Worker Once Known: Thinking with Disposable, Discarded, Mislabeled, and Precariously Employed Laborers in History of Science

Abstract

How do we reevaluate the role of individuals whose contributions have not been erased—they are still visible—but whose labor has been demoted in the historical narrative because of their gender, class, or ethnicity? This brief essay is about more than simply bringing in overlooked actors; instead, it ponders why the act of mislabeling a person’s labor merits further deliberation. Mislabeled archival evidence, such as the erroneous description accompanying a photograph that this essay discusses, might uphold problematic assumptions in the history of science about who can perform certain labors. Such mistakes, careless or otherwise, produce enduring historiographic harm because such errors make it harder to construct other versions of the past.