Reminder: March 4th deadline for The Bakken Research Funding Applications
Support for Research at The
Bakken Museum and Library
RESEARCH TRAVEL GRANT and
VISITING RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP
Application deadline: March 4th,
2013
The Bakken (Minneapolis, MN) awards short-term fellowships
and travel grants to scholars and artists to support research using The
Bakken’s library and artifact collections. The collections address the history
of electricity and magnetism (with a focus on their roles in the life sciences
and medicine) and include approximately 11,000 books, journals, and
manuscripts, and 2,200 instruments, medical devices, and other artifacts. The
awards are to be used to help defray the expenses of travel, subsistence and other
direct costs of conducting research at The Bakken for researchers who must
travel some distance and pay for temporary lodging in the Twin Cities in order
to conduct research at The Bakken.
Visiting research fellowships are awarded up to a maximum of
$1,500; the minimum period of residence is two weeks, and preference is given
to researchers who are interested in collaborating informally for a day or two
with Bakken staff during their research visit. Research travel grants are
awarded up to a maximum of $500 (domestic) and $750 (foreign); the minimum
period of residence is one week.
The library collection includes works in early physics
(natural philosophy) and early works on magnetic cures, electrotherapeutics,
electrophysiology, and their accompanying instrumentation. The Bakken Library
also possesses a fine collection of primary sources in mesmerism, animal
magnetism, and hypnotism, and works documenting the history of para-psychology,
psychical research, and phrenology. Significant holdings include many of the
writings of Hauksbee, Nollet, Franklin, Mesmer, Galvani, Volta, Matteucci, Du
Bois-Reymond, Marey, and Einthoven. Also of interest to researchers are small
collections of 19th-century medical and electro-medical ephemera, trade
catalogues and price lists, and miscellaneous scientists' letters from the
18th-20th centuries.
The artifact collection comprises objects from the 18th
century to the present, including electrostatic generators by George Adams,
Edward Nairne, John Cuthbertson and others; magneto-electric generators;
medical stimulators designed by Duchenne; induction coils; physiological
instrumentation by E.J. Marey; recording devices; cardiac pacing devices; and
accessories. Unorthodox devices are well-represented and include electric belts
and hairbrushes, magnetic applicators, and radionics equipment.