Natural Philosophy and Public Spectacle in the Eighteenth Century

Schaffer, Simon

doi:10.1177/007327538302100101

Cited by 249 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…9 As we know from various studies, public demonstrations played an important role in natural philosophy during the second half of the eighteenth century. 10 Nairne's observation can be taken as an indication that the solar microscope was considered to be adequate for these entertaining demonstrations. Joseph Priestley's description of the microscope offers a more detailed explanation of this popularity :…”

Section: The Instrumentmentioning

confidence: 99%

The enlightened microscope: re-enactment and analysis of projections with eighteenth-century solar microscopes

Heering¹

2008

Br J Hist Sci

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Section: The Instrumentmentioning

confidence: 99%

The enlightened microscope: re-enactment and analysis of projections with eighteenth-century solar microscopes

Heering¹

2008

Br J Hist Sci

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“…Aspects of mathematical and humanistic geography were taught and discussed in many private and public contexts including the many sites associated with public culture such as coffee houses, taverns, libraries, public lectures, universities and literary and philosophical institutions stimulated by the naval, military and commercial demands of the British economy and empire. 9 The commercial and cultural demand for geographical education was also manifested in the growth of private and domestic education and evident in the demand for geographical textbooks and games. It is also evident in many dissenting academies and grammar schools which tried to respond to the demand by following the example of commercial schools in teaching geographical subjects within a biblical and classical framework despite the curriculum restrictions they faced due to the nature of endowments.…”

Section: English Geographical Educationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pestalozzi, Fellenberg and British nineteenth-century geographical education

Elliott

Daniels

2006

Journal of Historical Geography

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“…Lynn, working across a range of national contexts, have all noted how the scientific discourses of the Enlightenment were produced, to one degree or another, within a social framework. 6 Discussing the development of chemistry in Britain, Golinski, for example, emphasizes the complex and increasingly problematic relationship between natural philosophers and those they sought to inform. "Because of the close relationship between scientific practice and the forms of public life," he observes, "the development of chemistry was shaped by dramatic changes in the constitution of civic culture at the end of the eighteenth century.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“Balloon Madness”: Politics, Public Entertainment, the Transatlantic Science of Flight, and Late Eighteenth-Century America

Pethers

2010

Hist Sci

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A note on versions:The version presented here may differ from the published version or from the version of record. If you wish to cite this item you are advised to consult the publisher's version. Please see the repository url above for details on accessing the published version and note that access may require a subscription.For more information, please contact eprints@nottingham.ac.uk Declaring that Deeker "is perfectly acquainted with the nature and construction of AIR BALLOONS," the broadside then went on to announce that: "As the novelty of an exhibition of this nature may afford some amusement to the Public, at the request of a number of respectable characters in this city, he proposes to open a SUBSCRIPTION for supplying the materials necessary for constructing and filling one of twenty-five feet diameter."1 Despite the anonymous author's faith in the generosity, and curiosity, of the American public, however, Deeker's visit to the new republic was not universally welcomed. In late July, for example, an exasperated citizen of Pennsylvania wrote a letter to the Freeman's Journal which addressed itself "To the Air-Balloon Maker." "Confound you and your ballooning -had you built such a thing and gone off in it to Nova-Scotia, Rhode Island, or to old nick, it would not signify sixpence to me," the author complained, "but you are so full of your 2 invention, that nothing less than the public papers must give information of your intended flight; by which you have set my whole house in confusion." 2 Although clearly shot through with comic hyperbole (the author goes on to describe how he lost his wife after she built her own balloon and disappeared into the heavens), this essay in the Freeman's Journal is nonetheless making a very serious point. Ballooning in late eighteenth century America was not only hugely popular and much discussed, it was also a source of persistent anxiety.Thus when an anonymous correspondent wrote to The Salem Gazette about an "aerostatick balloon" he had seen on display in Maryland it was with a mixture of optimism and trepidation. "I am pleased in reflecting how much our countrymen have done to improve the various branches of science, and doubt not our being as much The public interest in ballooning, as both these 3 writers suggest, had changed it into a form of spectacle, enlarging its remit from education to entertainment, and pushing it beyond the realm of scientific investigation into the hands of a rapidly commercializing, increasingly mercurial urban populace.Indeed, the "balloon Madness," as my epigraph from the American Herald calls it, was an historical episode in which one of the public's primary concerns was with its own capacity to be infatuated, dissatisfied and misled. The capacity of ballooning to glide through so many different discourses as "symbol, simile, and metaphor" (in the words of Richard P. Hallion), confirms that, as significant as it may or may not have been scientifically, ballooning had a larger importance as a catalyst for the more general apprehensions an...

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Natural Philosophy and Public Spectacle in the Eighteenth Century

Cited by 249 publications

References 19 publications

The enlightened microscope: re-enactment and analysis of projections with eighteenth-century solar microscopes

The enlightened microscope: re-enactment and analysis of projections with eighteenth-century solar microscopes

Pestalozzi, Fellenberg and British nineteenth-century geographical education

“Balloon Madness”: Politics, Public Entertainment, the Transatlantic Science of Flight, and Late Eighteenth-Century America

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