Tangible Things

About this book

In a world obsessed with the virtual, tangible things are once again making history. *Tangible Things* invites readers to look closely at the things around them, ordinary things like the food on their plate and extraordinary things like the transit of planets across the sky. It argues that almost any material thing, when examined closely, can be a link between present and past. The authors of this book pulled an astonishing array of materials out of storage—from a pencil manufactured by Henry David Thoreau to a bracelet made from iridescent beetles—in a wide range of Harvard University collections to mount an innovative exhibition alongside a new general education course. The exhibition challenged the rigid distinctions between history, anthropology, science, and the arts. It showed that object-centered inquiry inevitably leads to a questioning of categories within and beyond history. *Tangible Things* is both an introduction to the range and scope of Harvard's remarkable collections and an invitation to reassess collections of all sorts, including those that reside in the bottom drawers or attics of people's houses. It interrogates the nineteenth-century categories that still divide art museums from science museums and historical collections from anthropological displays and that assume history is made only from written documents. Although it builds on a larger discussion among specialists, it makes its arguments through case studies, hoping to simultaneously entertain and inspire. The twenty case studies take us from the Galapagos Islands to India and from a third-c…

Themes & subjects

About the author

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

1938

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich is Phillips Professor of Early American History at Harvard University. Formerly a professor of American history at the University of New Hampshire, she is the author of *Good Wives* (1982) and numerous articles and essays on early American history. She won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1991 for A *Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard Based on Her Diary, 1785–1812.* Born and raised in the Rocky Mountain West, she has lived in New England since 1960. During her tenure as a MacArthur Fellow, she assisted in the production of a PBS documentary based on *A Midwife’s Tale.* Her work is also featured on an award-winning Web site called *dohistory.org.* She and her h…