Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs

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Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs (born October 19, 1930 in Camden , Arkansas , † March 29, 1994 at the Grand Canyon ) was an American historian of science . She was a professor at the University of California, Davis . Dobbs is known to have uncovered a hitherto largely unknown side of Isaac Newton , his intense preoccupation with alchemy .

Dobbs studied chemistry at Hendrix College in Arkansas, psychology at the University of Arkansas, and history at the University of North Carolina . After being a housewife for twenty years, she returned to academia, teaching at a number of universities including Northwestern University and, from 1991, as Professor of History at the University of California, Davis .

She was a visiting scholar (Residential Fellow) at the Huntington Library and the Folger Shakespeare Library . In 1993 she was Distinguished Lecturer of the History of Science Society . She died of a heart attack while visiting the Grand Canyon .

In 1997 she was posthumously awarded the George Sarton Medal . She also received the Watson Davis and Helen Miles Davis Prize (for Newton and Newtonism).

Fonts

  • The Foundations of Newtons Alchemy, or The Hunting of the Green Lyon , Cambridge University Press 1975
  • Alchemical Death and Resurrection: the significance of alchemy in the age of Newton , Smithsonian Institution Libraries 1990 (Lecture by Dobbs at the Smithsonian Libraries)
  • The Janus Faces of Genius: The Role of Alchemy in Newton's Thought , Cambridge University Press 1991
  • with Margaret C. Jacob: Newton and the culture of Newtonianism , Humanities Press 1995
  • Alchemical cosmogony and Arian theology with Isaac Newton , in: Meinel, Christoph (Hg.): Alchemy in the European history of culture and science . [Lectures held on the occasion of the 16th Wolfenbüttel Symposium from April 2nd to 5th, 1984 in the Herzog August Library]. Wiesbaden 1986. pp. 137-150.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Dobbs, Betty Jo Teeter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American historian of science
DATE OF BIRTH October 19, 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH Camden, Arkansas
DATE OF DEATH March 29, 1994
Place of death Grand Canyon