{"id":1410,"date":"2010-11-30T10:50:16","date_gmt":"2010-11-30T10:50:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/doddcenter.wordpress.com\/?p=1410"},"modified":"2012-12-03T20:40:20","modified_gmt":"2012-12-03T20:40:20","slug":"mark-twain-and-the-science-of-dr-conn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs-dev.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/2010\/11\/30\/mark-twain-and-the-science-of-dr-conn\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Twain and the Science of Dr. Conn"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Prof. Ken Noll (far left) and students with their exhibit "Mark Twain and Herbert W. Conn"<\/p><\/div>\n

As\u00a0curators we often work with undergraduates on their class projects, and I recently had the opportunity to work with Professor Kenneth Noll of the Molecular and Cell Biology department in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.\u00a0 Prof. Noll devised a project for a INTD class he taught this semester, “Mark Twain and Herbert W. Conn: Science in Literature and Society in Late 19th Century Connecticut.”\u00a0 We all know who Mark Twain is but who is Conn?\u00a0 H.W. Conn was a very prominent scientist at Wesleyan University in the late 1800s\/early 1900s, and although he was not a faculty member at what then the Connecticut Agricultural College (now known as UConn), he was the driving force in establishing the Storrs Agricultural Experiment Station.\u00a0 Prof. Noll’s objective for the class was to have the students create an exhibit that\u00a0describes Conn’s work as the Connecticut state microbiologist, juxtaposing it to\u00a0Mark Twain’s 1905 essay,\u00a0“3000 Years Among the Microbes,” which deflates human beings’ inflated sense of importance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Ken Noll and the exhibit, in the Plaza Alcove at Homer Babbidge Library<\/p><\/div>\n

The\u00a0class, all of them freshmen honors students, was split into three groups to research Conn and Twain, as well as\u00a0the science behind Conn’s work, particularly his 1893 Chicago World’s Fair exhibit on dairy microbiology.\u00a0 The students used many materials in Archives & Special Collections, including photographs from the University Archives, Storrs Agricultural Experiment Station catalogs, and maps, and made a field trip to the Connecticut Science Center.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The result is an exhibit now\u00a0up in the Plaza Alcove in Homer Babbidge Library until December 17.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On December 6, at 11:00a.m., there will be a celebration of the exhibit that will feature a reading from Twain’s story by retired Prof. of Dramatic Arts Jerry Krasser and Prof. Noll.\u00a0 The public is invited to the celebration, in the Class of ’47 room in Homer Babbidge Library<\/p>\n

Laura Smith, Curator for Business, Railroad and Labor Collections<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As\u00a0curators we often work with undergraduates on their class projects, and I recently had the opportunity to work with Professor Kenneth Noll of the Molecular and Cell Biology department in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.\u00a0 Prof. Noll devised … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[19,39,46,62],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-dev.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1410"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-dev.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-dev.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-dev.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-dev.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1410"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-dev.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3243,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-dev.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1410\/revisions\/3243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-dev.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-dev.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-dev.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}