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Charles Blagden's diary: Information management and British science in the eighteenth century

This paper examines the diary of Charles Blagden, physician and secretary of the Royal Society between 1784 and 1797. It argues that the form and content of Blagden's diary developed in response to manuscript genres from a variety of contexts, including the medical training that Blagden underto...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Wills, Hannah
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6388002/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31390426
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2018.0016
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author Wills, Hannah
author_facet Wills, Hannah
author_sort Wills, Hannah
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description This paper examines the diary of Charles Blagden, physician and secretary of the Royal Society between 1784 and 1797. It argues that the form and content of Blagden's diary developed in response to manuscript genres from a variety of contexts, including the medical training that Blagden undertook at the start of his career, the genre of the commonplace book, and contemporary travel narratives. Blagden was interested in the workings of memory and in the association of ideas. This paper reveals the diary's nature as an aid to memory and an information management tool. It argues that the diary assisted Blagden's attempts to secure the patronage of key figures in the eighteenth-century scientific world, including Joseph Banks, the Royal Society and a London-based network of aristocratic women. In exploring the development of the diary, the paper uncovers the role of a material object in aiding the management of patronage relationships central to the career of a significant but little-studied secretary of the Royal Society.
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spelling pubmed-63880022019-02-28 Charles Blagden's diary: Information management and British science in the eighteenth century Wills, Hannah Notes Rec R Soc Lond Research Articles This paper examines the diary of Charles Blagden, physician and secretary of the Royal Society between 1784 and 1797. It argues that the form and content of Blagden's diary developed in response to manuscript genres from a variety of contexts, including the medical training that Blagden undertook at the start of his career, the genre of the commonplace book, and contemporary travel narratives. Blagden was interested in the workings of memory and in the association of ideas. This paper reveals the diary's nature as an aid to memory and an information management tool. It argues that the diary assisted Blagden's attempts to secure the patronage of key figures in the eighteenth-century scientific world, including Joseph Banks, the Royal Society and a London-based network of aristocratic women. In exploring the development of the diary, the paper uncovers the role of a material object in aiding the management of patronage relationships central to the career of a significant but little-studied secretary of the Royal Society. The Royal Society 2019-03-20 2018-05-23 /pmc/articles/PMC6388002/ /pubmed/31390426 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2018.0016 Text en © 2018 The Author(s) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Articles
Wills, Hannah
Charles Blagden's diary: Information management and British science in the eighteenth century
title Charles Blagden's diary: Information management and British science in the eighteenth century
title_full Charles Blagden's diary: Information management and British science in the eighteenth century
title_fullStr Charles Blagden's diary: Information management and British science in the eighteenth century
title_full_unstemmed Charles Blagden's diary: Information management and British science in the eighteenth century
title_short Charles Blagden's diary: Information management and British science in the eighteenth century
title_sort charles blagden's diary: information management and british science in the eighteenth century
topic Research Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6388002/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31390426
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2018.0016
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