The Belgian-born American historian of science George Sarton (1884-1956) founded the history of science in America.
George Sarton was born in Ghent on Aug. 31, 1884, the son of one of the directors and chief engineers of the Belgian national railroad system. Sarton studied philosophy at the University of Ghent and then turned to science, winning his doctorate in mathematics in 1911. He had, however, already become known as an author and scientist for his published novels and poems and his award-winning essay on chemistry (1908). Sarton emerged from his training with admiration for the insights of Auguste Comte and Henri Poincar¨¦ and a conviction that the basis of scientific philosophy was the history of science.
Sarton married an English artist, Eleanor Mabel Elwes, in 1911. In March 1913 he published the first issue of Isis, a journal of the history of science. At the beginning of World War I he fled to Holland, then to England, and, finally, to the United States. He arrived in 1915 and lectured at Harvard from 1916 to 1918, the first academic year in philosophy and the second in history of science. The appointment was not a regular one, and he was supported in the main by friends. The Lowell Lectures at Harvard in 1916 started Sarton on his lifetime project of tracing the history of science to Leonardo da Vinci.
The Carnegie Institution in Washington appointed Sarton a research associate in 1918, thus making him economically secure. He remained at Cambridge and, beginning in 1920, gave a course on the history of science in exchange for library space at Harvard. Meanwhile, he had published the second issue of Isis in September 1919. Sarton became an American citizen in 1924 and helped found the History of Science group the same year.
Sarton's major work, Introduction to the History of Science, consists of From Homer to Omar Khayyam (1927), From Rabbi Ben Ezra to Roger Bacon (1931), and Science and Learning in the 14th Century (1947-1948). During this time he went to North Africa and the Near East (1931-1932) to study Arabic and Islam; founded Osiris (1936), a journal designed for articles longer than those in Isis; and wrote and lectured.
In his writings Sarton used the model of a map maker. He combined biography and science, using secondary sources. As a result, he slighted Egyptian and Babylonian sources and relied heavily on Greek and medieval Arabic ones, which were more available to him. All of his works emphasized the continuity of science and its close affinity with magic.
Sarton officially became professor of the history of science at Harvard in 1940 and retired in 1951. He continued to lecture and write until his death on March 22, 1956.
- posted on 04/07/2009
George Sarton Medal
The George Sarton Medal, an award of the History of Science Society, has been awarded annually since 1955. It is awarded to a historian of science selected from the international scholarly community for a lifetime of scholarly achievement.
The Sarton Medalists are:
Year Recipient(s)
1955 George Sarton
1956 Charles Singer and Dorothea Waley Singer
1957 Lynn Thorndike
1958 John F. Fulton
1959 Richard Shryock
1960 Owsei Temkin
1961 Alexandre Koyr¨¦
1962 E. J. Dijksterhuis
1963 Vassili Zoubov
1964 NOT AWARDED
1965 J. R. Partington
1966 Anneliese Maier
1967 NOT AWARDED
1968 Joseph Needham
1969 Kurt Vogel
1970 Walter Pagel
1971 Willy Hartner
1972 Kiyosi Yabuuti
1973 Henry Guerlac
1974 I. Bernard Cohen
1975 Ren¨¦ Taton
1976 Bern Dibner
1977 Derek T. Whiteside
1978 A.P. Youschkevitch
1979 Maria Luisa Righini-Bonelli
1980 Marshall Clagett
1981 A. Rupert Hall and Marie Boas Hall
1982 Thomas S. Kuhn
1983 Georges Canguilhem
1984 Charles Coulston Gillispie
1985 Paolo Rossi, Richard S. Westfall (Two medals awarded)
1986 Ernst Mayr
1987 G.E.R. Lloyd
1988 Stillman Drake
1989 Gerald Holton
1990 A. Hunter Dupree
1991 Mirko D. Grmek
1992 Edward Grant
1993 John L. Heilbron
1994 Allen G. Debus
1995 Charles E. Rosenberg
1996 Loren Graham
1997 Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs
1998 Thomas L. Hankins
1999 David C. Lindberg
2000 Frederick L. Holmes
2001 Daniel J. Kevles
2002 John C. Greene
2003 Nancy Siraisi
2004 Robert E. Kohler
2005 A. I. Sabra
2006 Mary Jo Nye
2007 Martin J. S. Rudwick
2008 Ronald L. Numbers
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