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Contribution to Book
“Not merely wifely devotion”: Collaborating in the Construction of Science at Terling Place
For Better or For Worse? Collaborative Couples in the Sciences (2012)
  • Donald L Opitz, DePaul University
Abstract

In this chapter I critique the literary construction of the scientific practice of John Strutt, Third Baron Rayleigh as a solitary pursuit within a domain separated from family life, and I analyze, instead, the science of his home, Terling Place, as a collaboration with his wife Evelyn Strutt, Baroness Rayleigh. As opposed to judging the character of their marital collaboration anachronistically through a professional lens, I analyze Terling science within the context of late-Victorian country-house society characterized by an aristocratic, evangelical-Anglican orientation. This case demonstrates how collaboration can be an unstable construct reliant upon the meanings imbued by the historical subjects and their discursive representations.

Keywords
  • Rayleigh,
  • Terling Place,
  • physics,
  • collaboration,
  • gender and science
Publication Date
2012
Editor
Annette Lykknes, Donald L. Opitz, Brigitte Van Tiggelen
Publisher
Birkhäuser
Series
Science Networks: Historical Studies
ISBN
978-3-0348-0286-4
Citation Information
Donald L Opitz. "“Not merely wifely devotion”: Collaborating in the Construction of Science at Terling Place" onlineBaselFor Better or For Worse? Collaborative Couples in the Sciences Vol. 44 (2012)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/donald_opitz/2/