Publications by Helen Rozwadowski
Oceanography, 2020
Amidst recent calls in the United States and elsewhere to remove statues and other references tha... more Amidst recent calls in the United States and elsewhere to remove statues and other references that glorify historically racist figures, we offer a reexamination of nineteenth-century naval officer and early ocean scientist Matthew Fontaine Maury. While Maury made significant contributions toward understanding and representing the ocean-atmosphere system and argued for increased support from both government and public for such studies, his work, including his science, was also inextricably involved in his nation's imperialist goals. Before and after his resignation from the United States navy to join the Confederacy during the American Civil War, Maury worked for the perpetuation and expansion of race-based slavery. For these reasons, we argue that oceanographers, historians, and the public need to rethink depictions of Maury that glorify his accomplishments without interrogating their darker side. Presenting honest portrayals is not only historically responsible but also aids the larger project to recruit and retain more diverse students and scientists.
Scholarship for the General Public by Helen Rozwadowski
International Commission for the History of Oceanography blog, 2020
16 June 2020.
Papers by Helen Rozwadowski
International Journal of Maritime History, 2009
historical or explanatory category, Kroll's use of "frontier" is confusing. He does... more historical or explanatory category, Kroll's use of "frontier" is confusing. He does not account for differences in meaning that "frontier" may have undergone between the guntoting, trophy-hunting days of Roosevelt and Chapman and the Cold War period, by which time the metaphorical use of "frontier" to describe things like progress in science had become common. Although some effort to define the term might have helped, a better solution might have been to leave "frontier" entirely out. Categories identified by Kroll, including wilderness, trophy-hunting, Progressive-era resource conservation, recreation, etc., more effectively express the ways that these ocean explorers drew from terrestrial activities, mindsets, and ideas to forge new conceptions of the ocean. Worthy of mention are both Kroll's compelling writing style and the striking cover design. While some academic readers might be tempted to grumble that the treatments of each of these seven ocean explorers could be deeper (scholars looking for fresh research topics would be well served to look here), it is more fair to point out that, by joining these stories, Kroll has contributed a substantive argument about a link between science and popularization that created, and communicated, new conceptions of the ocean as a place profoundly relevant and also vulnerable to people.
One measure of our science’s maturity is that there are now a small but growing number of histori... more One measure of our science’s maturity is that there are now a small but growing number of historians of science specializing in oceanography. In the United States, they meet periodically at Maury conferences where papers are presented and discussed. This volume contains the results of Maury III held in June 2001 at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. The subtitle, “Historical Perspectives on Technology and the Marine Environment” is an apt description of nearly all ten contributions that comprise this text. Except for the first two papers, the development of tide recorders and tidal records in Great Britain in the first half of the nineteenth century and the contributions of Henrick Mohn (18351916) to our understanding of oceanic circulation, the remaining eight chapters focus mostly on post World War II work. In order, they discuss: (3) Woods Hole director Columbus Iselin and his institution’s heroic efforts to assist the navy in a variety of ways during World War II; (4)...
Journal of American History, 2013
The American Historical Review, 1997
... Page 3. Iron Men, Wooden Women \ Gender and Seafaring in the Atlantic World, 1700-1920 Edited... more ... Page 3. Iron Men, Wooden Women \ Gender and Seafaring in the Atlantic World, 1700-1920 Edited by Margaret S. Creighton and Lisa Norling The Johns Hopkins University Press Baltimore and London Page 4. © 199^ The Johns Hopkins University Press All rights reserved. ...
Interdisciplinary Journal of Maritime Studies, Sep 24, 2013
A Companion to American Environmental History, 2010
Isis; an international review devoted to the history of science and its cultural influences, 2014
While most historians have treated the sea as a surface or a void, the history of science is well... more While most historians have treated the sea as a surface or a void, the history of science is well positioned to draw the ocean itself into history. The contributors to this Focus section build on the modest existing tradition of history of oceanography and extend that tradition to demonstrate both the insights to be gained by studying oceans historically and the critical role that the history of science should play in future environmental history of the ocean.
The Public Historian, 2004
... Helen M. Rozwadowski, assistant professor and coordinator of maritime studies at the Univer-s... more ... Helen M. Rozwadowski, assistant professor and coordinator of maritime studies at the Univer-sity of Connecticut, Avery Point, specializes in ... on hydrographic research, see Artur Svansson, “Otto Pettersson: the Oceanographer” [manuscript], 234 pp.; and Jens Smed, “History of ...
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Publications by Helen Rozwadowski
Scholarship for the General Public by Helen Rozwadowski
Papers by Helen Rozwadowski