Celestial Mapping: Early American Contributions

Chair: Nick Kanas, UCSF


Although the Europeans set the standards for celestial cartography in the 1600s and 1700s, many of its elements took root and prospered in the new United States. In the period between the American Revolutionary and Civil Wars, a number of books, atlases, and prints were produced that oriented Americans to the heavenly sphere. Some of the contributions from these sources brought the traditions of the great European star atlases to this new country, allowing Americans to orient themselves to the positions of the stars and other heavenly bodies through coordinate systems, memorable constellation figures, and tables that gave their locations in the sky throughout the year. Other contributions emphasized the appearance of the Moon, planets, and other celestial objects by diagramming how they were arranged around the Sun and by showing how they looked as seen through the telescope. This educated Americans to the value of observation. The results of these efforts were the popularization of astronomy and the garnering of public support for the building of world-class telescopes in the United States by the mid-1800s. America has been a leader in the observation and exploration of the heavens ever since.


There were many threads that led to these developments that we will discuss:


1. The Almanacs

  1. Benjamin Franklin

  2. Benjamin Banneker

  3. Nathan Daboll

2. Texts on Geography

  1. Jedidiah Morse: “the father of American geography”

  2. Enoch Gridley engraving

3. Celestial Atlases

  1. The naming of Uranus in the US and England

  2. Elijah Burritt’s book and atlas

4. Educating the Public

  1. John Vose

  2. Asa Smith

  3. The naming of Neptune in the US and Europe

  4. O.M. Mitchel: “the father of American astronomy”


I will bring copies of an article I wrote on this subject entitled: “Early American Contributions to Celestial Cartography” (Journal of the International Map Collectors’ Society, Issue 96, pp. 15-26, Spring 2004). Other references of interest:


1. Jaffe, Bernard. Men of Science in America. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1958.

2. Cerami, Charles. Benjamin Banneker: Surveyor, Astronomer, Publisher, Patriot.

New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2002.

3. Daboll, Nathan. The New-England Almanac and Farmers’ Friend. Norwich,

Connecticut: L. & E. Edwards, 1847.

4. Morse, Jedidiah. The American Universal Geography. Boston: Isaiah Thomas and

Ebenezer T. Andrews, 1793.

5. Morse, Jedidiah. The American Universal Geography. Boston: Isaiah Thomas and

Ebenezer T. Andrews, 1812.

6. Kidwell, Peggy. “Elijah Burritt and the ‘Geography of the Heavens’”. Sky &

Telescope, January 1985, pp. 26-28.

7. Allen, Richard. Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning. New York: Dover, 1963.

8. Burritt, Elijah. The Geography of the Heavens. New York: Huntington and Savage,

1845.

9. Mattison, Hiram. Atlas Designed to Illustrate Burritt’s Geography of the Heavens.

New York: Mason Brothers, 1856.

10. Burritt, Elijah. Atlas Designed to Illustrate the Geography of the Heavens. New

York: Huntington and Savage, 1835.

11. Vose, John. A Compendium of Astronomy. Windsor, Vermont: N.C. Goddard and

Co., 1836

12. Smith, Asa. Smith’s Illustrated Astronomy. New York: Ivison & Phinney, ca. 1860.

13. Ronan, Colin. Their Majesties’ Astronomers. London: The Bodley Head Ltd., 1967.

14. Mitchell, O.M. Popular Astronomy. New York: Albert Mason, 1874.