Timeline – 1906 – Early Years of the History of Science

The history of science, which would become a full-fledged department in the 1940s and merge with the History Department in 2017, was first introduced into the UW curriculum by the Dean of the School of Pharmacy, Edward Kremers, who began teaching courses on the history of pharmacy and the history of chemistry in 1906-1907.

In 1909, William Snow Miller in the School of Medicine launched an informal seminar on medical history that ran for thirty years. One of its participants, pharmacologist Chauncey D. Leake, taught the first UW course on the history of science more broadly in 1921.

On the early history of the history of science, see Arnold Thackray, “The Pre-History of an Academic Discipline: The Study of the History of Science in the United States, 1891-1941,” Minerva 18 (Autumn 1980), 448-473.

Sources: Victor L. Hilts, “History of Science at the University of Wisconsin,” Isis 75 (March 1984), 64-65; “Obituary: William Snow Miller, 1858-1939,” Science n.s. 91, No. 2356 (February 23, 1940): 182-183.