{{short description|American historian of science (1919 – 2009)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Infobox person | name = Marie Boas Hall | image = <!-- just the filename, without the File: or Image: prefix or enclosing [[brackets]] --> | alt = | caption = | birth_name = Marie Boas | birth_date = {{Birth date|1919|10|18}} | birth_place = [[Springfield, Massachusetts]], U.S. | death_date = {{Death date and age|2009|02|23|1919|10|18}} | death_place = | other_names = | education = | alma_mater = [[Radcliffe College]], AB, chemistry, 1940; [[Cornell University]], PhD, 1949 | occupation = [[Historian]] of science | years_active = | employer = [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]], [[Brandeis University]], [[University of California, Los Angeles]], [[Indiana University]], [[Imperial College London]] | known_for = | spouse = [[Alfred Rupert Hall]] | children = | parents = | relatives = Older brother, mathematician [[Ralph P. Boas Jr.]] | awards = [[George Sarton Medal]], [[British Academy|Fellow of the British Academy]], [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]] }}
'''Marie Boas Hall''' {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|sep=|FBA}} (October 18, 1919 – February 23, 2009) was an American historian of science and is considered one of the postwar period pioneers of the study of the [[Scientific Revolution]] during the 16th and 17th centuries.<ref>{{cite news|title=Marie Boas Hall: historian of science|url=https://www.thetimes.com/comment/register/article/marie-boas-hall-historian-of-science-77t9rwgn96t|access-date=5 August 2017|agency=The Times|date=20 March 2009|language=en}}</ref>
==Early life and education== Boas was born Marie Boas in [[Springfield, Massachusetts]], on October 18, 1919.<ref name="mmp">{{citation|contribution=Ralph P. Boas, Jr.|title=More Mathematical People|editor1-first=Donald J.|editor1-last=Albers|editor2-first=Gerald L.|editor2-last=Alexanderson|editor2-link=Gerald L. Alexanderson|editor3-first=Constance|editor3-last=Reid|editor3-link=Constance Reid|publisher=Harcourt Brace Jovanovich|year=1990|pages=22–41}}.</ref> Her older brother was mathematician [[Ralph P. Boas Jr.]]<ref name = "times2009">[http://www.bbk.ac.uk/boyle/boyle_whatsnew/whatsnew.htm#obituary Marie Boas Hall (1919-2009)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131127091823/http://www.bbk.ac.uk/boyle/boyle_whatsnew/whatsnew.htm#obituary |date=2013-11-27 }}, ''The Times'', 20 March 2009</ref>
She graduated from [[Radcliffe College]] in 1940. During [[World War II]], she worked in the [[MIT Radiation Laboratory]] with [[Henry Guerlac]] in writing the history of the laboratory and of the operational use of [[radar]] during the war.<ref name = "times2009"/> She continued her work with Guerlac at [[Cornell University]] and received her PhD in 1949. Her thesis covered the mechanical philosophy of [[Robert Boyle]] and was published in the history of science journal ''[[Osiris (journal)|Osiris]]'' in 1952.<ref name = "times2009"/>
==Career== After receiving her doctorate from [[Cornell University]], she took a teaching position at the [[University of Massachusetts]] and subsequently moved to [[Brandeis University]]. <blockquote> Marie Boas went to England from the US, "to work on [[Robert Boyle]]'s papers, and met Hall, who was working on [[Isaac Newton]]'s. In 1957 she returned to the [[University of California, Los Angeles]]; and in 1959 Hall, whose first marriage had ended in divorce, joined her there and they were married. Two years later they went to [[Indiana University]]. In 1963 they were invited back to London, to [[Imperial College London|Imperial College]], where Hall became the first professor of the history of science and she senior lecturer. There they trained many graduate students."<ref>{{Cite news|last=Knight|first=David|title=Obituary: Rupert Hall|work=The Guardian|accessdate=2013-11-03|date=2009-05-26|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/may/27/rupert-hall-obituary}}</ref> </blockquote>
She was elected a Fellow of the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]] in 1955.<ref name=AAAS>{{cite web|title=Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter B|url=http://www.amacad.org/publications/BookofMembers/ChapterB.pdf|publisher=American Academy of Arts and Sciences|accessdate=July 25, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100917070534/http://www.amacad.org/publications/BookofMembers/ChapterB.pdf |archive-date=17 September 2010}}</ref> She won the [[George Sarton Medal]], the most prestigious award of the [[History of Science Society]], together with her husband [[Alfred Rupert Hall]] in 1981.
==Works==
* ''Robert Boyle and Seventeenth-Century Chemistry.'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958. * ''The Scientific Renaissance, 1450-1630.'' New York: Harper, 1962. {{ISBN|0-486-28115-9}} * ''Robert Boyle on Natural Philosophy: An Essay, with Selections from His Writings.'' Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1965. * ''Nature and Nature's Laws. Documents of the Scientific Revolution.'' London: Macmillan, 1970. * ''The Mechanical Philosophy.'' New York: Arno Press, 1981. * ''All Scientists Now: The Royal Society in the Nineteenth Century.'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. {{ISBN|0-521-89263-5}} * [https://books.google.com/books?id=EkOWyBtP-nsC&q=boas+hall+royal+society ''Promoting Experimental Learning: Experiment and the Royal Society, 1660-1727.'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.] {{ISBN|0-521-89265-1}} * ''Henry Oldenburg: Shaping the Royal Society.'' Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. {{ISBN|0-19-851053-5}}
==See also== * [[History of science in the Renaissance]]
==References== {{Reflist}}
===Sources=== *{{Cite journal|volume=53|issue=4|pages=587–589|last=Wear|first=Andrew|title=Rupert Hall (1920–2009), Marie Boas Hall (1919–2009)|journal=Med. Hist.|date=October 2009|doi=10.1017/s0025727300000569|pmc=2766136}}
== External links == *[https://archive.today/20131104095603/http://academic.research.microsoft.com/Author/42300174/marie-boas-hall Marie Boas Hall], Microsoft Academic Search
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Hall, Marie Boas}} [[Category:1919 births]] [[Category:2009 deaths]] [[Category:20th-century American historians]] [[Category:Brandeis University faculty]] [[Category:Cornell University alumni]] [[Category:Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences]] [[Category:Indiana University faculty]] [[Category:Writers from Springfield, Massachusetts]] [[Category:Radcliffe College alumni]] [[Category:University of California, Los Angeles faculty]] [[Category:American women historians]] [[Category:20th-century American women writers]] [[Category:American historians of science]] [[Category:Fellows of the British Academy]] [[Category:Historians from Massachusetts]] [[Category:Historians from California]]