The Long Space Age

by Alexander MacDonald

  26. Musto, “A Survey of the American Observatory Movement,” p. 89.

  27. United States, President, The Addresses and Messages of Presidents of the United States, from 1789 to 1839 (New York, 1839), p. 299.

  28. Musto, “A Survey of the American Observatory Movement,” p. 89. It is an interesting side note that the project costs were proposed to be offset by a sale of information for a national almanac, bringing in estimated revenues of $1,500.

  29. McCulloch, J. R., and Martin, F., A Dictionary Geographical, Statistical, and Historical, of the Various Countries, Places and Principal Natural Objects in the World, vol. 3 (London, 1866), p. 432; Sky, T., The National Road and the Difficult Path to Sustainable National Investment (New York, 2011), p. 66.

  30. Loomis, “Astronomical Observatories in the United States,” p.26.

  31. Dupree, A. H., Science in the Federal Government: A History of Policies and Activities to 1940 (Cambridge, 1957), p. 62.

  32. Loomis, “Astronomical Observatories in the United States,” p. 26.

  33. Portolano, M., “John Quincy Adams’s Rhetorical Crusade for Astronomy,” ISIS 91, no. 3 (2000), p. 49.

  34. Quincy, J., Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams (Boston, 1860), p. 306.

  35. Adams, J. Q., An Oration Delivered Before the Cincinnati Astronomical Society on the Occasion of Laying the Corner Stone of an Astronomical Observatory on the 10th of November, 1843 (Cincinnati, OH, 1843), p. 68.

  36. Zaban Jones, B., Lighthouse of the Skies, The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory: Background and History, 1846–1955 (Washington, DC, 1965), p. 15.

  37. Adams, An Oration Delivered Before the Cincinnati Astronomical Society, pp. 37–38.

  38. Ibid., p. 17.

  39. Quincy, Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams, p. 308.

  40. Krisciunas, K., “A Short History of Pulkovo Observatory,” Vistas in Astronomy 22 (1978), pp. 27–37.

  41. Adams, An Oration Delivered Before the Cincinnati Astronomical Society, p. 60.

  42. Sears, B., ed. “Report in the House of Representatives, March 1840, on the Smithsonian Bequest, from the Select Committee appointed on the subject,” Christian Review 5 (Boston, 1840), p. 106. Estimate included “a salary of $3,600 for the astronomer, funds for the compensation of four assistants, at $1,500 each, and two laborers, each at $600; for the purchase and procurement of instruments, $30,000; of which $20,000 might be applied for an assortment of the best instruments to be procured, and $10,000 from a fund, from the interest of which other instruments may be from time to time procured, and for repairs: for the library, $30,000; being $10,000 for first supply, and $20,000 for a fund for an income of $1,200 a year: and finally $30,000 for a fund, from the income of which, $1,800 a year, shall be defrayed the expense of the yearly publication of the observations and of a nautical almanac.”

  43. Rhees, W. J., “Congressional Proceedings, Twenty-Sixth Congress, 1839–41,” in The Smithsonian Institution: Documents Relative to Its Origin and History (Washington, DC, 1879), pp. 221–222.

  44. Zaban Jones, Lighthouse of the Skies, p. 124.

  45. Portolano, “John Quincy Adams’ Rhetorical Crusade for Astronomy,” p. 493.

  46. Adams, J. Q., The Great Design: Two Lectures on the Smithsonian Bequest by John Quincy Adams, ed. W. Washburn (Washington, DC, 1965), p. 71.

  47. Musto, “A Survey of the American Observatory Movement,” p. 88.

  48. Goodman, M., The Sun and the Moon: The Remarkable True Account of Hoaxers, Showmen, Dueling Journalists and Lunar Man-Bats in Nineteenth-Century New York (New York, 2008), pp. 133–134.

  49. Locke, R. A., The Moon Hoax; or, A Discovery That the Moon Has a Vast Population of Human Beings (New York, 1859), pp. 36–37.

  50. Ruskin, S. W., “A Newly-Discovered Letter of J. F. W. Herschel Concerning the ‘Great Moon Hoax,’ ” Journal for the History of Astronomy 33, no. 110 (2002), p. 71.

  51. Barnum, P. T., The Humbugs of the World: An Account of Humbugs, Delusions, Impositions, Quackeries, Deceits and Deceivers Generally, in All Ages (New York, 1866), p. 270.

  52. Locke, The Moon Hoax, p. vi.

  53. Crowe, M. J., The Extraterrestrial Life Debate: Antiquity to 1915: A Source Book (Notre Dame, 2008), p. 212.

  54. Barnum, The Humbugs of the World, pp. 259–260.

  55. Griggs, W. N., The Celebrated “Moon Story,” Its Origin and Incidents; With a Memoir of the Author and an Appendix (New York, 1852), p. 16.

  56. Goodman, The Sun and the Moon, p. 234.

  57. Locke, The Moon Hoax, p. 15.

  58. Ibid., p. 20.

  59. Ibid., p. 15.

  60. Adams, An Oration Delivered Before the Cincinnati Astronomical Society, p. 68.

  61. Bruce, R., The Launching of Modern American Science 1846–1876 (New York, 1987), p. 102.

  62. Cobb, C., “Some Beginnings in Science,” Appleton’s Popular Science Monthly, October 1896, p. 767.

  63. Williams, T., “Development of Astronomy in the Southern United States 1840–1914,” Journal for the History of Astronomy 27, no. 1 (1996), p. 15.

  64. Musto, “A Survey of the American Observatory Movement,” p. 89.

  65. Potts, D., Wesleyan University, 1831–1910: Collegiate Enterprise in New England (New Haven, CT, 1992), p. 78, http://www.wesleyan.edu/astro/vvo/history.html.

  66. Prentice, G., Wilbur Fisk (Boston, 1890), p. 167.

  67. Sewall, A., Life of Prof. Albert Hopkins (New York, 1870), p. 161.

  68. Ibid., p. 162.

  69. Cleminshaw, R. H., “Astronomy in the Early Days of the Western Reserve,” Popular Astronomy 46 (1938), pp. 559–564.

  70. Correspondence with Thomas Vince, Loomis Observatory historian and archivist; and Cleminshaw, “Astronomy in the Early Days of the Western Reserve,” pp. 559–564.

  71. Cutler, C., A History of Western Reserve College, During its First Half Century, 1826–1876 (Cleveland, 1876), p. 46.

  72. Cleminshaw, “Astronomy in the Early Days of the Western Reserve,” p. 564.

  73. Newton, H. A., A Memoir of Elias Loomis (Washington, DC, 1891), p. 762; This was the largest bequest that had ever been made to Yale at that time.

  74. Musto, “A Survey of the American Observatory Movement,” p. 89.

  75. Loomis, “Astronomical Observatories in the United States,” p. 29.

  76. Edmonds, F. S., History of the Central High School of Philadelphia (Philadelphia, 1902), p. 91.

  77. Ibid.

  78. Ibid., p. 97.

  79. Franklin, B., “Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion,” in The Works of Benjamin Franklin, ed. J. Sparks, vol. 2 (Chicago, 1882), p. 1.

  80. Newton, I., The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, vol. 2, ed. W. Davis and W. Emerson (London, 1803), pp. 310–311.

  81. Rittenhouse, D., An Oration Delivered February 24, 1775, Before the American Philosophical Society (Philadelphia, 1775), p. 26.

  82. Adams, An Oration Delivered Before the Cincinnati Astronomical Society, p. 17; Adams, The Great Design, p. 33.

  83. Udias, A. Searching the Heavens and the History of Jesuit Observatories (New York, 2003).

  84. Ibid., p. 147.

  85. Ibid., p. 13.

  86. Campbell, T. J., The Jesuits, 1534–1921: A History of the Society of Jesus from Its Foundation to the Present Time (New York, 1921), p. 852.

  87. Curran, R. M., and O’Donovan, L. O., The Bicentennial History of Georgetown University: From Academy to University 1789–1889 (Washington, DC, 1961), p. 143; Udias, Searching the Heavens and the History of Jesuit Observatories, p. 104.

  88. Curran and O’Donovan, The Bicentennial History of Georgetown University, p. 141.

  89. Ibid.

  90. Longstreth, R., “Biographical Memoir of Miers Fisher Longstreth 1819–1891,” National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoirs, vol. 8 (1915), pp. 137–140.

  91. Dupree, Science in the Federal Government, p. 62; Dick, S. J., Sky and Ocean Joined: The U.S. Naval Observatory 1830–2000
(Cambridge, 2003).

  92. Loomis, “Astronomical Observatories in the United States,” p. 35.

  93. Dick, Sky and Ocean Joined, p. 28.

  94. Ibid., p. 27.

  95. Dick, S. J., “John Quincy Adams, the Smithsonian Bequest and the Founding of the U.S. Naval Observatory,” Journal for the History of Astronomy 22, no. 1 (1991), p. 41.

  96. Loomis, “Astronomical Observatories in the United States,” p. 32. The cost of the Merz and Mahler 9.5 aperture equatorial was $6,000; the Merz and Mahler / Ertel and Son 5.5-inch transit instrument, $1,480; the Simms 5-foot mural circle, $3,550; the Pistor and Martins 5-inch transit, $1,750; and the 4-inch Merz and Mahler comet seeker, $280. Dick, Sky and Ocean Joined, p. 53.

  97. Maury, M., Astronomical Observations Made During the Year 1845 at the U.S. Naval Observatory, Washington (Washington, DC, 1846).

  98. Dick, Sky and Ocean Joined, p. 57.

  99. Ibid., p. 207.

  100. Loomis, “Astronomical Observatories in the United States,” p. 35.

  2. Public Spirit and Patronage

  1. Goode, G. B., “The Origin of the National Scientific and Educational Institutions of the United States,” Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1889 (Washington, DC, 1890), pp. 53–163.

  2. Miller, H., Dollars for Research: Science and Its Patrons in Nineteenth-Century America (Seattle, 1970), p. 29.

  3. U.S. Census of 1840 and 1850, as seen at http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0027/tab07.txt and https://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0027/tab08.txt.

  4. Miller, Dollars for Research, p. 30.

  5. Ibid.

  6. Cleminshaw, C. H., “The Founding of the Cincinnati Observatory,” Astronomical Society of the Pacific, Leaflets 5 (1946), p. 68.

  7. Black, R., “The Cincinnati Telescope,” Popular Astronomy, Vol. 52 (1944), p. 77.

  8. “Constitution of the Cincinnati Astronomical Society,” in Adams, J. Q., An Oration Delivered Before the Cincinnati Astronomical Society on the Occasion of Laying the Corner Stone of an Astronomical Observatory on the 10th of November, 1843 (Cincinnati, 1843), p. 70.

  9. Cleminshaw, “The Founding of the Cincinnati Observatory,” p. 68.

  10. Miller, Dollars for Research, p. 30.

  11. Ibid., p. 33.

  12. Black, “The Cincinnati Telescope,” p. 78.

  13. Adams, An Oration Delivered Before the Cincinnati Astronomical Society, p. 63.

  14. Miller, Dollars for Research, p. 32.

  15. Bailey, S., The History and Work of Harvard Observatory: 1839 to 1927 (New York, 1931), p. 15.

  16. Ibid., p. 24.

  17. Rothenberg, M., “Patronage of Harvard College Observatory 1839–1851,” Journal for the History of Astronomy 21, no. 1 (1990), p. 37.

  18. Rothenberg, “Patronage of Harvard College Observatory,” p. 39.

  19. Bailey, S., The History and Work of Harvard Observatory, p. 26. The observatory’s fifteen-inch equatorial telescope alone cost $19,842.

  20. Miller, Dollars for Research, p. 38.

  21. Bailey, The History and Work of Harvard Observatory, p. 22.

  22. Wise, G., Civic Astronomy: Albany’s Dudley Observatory, 1852–2002 (New York, 2004), p. 13.

  23. See James, M. A., Elites in Conflict: The Antebellum Clash over the Dudley Observatory (Camden, NJ, 1987).

  24. Miller, Dollars for Research, pp. 41–43.

  25. Wise, Civic Astronomy: Albany’s Dudley Observatory, pp. 9–10.

  26. The Trustees of the Dudley Observatory, Dudley Observatory and the Scientific Council: Statement of the Trustees (Albany, 1858), p. 74.

  27. Gould, B., Reply to the “Statement of the Trustees” of the Dudley Observatory (Albany, 1859), p. 55.

  28. Ibid., p. 98.

  29. Loomis, E., “Astronomical Observatories in the United States,” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine 13 (June 1856), p. 47. A significant share of the cost was contributed personally by the college president, Rev. William J. Walker.

  30. Williams, T., “The Development of Astronomy in the Southern United States, 1840–1914,” Journal for the History of Astronomy 27, no. 1 (1996), p. 21.

  31. Whitesell, P., A Creation of His Own: Tappan’s Detroit (Ann Arbor, MI, 1998), pp. 29–32.

  32. Dwight, B. W., The History of the Descendants of Elder John Strong of Northampton, Mass. (Albany, 1871), p. 377; Loomis estimated the building to have cost $5,000 and the refractor, $10,000.

  33. Anonymous, “Frederick Augustus Porter Barnard,” Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, vol. 24 (1889), p. 441.

  34. Byrd, G., and R. Mellown, “An Antebellum Observatory in Alabama,” Sky and Telescope, February 1983, p. 113; American Institute of the City York, Transactions of the American Institute of the City of New York for the Year 1858 (Albany, 1859), p. 417.

  35. Williams, “The Development of Astronomy in the Southern United States,” p. 17.

  36. Sansing, D., The University of Mississippi: Sesquicentennial History (Oxford, 1999), pp. 91–92.

  37. Ibid., p. 91.

  38. Beardsley, W., “The Allegheny Observatory During the Era of the Telescope Association, 1859–1867,” Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine 64 (1981), p. 216.

  39. Ibid., p. 222.

  40. Brashear, J., “An Address Delivered at the Laying of the Cornerstone of the New Observatory, October 20, 1900,” Miscellaneous Scientific Papers of the Allegheny Observatory of the University of Pittsburgh, vol. 2 (Lancaster, 1910), p. 34.

  41. Ibid., p. 8; Allegheny Centennial Committee, Story of Old Allegheny City (Pittsburgh, 1941), p. 164.

  42. Colbert, E., “The Early Years of the Dearborn Observatory,” Popular Astronomy 24 (1916), p. 476.

  43. Winborne, B. B., The Colonial and State Political History of Hertford County, N.C. (Raleigh, 1906), p. 182.

  44. Colbert, “The Early Years of the Dearborn Observatory,” p. 477.

  45. Williams, “Development of Astronomy in the Southern United States,” pp. 23–25.

  46. Colbert, “The Early Years of the Dearborn Observatory,” p. 477.

  47. Goodspeed, T. W., A History of the University of Chicago (Chicago, 1916), p. 15.

  48. For comparison, in 2015, Forbes magazine listed 1,826 billionaires around the world, 536 of whom were from the United States; Ratner, S., New Light on the History of Great American Fortunes: American Millionaires of 1892 and 1902 (New York, 1953). Also see Piketty, T., and Saez, E., “Income Inequality in the United States, 1913–1998,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 108, no. 1 (2003), pp. 1–39.

  49. Loomis, “Astronomical Observatories in the United States,” p. 46; and Dartmouth College, “History of Dartmouth College (George C. Shattuck) Observatory” (1995), http://ead.dartmouth.edu/html/da9.html. Loomis says the building cost $4,500; the equatorial and sidereal clock, $2,300; comet seeker, $18; and meridian circle, £275.

  50. The Regents of the University, University of the State of New York: Ninety-Second Annual Report of the Regents of the University (Albany, 1879), pp. 195–196.

  51. Williams, “The Development of Astronomy in the Southern United States,” p. 26.

  52. Ibid., p. 28.

  53. Ibid., p. 31.

  54. University of Virginia, Board of Visitors, Board of Visitors Minutes, University of Virginia Library Digital Collections (Charlottesville, 2006), p. 93.

  55. Williams, J. R., The Handbook of Princeton (New York, 1905), p. 49.

  56. Ibid.

  57. Kelly, B. M., Yale: A History (New Haven, CT, 1999), p. 206.

  58. Pritchett, C., “Morrison Observatory, Glasgow, Mo.,” Annual Record of Science and Industry for 1877, ed. S. F. Baird (New York, 1878), p. 44.

  59. Brown, D., The Story of Morrison Observatory: 100 Years (Fayette, 1975).

  60. Morrison-Fuller, B., Plantation Life in Missouri (Glasgow, 1937), p. 31.

  61. Lick, R., The Generous Miser: The Story of James Lick of California (Los Angeles
, 1967), p. 62.

  62. Wright, H., James Lick’s Monument: The Saga of Captain Richard Floyd and the Building of the Lick Observatory (Cambridge, 1987), p. 33.

  63. Gingerich, O. J., ed., Astrophysics and Twentieth-Century Astronomy to 1950, Part A: The General History of Astronomy (New York, 1984), p. 127; Miller, Dollars for Research, p. 103. Davidson had initially suggested that $1.2 million would be required, and Lick had initially only been willing to spend $500,000. Lick settled on $700,000.

  64. Ashbrook, J., Astronomical Scrapbook: Skywatchers, Pioneers, and Seekers in Astronomy (Cambridge, 1984), pp. 74–75.

  65. Ibid. When the naked-eye comet of August 1881 brought three thousand letters claiming the prize, Warner changed the terms of the prize to the best essay on comets.

  66. Manning, M., Man, Mountain and Monument: An Historical Account of Professor Thaddeus S. C. Lowe and the Mount Lowe Railway (Altadena, 2001). Also, see Winter, F., “The ‘Trip to the Moon’ and Other Early Spaceflight Simulation Shows, ca. 1901–1915: Part I,” in History of Rocketry and Astronautics 23, no. 1 (2001), pp. 133–162.

  67. Bless, R., “Washburn Observatory,” paper, 1978, available at http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~varda/Long_Wash_Obs_Text.html.

  68. Ibid.

  69. Upton, W., “The Ladd Observatory,” Sidereal Messenger 10 (1891).

  70. Brown, C., “From Boom to Bust: Humphrey Barker Chamberlin, 1880–1894,” paper, 1980, p. 8, available at www.denverastrosociety.org/dfiles/chambio.pdf.

  71. Leonard, D. L., The History of Carleton College: Its Origin and Growth, Environment and Builders (Chicago, 1904), pp. 233–234.

  72. Menke, D., “Dinsmore Alter and the Griffith Observatory,” Planetarian 16, no. 4 (1987).

  73. Loomis, “Astronomical Observatories in the United States,” p. 42. The 6.3-inch Merz equatorial cost $1,833, and a Young meridian, $800.

  74. For the tradition of the “Grand Amateur” astronomer in Great Britain, see Chapman, A., The Victorian Amateur Astronomer: Independent Astronomical Research in Britain 1820–1920 (London, 1999).