Patricia Peck Gossel (1944 — June 12, 2004) was an American science historian and curator, who chaired the Science, Medicine and Society Division at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.
Patricia Peck Gossel | |
|---|---|
| Born | |
| Died | 2004 |
| Occupation | science historian |
Early life and education
editPatricia Louise Peck was born during World War II in Inglewood, California, the daughter of Elsa G. Erickson Peck and Harold G. Peck.[1] She grew up in Murdo, South Dakota, where her father owned an elevator company.[2] Peck attended Augustana College as an undergraduate, then earned a master's degree in bacteriology from Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana. In 1988 she completed her doctoral studies at Johns Hopkins University, with a dissertation on "The Emergence of American Bacteriology, 1875-1900."[3]
Career
editGossel had work experiences as an electron microscopist and as a clinical bacteriologist in the 1970s, and taught at Rochester Institute of Technology in the mid-1980s. At the Smithsonian, she was a major contributor to organizing the permanent exhibit, "Science in American Life,"[4] and she founded the museum's History of Biology collection.[3] She laid the initial groundwork for the 2005 exhibit "Whatever Happened to Polio?", which was realized after Gossel's death, timed to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the Salk vaccine.[5] She also curated a collection of items related to the history and development of oral contraceptives.[6]
Selected works
editScholarly publications by Gossel included "Pasteur, Koch and American Bacteriology" (2000),[7] "A Need for Standard Methods: The Case of American Bacteriology" (1992),[8] and "Packaging the Pill" (1999).[9]
Personal life
editGossel was married once, in 1966,[1] and divorced. She died from cancer in Bethesda, Maryland in 2004, aged 60 years.[3]
References
edit- ^ a b "Bride-Elect" Daily Republic (November 29, 1965): 5. via Newspapers.com
- ^ "Obituaries: Harold G. Peck" Rapid City Journal (March 6, 2001).
- ^ a b c "Obituaries: Patricia Peck Gossel, Museum Curator" Washington Post (June 24, 2004): B06.
- ^ "In Memoriam: Patricia Peck Gossel" History of Science Society Newsletter 33(4)(October 2004): 4.
- ^ Brien Williams, review of "Whatever Happened to Polio?" Public Historian 28(1)(Winter 2006): 155-159.
- ^ Amanda Chau, "A Quick Tour of the Smithsonian's Collection of Oral Contraceptives" The Atlantic (February 17, 2012).
- ^ Patricia Peck Gossel, "Pasteur, Koch and American Bacteriology" History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 22(1)(2000):81 - 100.
- ^ Patricia Peck Gossel, "A Need for Standard Methods: The Case for American Bacteriology" in Adele E. Clarke and Joan H. Fujimura, eds., The Right Tools for the Job: At Work in Twentieth-Century Life Sciences (Princeton University Press 2014): 287-311. ISBN 9781400863136
- ^ Patricia Peck Gossel, "Packaging the Pill" in Robert Bud, Bernard S. Finn, and Helmuth Trischler, eds.,Manifesting Medicine: Bodies and Machines (Taylor & Francis 1999): 105-121. ISBN 9789057024085
External links
edit- Patricia Gossel was on C-SPAN in 1989, when she spoke at the Smithsonian on a panel called "Not in My Backyard: A Historical & Contemporary Look at Materials Disposal."