Measuring Difference Exhibition Illustrates What—and Who—Was Measured in the “New World”

The exhibition opens on October 20^th in the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments.  

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., September 25, 2024—We measure everything around us. It is how we see and compare differences. However, measurements, often perceived as neutral tools, are essentially human inventions that may be, at their core, flawed and biased. The upcoming exhibition Measuring Difference explores the question: “What is lost when one measure wins out over another?”

In the Americas, colonial powers aimed to take control of the “New World,” cementing European measures as tools of authority. With a new interpretation of historical items from the Collection, partner museums like the Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, and numerous other cultural organizations, visitors can find out how tools, ideas, and policies have influenced what—and who—were measured.

Gabriela Soto Laveaga, guest curator, Professor of the History of Science, and Antonio Madero Professor for the Study of Mexico, Harvard University, asks, “How do we learn to see difference around us? What words do we rely on to explain difference? Often, it is measurements that help us explain or grasp the world around us, but measures, contrary to what we believe have not always been standardized, nor are they objective. What and how we measure reflects what we value in our society.”

How well cultures could produce food and goods like gold, silver, cochineal, and cotton was paramount to survival, practically and politically. The exhibit, which spans several centuries, has, for instance, a 1950s photograph of a bracero, a Mexican laborer, in Texas using a cotton scale —an evocative representation of how workers were valued solely based on their output.

The objects in the “Measuring Space” section of the exhibition compare how Indigenous and European cultures each represented land and sea. A manuscript from 1552 includes illustrations of Nahua medicinal plants. Written in both Nahuatl and Latin, it shows how Indigenous knowledge was translated into European ways of organizing and understanding the world.

Today, it is routine for a patient’s weight and height to be taken during a doctor’s visit, but what does a “normal” person look like?  In 1943, an obstetrician created diagrams of “Norma” and “Normman” based on the measurements of 15,000 white men and women. The diagrams, “standardized” psychological tests, a human “atlas,” and color charts reveal the eugenics movement’s influence on establishing harmful standards used to profile and judge people.

In the 18th century, Spanish elites in colonial Mexico used so-called  Casta paintings to classify people based on their racial background and appearance. Loba Garifuna, a piece featured in the exhibition by artist Nancy Friedemann-Sánchez, reimagines 18^th-century Casta paintings for a contemporary world where some bodies are still perceived as existing outside the norm. Friedemann-Sánchez traced the bodies of Latina women in the TSA search pose, using ink “to create a ‘stained’ aesthetic—a reference to colonial justifications of genocide” based on skin color. Through these powerful narratives, the “Measuring Difference” exhibition challenges visitors to reconsider the impacts and biases of the measurement systems that shape our understanding of the world.

Hannah Marcus, Professor of the History of Science, Harvard, and Faculty Director of the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments, says, “We are delighted to host Professor Soto Laveaga’s research in our gallery and thrilled to reach new audiences with its bilingual presentation.”

Collection of Scientific Historical Instruments Executive Director Joshua Gorman adds, “Professor Soto Laveaga’s exhibit has brought together important items from half a dozen Harvard collections, enriching them all through the connection.”

Measuring Difference opens to the public on October 20^th and runs through August 26, 2025.

Thanks to the following organizations for providing items on display in the exhibition:

Special thanks to our content experts and contributors:    

• Gabriela Soto Laveaga, Professor of the History of Science, and Antonio Madero Professor for the Study of Mexico, Harvard University
• Katherine Enright, Harvard College ’23
• Manny Medrano, PhD candidate, Department of History, Harvard University
• Francis Newman, PhD candidate, Department of History of Science, Harvard University 
• Artist Nancy Friedemann-Sanchez
• Brenda Tindal, Chief Campus Curator, Harvard University

About the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments

Harvard has been acquiring scientific instruments for teaching and research since 1672. This collection, established in 1948, is one of the three largest university collections of its kind in the world and contains telescopes, timepieces, computers, optical equipment, and much more.

The Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments, one of the four Harvard Museums of Science & Culture, is located in the Harvard Science Center at 1 Oxford Street in Cambridge, just a 6-minute walk across the historic campus from Harvard Square.  Admission is free and open to the public Sunday through Friday from 11:00 am–4:00 pm.

About the Harvard Museums of Science & Culture

The HMSC mission is to foster curiosity and a spirit of discovery in visitors of all ages by enhancing public understanding of and appreciation for the natural world, science, and human cultures. HMSC works in concert with Harvard faculty, museum curators, students, and members of the extended Harvard community to provide interdisciplinary exhibitions, events and lectures, and educational programs for students, teachers, and the public. HMSC draws primarily upon the extensive collections of the member museums and the research of their faculty and curators.

History

The Harvard Museums of Science & Culture (HMSC) partnership was established on July 1, 2012, by former Edgerley Family Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Michael D. Smith, to develop a strong, coordinated public face for the six research museums that are within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard:

See hours and admission rates on each of the HMSC museum websites:

• Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments
• Harvard Museum of Natural History
  • Harvard University Herbaria
  • Mineralogical and Geological Museum
  • Museum of Comparative Zoology
• Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East
• Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology

Press contact:

Bethany Carland-Adams

Public Relations Specialist

Harvard Museums of Science & Culture

617 959 3481

bcarlandadams@hmsc.harvard.edu