Kenneth L. Taylor Collection

The History of Science Collections has received the papers of Kenneth L. Taylor, OU Professor Emeritus of the History of Science. 

Prof. Taylor has received recognition for distinguished lifetime achievement in the history of geology with the Mary Rabbit Award from the Geological Society of America in 2007, the Sue Tyler Friedman Medal from the Geological Society of London in 1998, and the Prix Wegmann from the Societé Géologique de France in 2018. In 2024, the International Union of Geological Sciences honored Taylor with the Vladimir V. Tikhomirov History of Geology Award. Taylor is one of only two scholars who have received all four of these lifetime achievement awards. 

The University of Oklahoma history of science program has long been renowned for its expertise in the history of geology. That international visibility was greatly enhanced in the decades after Taylor joined the faculty in 1967 due to Taylor's pioneering research, his generous mentoring of graduate students and younger scholars, and his sustained record of service to professional societies in the field.

Taylor’s explorations in the history of geology began with Nicholas Desmarest, an early advocate for the igneous origin of basalt and the subject of Taylor’s dissertation at Harvard University. Prof. Taylor’s research in the disciplinary, national, and intellectual contexts for the emergence of geology produced classic papers that remain foundational to subsequent research on science in the Enlightenment and the history of French science. Taylor’s many publications on Desmarest and Buffon began to rehabilitate the frequently-dismissed tradition of Theories of the Earth. His early studies of geological mapping demonstrated the importance of attending to illustrations as intellectual achievements in their own right at a time when the visual dimensions of texts were too often disregarded as merely decorative ornamentation. With these and other investigations, Prof. Taylor’s oeuvre centered the history of geology in broader conversations about the role of natural regularities and historical contingency in the history science.
 

At OU, Prof. Taylor was honored with the University of Oklahoma’s Glenn C. Couch Scholars’ Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching in 1969 and held a C. B. Hudson / Torchmark Presidential Professorship. Prof. Taylor served on 41 graduate committees, 11 of which were doctoral committees that he directed. These 11 include several notable historians of geology today as well as three who went on to become curators of OU special research collections: Marilyn Ogilvie (his first doctoral graduate in 1973), JoAnn Palmeri, and Kerry Magruder. 

Photo caption: Kenneth L. Taylor working in the History of Science Collections after coming to OU as one of the early faculty members in the Department of the History of Science.