Collecting the Cosmos: Astronomical Highlights from the Harry Ransom Center

HYBRID: The Houston Astronomical Society presents Benjamin Gross, Head of Fellowships and Scholarly Programs at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas, in a talk entitled "Collecting the Cosmos: Astronomical Highlights from the Harry Ransom Center."

Description: "The Harry Ransom Center is an internationally renowned humanities research center at The University of Texas at Austin. It is home to the world’s oldest photograph, a copy of the Gutenberg Bible, and the personal papers of Gabriel García Márquez, Gloria Swanson, and Lorne Michaels. While best known for its literary and artistic collections, the Center has also been acquiring rare scientific books and manuscripts since the 1960s. This presentation will provide an overview of the Center’s collections and showcases some of its remarkable astronomical holdings, including early lunar maps, handwritten notes and drawings created by the Herschel family, and memorabilia from the launch of Apollo 11."

Speaker: Benjamin Gross is Head of Fellowships and Scholarly Programs at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas. Before moving to Austin, he served as Vice President for Research and Scholarship at the Linda Hall Library, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Science History Institute, and consulting curator of the Sarnoff Collection at the College of New Jersey. He earned a PhD in the history of science at Princeton University, and his book, The TVs of Tomorrow: How RCA’s Flat-Screen Dreams Led to the First LCDs, was published in 2018 by the University of Chicago Press.

In Person and Online Meeting: Our next meeting will be on Friday, June 5th, from 6:00 to 8:00 pm and you can participate in one of two ways, either face to face at HAS’s new meeting location:

HCC Alief Hayes Campus
2811 Hayes Rd
Houston, TX
https://www.hccs.edu/locations/northwest-college/alief-hayes-campus/

or virtually via Zoom. To attend via Zoom, you must register for the meeting. You can use the link below. You will receive an email with the details of the meeting and a link that will allow you to join in.

Register here.
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Join us on Friday, June 5th, 2026, at 6:00 pm CT.