Paul E Sampson | University of Scranton (original) (raw)

Papers by Paul E Sampson

Research paper thumbnail of Ventilation and Public Health: A Fraught History

American Journal of Public Health, 2024

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, a vigorous public health discussion has arisen over... more Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, a vigorous public health discussion has arisen over indoor air quality and ventilation. In popular press articles, bestselling books, and the US Environmental Protection Agency's recently announced Clean Air in Buildings Challenge, scholars and policy experts have claimed that improved ventilation systems can lead to better productivity and performance. By reevaluating those claims in light of the history of public health in Great Britain and the United States, we found that better ventilation has frequently been proposed as a cost-effective and nonintrusive means of improving health in institutions experiencing structural and environmental public health problems. Furthermore, our examination of efforts to provide ventilation for enslaved people, incarcerated people, and the urban poor revealed a consistent lack of government regulation and a disassociation of air quality concerns from broader environmental, social, and economic realities. By continuing to ignore these broader contexts, current ventilation efforts risk repeating this pattern.

Research paper thumbnail of "The lungs of a ship": Ventilation, acclimatization, and labor in the maritime environment, 1740-1800

History of Science, 2021

This article examines the connection between projects for shipboard ventilation and the shifting ... more This article examines the connection between projects for shipboard ventilation and the shifting medical discourse about acclimatization in the British Empire during the eighteenth century. I argue that the design, use, and disuse of a class of shipboard “ventilators” proposed by natural philosopher Stephen Hales helps us to trace changing ideas about the ability of European bodies to acclimate, or “season,” to tropical environments. These ventilating machines appealed to British administrators because they represented an embodiment of providential and enlightened ideas that validated the expansion of overseas empire. In addition, they promised to increase labor efficiency by reducing the mortality and misery experienced by the sailors and enslaved people during long sea voyages. As skepticism about acclimatization grew in response to stubbornly high mortality rates in the West Indies, Hales’ ventilators fell out of favor – a development underscored by their dismissal as a potential solution for the appalling conditions found in the transatlantic slave trade. By examining ventilators’ nearly fifty-year career in naval and slave ships, this article will show the role of technology and the shipboard environment in the transition from enlightened optimism about acclimatization toward later attitudes of racial and environmental essentialism.

Research paper thumbnail of Lost and Found: The Cosmos in a Cabinet: Performance, Politics, and Mechanical Philosophy in Henry Bridges' 'Microcosm'

Endeavour, 2019

How did ordinary people-artisans, laborers, servants, and children-come to know the Newtonian uni... more How did ordinary people-artisans, laborers, servants, and children-come to know the Newtonian universe? And what effects did this knowledge have on how they contextualized their place in society? When it appeared in 1733, Henry Bridges' "Modern Microcosm" promised to give paying customers a view of the entire universe ingeniously recreated in a ten-foot-tall automaton theater. A hit with audiences, this clockwork wonder was displayed in Britain and the American colonies until disappearing mysteriously in the 1770s. This paper attempts to recover non-elite understandings of public science by examining the career of an astronomical wonder in the rowdy marketplace of ideas that was the London show scene.

Book Reviews by Paul E Sampson

Research paper thumbnail of Review of Pasi Väliaho. Projecting Spirits: Speculation, Providence, and Early Modern Optical Media. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Research paper thumbnail of Review of Clare Hickman, The Doctor's Garden Medicine Science and Horticulture in Britain, Yale UP 2021

Cultural and Social History, 2023

in Pennsylvania. His current research project, 'Ventilating the Empire', studies air and ventilat... more in Pennsylvania. His current research project, 'Ventilating the Empire', studies air and ventilation in the British Atlantic world during the long eighteenth century.

Research paper thumbnail of Ventilation and Public Health: A Fraught History

American Journal of Public Health, 2024

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, a vigorous public health discussion has arisen over... more Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, a vigorous public health discussion has arisen over indoor air quality and ventilation. In popular press articles, bestselling books, and the US Environmental Protection Agency's recently announced Clean Air in Buildings Challenge, scholars and policy experts have claimed that improved ventilation systems can lead to better productivity and performance. By reevaluating those claims in light of the history of public health in Great Britain and the United States, we found that better ventilation has frequently been proposed as a cost-effective and nonintrusive means of improving health in institutions experiencing structural and environmental public health problems. Furthermore, our examination of efforts to provide ventilation for enslaved people, incarcerated people, and the urban poor revealed a consistent lack of government regulation and a disassociation of air quality concerns from broader environmental, social, and economic realities. By continuing to ignore these broader contexts, current ventilation efforts risk repeating this pattern.

Research paper thumbnail of "The lungs of a ship": Ventilation, acclimatization, and labor in the maritime environment, 1740-1800

History of Science, 2021

This article examines the connection between projects for shipboard ventilation and the shifting ... more This article examines the connection between projects for shipboard ventilation and the shifting medical discourse about acclimatization in the British Empire during the eighteenth century. I argue that the design, use, and disuse of a class of shipboard “ventilators” proposed by natural philosopher Stephen Hales helps us to trace changing ideas about the ability of European bodies to acclimate, or “season,” to tropical environments. These ventilating machines appealed to British administrators because they represented an embodiment of providential and enlightened ideas that validated the expansion of overseas empire. In addition, they promised to increase labor efficiency by reducing the mortality and misery experienced by the sailors and enslaved people during long sea voyages. As skepticism about acclimatization grew in response to stubbornly high mortality rates in the West Indies, Hales’ ventilators fell out of favor – a development underscored by their dismissal as a potential solution for the appalling conditions found in the transatlantic slave trade. By examining ventilators’ nearly fifty-year career in naval and slave ships, this article will show the role of technology and the shipboard environment in the transition from enlightened optimism about acclimatization toward later attitudes of racial and environmental essentialism.

Research paper thumbnail of Lost and Found: The Cosmos in a Cabinet: Performance, Politics, and Mechanical Philosophy in Henry Bridges' 'Microcosm'

Endeavour, 2019

How did ordinary people-artisans, laborers, servants, and children-come to know the Newtonian uni... more How did ordinary people-artisans, laborers, servants, and children-come to know the Newtonian universe? And what effects did this knowledge have on how they contextualized their place in society? When it appeared in 1733, Henry Bridges' "Modern Microcosm" promised to give paying customers a view of the entire universe ingeniously recreated in a ten-foot-tall automaton theater. A hit with audiences, this clockwork wonder was displayed in Britain and the American colonies until disappearing mysteriously in the 1770s. This paper attempts to recover non-elite understandings of public science by examining the career of an astronomical wonder in the rowdy marketplace of ideas that was the London show scene.

Research paper thumbnail of Review of Pasi Väliaho. Projecting Spirits: Speculation, Providence, and Early Modern Optical Media. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Research paper thumbnail of Review of Clare Hickman, The Doctor's Garden Medicine Science and Horticulture in Britain, Yale UP 2021

Cultural and Social History, 2023

in Pennsylvania. His current research project, 'Ventilating the Empire', studies air and ventilat... more in Pennsylvania. His current research project, 'Ventilating the Empire', studies air and ventilation in the British Atlantic world during the long eighteenth century.