Although there would be no observatories of comparable magnitude to Lick’s until those built by George Ellery Hale, more moderate, but nonetheless economically significant founder observatories continued as the norm until the Second World War. Most of these projects can be broadly categorized as being motivated by either signaling or intrinsic interest, although there are also interesting subcategories that are worth noting. For example, outright self-promotion and commercial advertising was part of the direct impetus for Hubert Warner’s decision to found his observatory. As his native city of Rochester swelled with pride over its newly famous comet-discovering astronomer Lewis Swift, Warner, a maker and promoter of patented medicines, including “Warner’s Safe Kidney and Liver Cure,” decided in 1880 to build a downtown observatory with a sixteen-inch refractor at a cost of $100,000.64 When the building was complete, it was an ostentatious example of Gilded Age Gothic architecture and was designed to achieve Warner’s dual aims of signaling his status in the community and attracting attention to himself and his Safe Pills. In 1881, he announced a “Warner Safe Remedy Prize” for the first American discoverer of each new comet, valued at $200—equivalent in 2015 PWC-ratio terms to $55,500. He subsequently increased the value of the prizes to $1,000, equivalent to roughly $240,000 by the same metric.65 To maximize its publicity, Warner made the observatory the first in the world to be permanently open to the public, and it soon became a genuine tourist attraction for the city of Rochester. The prestige and publicity associated with astronomy could be shrewdly exploited for advertising and commercial gain even in the nineteenth century.
Another interesting case is that of the Mount Lowe Observatory, to which both Lewis Swift and the sixteen-inch telescope from the Warner Observatory later moved. The Mount Lowe Observatory was another commercial endeavor—in this case, an attempt to capitalize on the public appeal of astronomy in the context of a commercial tourist resort. After the financial panic of 1893, Warner was no longer able to support the Rochester observatory and Swift accepted an offer from eccentric aeronaut, inventor, and businessman Thaddeus Lowe to move to California and become the director of a new observatory. The observatory was part of the Mount Lowe Railway, a sprawling collection of hotels, zoos, restaurants, and other tourist attractions that Lowe had built along the all-electric streetcar line that ran from Pasadena up the San Gabriel Mountains. The Mount Lowe Railway was one of the most popular attractions in the Los Angeles area in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and was a forerunner of Disneyland-style family entertainment. The observatory, while only one of the many attractions, was an important draw. It featured prominently in the brochure and was open for public exploration of the heavens three nights a week. Even in the late nineteenth century, individuals within the leisure and entertainment industries understood the value of space exploration in attracting the attention, and the coinage, of the general public.66
Another interesting subcategory of founder observatories were those that were funded personally by state governors, such as the Washburn and Ladd Observatories in Wisconsin and Rhode Island. In 1876, after the regents of the University of Wisconsin had complained that no university worthy of the name could be without an astronomical observatory, the Wisconsin legislature passed an act that provided an annual grant of $3,000 for university astronomical work, on condition that an observatory could be built without state funds.67 Cadwallader Washburn, former Wisconsin governor, three-term congressman, and businessman, personally endowed the observatory with the requisite funds amounting to $65,000, with specific instructions that its refractor be larger than Harvard’s—a feat that it achieved by commissioning a 15.6-inch Clark objective lens to beat out Harvard’s 15-inch Fraunhofer refractor.68 In Rhode Island, it was a sitting first-term governor, Herbert W. Ladd, who promised to personally donate the funds for an observatory at Brown University after attending an alumni dinner in 1889. With a cost increase, mostly due to decorative elements in the observatory’s architecture, the facility was completed in 1891 at a cost of $30,000, shortly after the start of Ladd’s second term as governor.69 These observatories represent the continuation of an interesting trend: state-level signaling, which had previously been focused on the legislative bodies, such as in Pennsylvania and Alabama, was now taking root at the executive level in the era of founder observatories. They also show that politicians did not ignore the public relations benefits that patronage of an astronomical observatory could provide.
Similarly, although broad-based funding for civic observatories had declined, civic sentiments still inspired wealthy individuals in the new boomtowns of Denver and Los Angeles to fund astronomical observatories. Like Cincinnati and Albany at the time of their observatory projects, Denver was undergoing rapid growth during the Colorado silver boom of the 1880s. As James Lick had during the California gold rush, Humphrey Chamberlin had arrived in Denver by chance at the start of a massive boom and experienced a rapid rise to riches with his successful property speculations. Unlike the more reclusive Lick, however, Chamberlin was an active figure in the Denver community, owning major shares in numerous local companies, founding the Denver Savings Bank, and becoming president of Denver’s Young Men’s Christian Association and the Denver Chamber of Commerce and Board of Trade. Although he was the patron of a number of local philanthropic endeavors, his most expensive project was the Chamberlin Observatory of the University of Denver. The project was initiated in 1888 and, with a twenty-inch Clark refractor, cost Chamberlin a total of some $56,000.70 Although the 1893 silver-price crash destroyed Chamberlin’s wealth and left the observatory without an endowment, the large telescope and imposing edifice—which had been copied wholesale from the $65,000 Goodsell Observatory begun at Carleton College in Minnesota at the same time—ensured that it remained an important symbol of civic pride.71
The Griffith Observatory of Los Angeles also had a predominantly civic context. Griffith J. Griffith, who had settled in Los Angeles after making his fortune in mining, had granted his adopted city over three thousand acres for use as a city park in 1896. In his will, he left his estate to the city, with instructions that it be used to fund a large observatory in the park for civic enjoyment and education. When the estate was settled after his death in 1919, some $225,000 was allocated for the observatory.72 Although civic communities no longer made collective attempts to fund major observatories, individual philanthropists continued the tradition of civic-minded astronomy. As with the earlier civic observatories, however, this interest did not extend to funding professional astronomers to use the expensive telescopes to perform scientific research.
There was an intrinsic interest in scientific research in astronomy as well, however, and in the cases where this interest was combined with personal wealth the results could be scientifically productive observatories. The oldest of the funding traditions in American astronomy, that of individuals funding their own astronomical facilities for their personal use, also took on a new scale in the mid- to late nineteenth century. Starting with the first telescope in America, imported in 1660 to satisfy John Winthrop Jr.’s passion for astronomy, wealthy individuals indulging in their own explorations of the heavens had played an important role in the spread of astronomical observatories across the nation. A full listing of the innumerable small, personal telescopes and observatories is neither possible nor necessary here. Some of the more significant early efforts are, however, worth noting. One particularly interesting astronomy enthusiast was John Jackson, a Quaker minister and estate owner in Darby, Pennsylvania, who, in 1845, added a large observatory tower and an imported 6.3-inch Merz equatorial telescope to the family home—which was also a girls’ boarding school—at a total cost of $4,000.73 While there were a number of other astronomy enthusiasts on country estates throughout the nation, it was from within the wealthier social circles of America’s growing cities that the American “Grand Amateurs”—individuals who personally funded significant astronomical facilities and establishments for their own pers
onal use—emerged.
Although the Grand Amateur tradition did not quite reach the extent in America that it did in England, there were nonetheless a number of notable amateur contributions to American astronomy.74 Lewis Morris Rutherfurd was one such self-funded astronomer, who conducted pioneering work in astrophotography and stellar spectroscopy and who also provided important support for American telescope maker Henry Fitz.75 Rutherfurd was fortunate enough to be born into a wealthy New York family and to marry into an even wealthier one. This allowed him to retire from his nascent career as a lawyer and dedicate himself fully to astronomy. Starting in 1856, he built up his personal observatory, situated on the corner of Second Avenue and East Eleventh Street in New York, into one of the best equipped in the nation, with numerous astronomical instruments, including a $2,200 nine-inch Fitz refractor and eventually one of thirteen inches.76 Henry Draper was another New York Grand Amateur, whose research in astronomy was significantly assisted by his marriage to a wealthy heiress.77 Although he had long devoted his leisure to astronomy, his marriage provided him with the means to build a world-class astrophysical laboratory and to manufacture his own twenty-eight-inch reflector—resources that enabled him to be the first to successfully photograph an astronomical spectrum, that of the star Vega in 1872. There were a number of other amateurs as well, of lesser fame perhaps, but who nonetheless represented significant private expenditure on astronomy. Robert Van Arsdale, for example, was an avid comet hunter from his home observatory in Newark, New Jersey, with a $1,125 clockwork driven Fitz telescope purchased in 1850.78 A nine-inch Fitz refractor was the centerpiece of William Van Duzee’s private observatory—built in Buffalo in 1851—the base of which was fixed twelve feet below ground level so that passing carriages would not disturb the telescope. At the same time in New York, a Brooklyn rooftop observatory housed the twelve-inch Fitz refractor of Jacob Campbell. With the development of an American telescope manufacturing industry—led by Amasa Holcomb, Henry Fitz, Alvan Clark & Sons, and John Brashear—individuals were increasingly able to “found” their own observatories right on their own properties.79 None, however, would do so on the scale of the grandest of the American Grand Amateurs, Percival Lowell.
At the turn of the century, in the same decade that U.S. rocketry pioneer Robert Goddard made his personal commitment to the development of spaceflight, Percival Lowell made his decision to dedicate himself to the remote exploration of Mars. Unlike Goddard, however, Lowell was wealthy enough to fund his efforts himself. The son of a wealthy Boston family, Lowell had developed a passion for astronomy at a young age and had traveled extensively in Japan and Korea, gaining a love of exotic adventure. Upon return from his Asian travels in 1893, he learned of the retirement of Giovanni Schiaparelli, the observer of the “canals” of Mars. Lowell decided that he would take up Schiaparelli’s mantle and dedicated his life to further exploring the red planet.80 He soon began construction of the largest personal observatory in America, the Lowell Observatory, to pursue his passion. From his observations, he became increasingly convinced that he could see evidence of artificial canals on Mars, which he believed were a sign of intelligent life. His popular accounts of life on Mars, Mars and Its Canals and Mars as the Abode of Life in 1906 and 1908, greatly excited the general public and influenced the cultural milieu from which the early rocket societies emerged.81 In time, the Lowell Observatory would become one of the critical research observatories in American astronomy, with its research programs resulting in the discovery of Pluto in 1930.
Thanks to the work of David Strauss, we have a reasonable knowledge of the history of Lowell’s finances and the funding of the observatory. At the start of the observatory’s development in 1894, Lowell had a sizable annual income of $25,000.82 Although Strauss was unable to find financial records for the actual construction of the observatory, he was able to uncover an expenditure of $2,300 for the four months of expeditions and planning that led to the site selection. In 1896, there are records for the purchase of the twenty-four-inch Clark refractor, the fourth largest in the United States at the time, at a cost of $20,000. The most interesting financial information, however, relates to the operating expenses of the observatory. These results provide valuable insight into the magnitude of Lowell’s passion for space exploration and his willingness and ability to fund it.
Changes in the annual funding of Lowell’s observatory reveal the relative income inelasticity of his demand for space exploration. In 1897, Lowell instructed his assistant that the total annual expenses were not to exceed $6,000 per year.83 Lowell was thus willing to spend around 25 percent of his income annually on his observatory at that time. When his father died in 1901, Lowell’s inheritance meant that his annual income grew from $25,000 to $100,000.84 At the same time, his average annual expenditure on the observatory grew to a little more than $10,000 over the period from 1903 to 1908. This means that the relative share of Lowell’s annual income that he decided to spend on his observatory decreased from around 25 percent to around 10 percent. Lowell’s expenditure pattern thus provides an interesting, though anecdotal, example of the income inelasticity of an individual’s demand for astronomical investigation. Lowell was determined to fund an observatory of significant scale and did so even when it represented a major portion of his wealth. He increased his expenditure as his wealth increased, but he did so at a decreasing rate. In this crude sense, Lowell’s personal demand for the exploration of the heavens was inelastic over time.
The Perkins Observatory was the result of a similar personal dedication to astronomy and the continuation of a tradition that dates back to the earliest college observatories—that of faculty providing the resources to establish observatories. During the Civil War, Hiram Perkins, a professor of mathematics and astronomy at Ohio Wesleyan University, had wanted to join the Union Army but was refused on account of his abnormally large height and low weight. Still committed to supporting the Union, he decided to devote his family farm to raising pigs to provision the army with salt pork. As a frugal-living man, his pork sales during the war meant that he managed to amass a sizable fortune. After he eventually retired from the university in 1907, he spent the next fifteen years of his life planning the construction of a sixty-one-inch reflector, which would become the first large telescope mirror cast in America and the third largest reflecting telescope in the world. He was motivated in part, as The Christian Advocate reported in 1922, by “an ideal that dominated his whole life—the belief that the study of astronomy outclasses all other studies in teaching the majesty and power of God and in inculcating principles of true religion.” 85 Starting in 1923, Perkins spent some $288,000 on the reflector, observatory, and telescope, while his sister provided $91,000 for an endowment.86 Despite its world-class facilities, however, Ohio’s cloudy weather, low elevation, and light pollution from nearby Delaware and Columbus limited the observatory’s productivity, as did Perkins’s death before its completion in 1931. Nonetheless, the Perkins Observatory shows that, even in the era of the large founder observatories of the early twentieth century, the same combination of religious sentiment, college fealty, and personal interest that had motivated the foundation of American observatories almost one hundred years earlier was still a potent force in the patronage of astronomy.
The last significant founder observatory of the early twentieth century, the McDonald Observatory, was motivated by that old friend of astronomy—the concern of wealthy men for a lasting legacy. William Johnson McDonald was a prosperous Texas banker who, to the surprise of the University of Texas and the consternation of his family, decided to bequeath the bulk of his fortune to the university for the construction of a large astronomical observatory. McDonald had possessed a small telescope, and astronomy was one of his many hobbies, but the extent of his gift to astronomy was entirely unexpected. When he died in 1926, his will specified that over $1 million of his estate, valued at $1.26 million, should be given to the university to build and endow an observatory in his name.87 McD
onald’s relatives and extended family contested the will, however, and after a three-year court battle, with no end in sight, the university settled with the contestants out of court, leaving approximately $840,000 for the observatory.88
The development of the observatory—which would house an eighty-two-inch reflecting telescope, the second largest in the world at the time of its dedication in 1939—saw the beginnings of a number of trends that would be ingrained into the business of astronomical research and space exploration throughout the rest of the twentieth century. The type of multi-university collaboration that would become the model for large observatories later in the century was presaged by a unique partnership for the design and subsequent operation of the observatory. Lacking a strong faculty in astronomy, the University of Texas decided to partner with the Yerkes Observatory at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, which had an experienced faculty but limited funding. The increasing complexity of astronomical technology and a desire to keep oversight simple led the University of Texas to select a prime contractor, the Warner & Swasey Company, to execute the entire project for a firm fixed price—a new procurement model for an astronomical observatory and one that, for the same reasons, would later become the preferred method used by the private sector to purchase spacecraft. Although the McDonald Observatory shared much in common with modern projects of space exploration, it also marked the end of an era. William McDonald was the last individual to personally endow a large observatory in America until the 1990s, drawing to a close a golden age of founder observatories. To complete the analysis of the organization and funding of large observatories, however, we also need to examine the unique narrative of the man who would become America’s greatest observatory promoter, George Ellery Hale.
The Long Space Age Page 10