the standing historiography on American ecology and on glaciology and climate change. In addition, this dissertation explores the nature of interdisciplinary studies during this time period and challenges some of the historical arguments made about discipline building and increased specialization in the first half of the twentieth century. The broader impacts of this dissertation include promoting interdisciplinary work, improving access to archival sources, and enhancing the historical understanding of scientific conservation and theories of global climate change. First, this project will involve several weeks of field research in Alaska with a team from the USGS. This research will contribute a historical perspective to current studies conducted in Glacier Bay while the cooperative field reconnaissance will enhance the scientific content of the proposed dissertation. Second, this project will involve working intimately with two national scientific research organizations, namely the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the USGS. In making use of materials kept at the NOAA-funded WDC, the research undertaken for this dissertation will involve helping the archivist at the WDC to more effectively organize and make available historical scientific journals and data sets. Finally, in exploring the study of place, activism by scientists to preserve such a wild study site, and the theories drawn about global climate change, this dissertation will explore the historical value of wilderness preservation for science and also the historical understanding of climate change. As both land preservation and climate change theories have become contentious issues in American society, this dissertation will bring a historical understanding from less contentious times to bear on current arguments and help to clarify current debates about wilderness lands and climate change theories. The immediate goal of the proposed research is a dissertation, with a larger plan for a book and perhaps one or two related articles.
