PhD studentship: Typewriters
Typewriters and commerce in Scotland, 1870s–1920s
AHRC-funded Collaborative PhD Studentship with the University of St Andrews and National Museums Scotland
The School of History at the University of St
Andrews and National Museums Scotland invite applications for a
fully-funded AHRC studentship to investigate the development of the
consumer market for information and office technologies during
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The award will
enable to student to pursue doctoral research in a world-class history
department, and to gain hands-on museums skills while working in a
professional museum team. The student will have full
access the technology collections at both National Museums Scotland and
Glasgow Museums.
The student will study the ways typewriters were
sold and used in Scotland during the first fifty years of their
commercial availability. The project will innovatively combine the use
of printed and archival historical sources (such as
advertisements, catalogues and trade directories) with active
engagement with the outstanding collections of early typewriters (and
auxiliary devices) held by National Museums Scotland and Glasgow
Museums, both of which have a philosophy of operating their
technology collections where possible.
The student will be able to analyse the different
features of competing models, and consider how they were represented in
marketing material; how certain features became more significant and
standardized over time; and how users evaluated
and valued the peculiarities of one model over another. In many cases,
the student will be able to film the typewriters being used, in order to
gain a richer understanding of different features, ease of use, and the
aural/haptic ‘sensescapes’ of these information
machines.
The studentship is funded by the AHRC via the
Scottish Cultural Heritage Consortium (SCHC), and will be supervised by
historians of science and technology Dr Aileen Fyfe and Dr Sam Alberti.
The start date is 1 October 2017, and the duration
is 3 years.
If you have any queries about the project or would
like to discuss this opportunity before applying, please contact Dr
Aileen Fyfe at akf@st-andrews.ac.uk. The deadline for applications is
18 April 2017. For fuller details of the project and the application process, see
http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/