"At Home to Science": Scientific Soirees, Conspicuous Display, and the Victorian Lady of Science

Abstract

abstract: This article explores Victorian science's increasing integration with an ascending material culture through social soirees and meetings. The use of spectacle, visual stimulation, and commodified display in scientific soirees, from the Great Exhibition to private homes, casts scientific propagation as a mode of entertainment for the rich and titled. As a social commodity, science events welcomed privileged-class women as both audience and participants, which aligned with the era's bourgeois, gendered division of labor. Texts include press reports and historical materials, Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Voice of Science" (1891), and Wilkie Collins's Heart and Science (1883). These representations depict women who combine social status and scientific engagement to reveal the increasingly consumerist tendencies of scientific discoveries. The inclusiveness and encouragement of public participation unique to Victorian science is one reason why wealthy—including upper-middle-class—amateurs participated in science-based events, alongside professionals in the discipline. As an integral part of Victorian material culture, science and technology allowed privileged-class women to stage a new, erudite, and fashionable femininity as ladies of science.