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Reflections of American Science and Technology at the New York Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1853

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

Robert C. Post
Robert C. Post
Affiliation:
Robert C. Post is editor-in-chief of Technology and Culture, the international quarterly of the Society for the History of Technology, and of Railroad History, the bulletin of the Railway and Locomotive Historical Society. He is employed by The National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C. 20560.
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Extract

The New York Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations was the first attempt to pursue the aims and imitate the success of the great London exhibition of 1851. The most remarkable thing about that event had been its setting, dubbed by Punch the “Crystal Palace.” Though a number of visitors from the United States had aired the notion of staging an American Crystal Palace exhibition, the first tangible plans were devised by Edward Riddle, who has served as U.S. Commissioner to the London Crystal Palace. Riddle was a Bostonian, but New York was clearly the place for such a venture, and early in 1852 the New York Board of Aldermen granted a concession on a tract just west of the Croton Reservoir (at Sixth Avenue between 40th and 42nd). Soon afterward, however, Riddle had to relinquish control of the enterprise to a new group of backers, all New Yorkers with close ties to Wall Street, Washington, and London. Included among them were August Belmont, Alexander Hamilton, Jr., William Cullen Bryant, Edward K. Collins, and members of such families as the Schuylers and the Livingstons. Their leader was Theodore Sedgwick, a well-connected lawyer with a reputation as an eminent student of judicial and political reform, and with ties to the world of letters through his friend Bryant and his aunt, the novelist Catherine Maria Sedgwick.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 17 , Issue 3 , December 1983 , pp. 337 - 356
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

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References

1 From Sedgwick's first annual report to the stockholders, October 1852, quoted in Hyman, Linda, Crystal Palace/42 Street/1853–54 (New York: City Univ. of New York, 1974)Google Scholar. This publication, prepared in conjunction with an exhibit and symposium sponsored by the CUNY Graduate Centre, includes the best brief summary of the exhibition's background and history.

2 This was despite the fact that for a period of more than 40 years applications were rarely if ever measured against criteria of novelty, originality, or utility. See “Report: The select committee appointed to take into consideration the state and condition of the Patent Office…,” Senate Doc. No. 338, 24 Cong., 1 sess., 28 04, 1836Google Scholar.

3 As I have suggested elsewhere (“‘Liberalizers’ Versus ‘Scientific Men’ in the Antebellum Patent Office,” Technology and Calture, 16 [1976], 24–54Google Scholar), one must be very wary about extrapolating generalizations about the pace of invention from patent statistics. But the number of patents granted in the 60 years preceding 1853 was less than 2 percent of the number during the 60 years following; a change on this order of magnitude is obviously of momentous significance.

4 See “Mineral and Mining Products,” Science and Mechanism: Illustrated by Examples in the New York Exhibition, 1853–54, ed. Goodrich, C. R. et al. (New York: G. P. Putnam and Co, 1854), pp. 1–58Google Scholar.

5 For a cogent statement on behalf of the professionalizers, see “Address Delivered by Joseph Henry, L.L.D., President of the Metropolitan Mechanics' Institute at the Closing of its First Exhibition,” A Record of the First Exhibition of the Metropolitan Mechanics' Institute (Washington: H. Polkinhorn, 1853)Google Scholar.

6 Richards, William C., A Day at the New York Crystal Palace and How to Make the Most of It (New York: G. P. Putnam and Co., 1853), p. 16Google Scholar

7 Rosenberg, Nathan, ed., The American System of Manufactures (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press, 1969), p. 20Google Scholar.

8 Richards, p. 68.

9 See Report of the Commissioner of Patents for the Year 1850 (et seq.); also, New York Industrial Exhibition: Special Report of Mr. Joseph Whitworth (London: Harrison and Sons, 1854, reprinted in Rosenberg, pp. 329–89)Google Scholar; and, for a synthesis, Fisher, Marvin, Workshops in the Wilderness: The European Response to American Industrialization, 1830–1860 (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1967)Google Scholar.

10 The absence of Robbins & Lawrence was especially noteworthy, since that firm had exhibited its rifles at London in 1851 and greatly impressed British machine-tool makers. Yet, even at the Centennial, where everybody is supposed to have exhibited, there were very conspicuous absences – for one, another major designer and manufacturer of machine tools, William Bement, a Philadelphia firm.

11 Calvert, Monte A., “American Technology at World Fairs, 1851–1876” (unpub. M.A. thesis, University of Delaware, 1963), p. 64Google Scholar.

12 Silliman, Benjamin Jr and Goodrich, C. R., eds., The World of Science, Art, and Industry Illustrated from Examples in the New York Exhibition, 1853–54 (New York: G. P. Putnam and Co., 1854), P. 7Google Scholar.

13 As in nearly all areas of the history of American technology, the pertinent literature here is spotty. On McCormick, there is a fine chapter in Hounshell, David A.'s “From the American System to Mass Production: The Development of Manufacturing Technology in the United States, 1850–1920” (unpub. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Delaware, 1978)Google Scholar; we have masterful if regrettably brief essays on Stephenson the man and the company by White, John H. Jr, in Horsecars, Cable Cars and Omnibuses (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1974), pp. vii–xviiiGoogle Scholar; on Woodworth, the best source in old but workmanlike: Tomkins, C. R., A History of the Planing Mill (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1889), p. 7 ffGoogle Scholar.

14 Scholarly biographies of most of these men remain to be written; the best at present is on Morse: Mabee, Carleton, The American Leonardo (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1943)Google Scholar.

15 Richards, p. 114.

16 “Vergnes' Electro-Magnetic Engine,” Scientific American, 18 02 1854, p. 184Google Scholar. On the insuperable difficulties afflicting battery-powered motors, refer to my articles, “The Page Locomotive: Federal Sponsorship of Invention in Mid-19th-Century America,” Technology and Culture, 13 (1972), 140–169CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and “Electro-Magnetism as a Motive Power: Robert Davidson's Galvani of 1842,” Railroad History, 130 (1974), 5–22Google Scholar.

17 See Cooper, Grace Rogers, The Invention of the Sewing Machine (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1968), chap. IIGoogle Scholar; Mayr, Otto, Feedback Mechanisms in the Historical Collections of the National Museum of History and Technology (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1971), pp. 27–28Google Scholar; King, W. James, The Development of Electrical Technology in the 19th Century: 2. The Telegraph and the Telephone (Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1962), pp. 300–03Google Scholar; Vogel, Robert M., The Engineering Contributions of Wendel Bollman (Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1964), esp. pp. 79–90Google Scholar; “Tobacco Pressing Machine,” Scientific American, 17 09 1853, p. 4Google Scholar; “Machine for Pegging Boots and Shoes,” Scientific American, 8 10 1853, p. 25Google Scholar.

18 Richards, p. 111.

19 Greeley, Horace, Art and Industry as Represented in the Exhibition at the Crystal Palace (New York: Redfield, 1853), p. 305Google Scholar. Unlike the other full-scale engines, the Belle did not run any machinery.

20 With American inventors of heroic stature, myth and reality are virtually inseparable and it seems just as well to consider myth as reality. My favorite treatment of this theme is one that was staged at a banquet in 1936 commemorating the hundredth anniversary of the nation's patent system. The scenario was set by Charles F. Kettering: “I have standing back of me four drummers of the United States Army Band. As they sound the drum rolls the Voice of Progress, speaking from the Eastern Air Line transport plane high above Washington will reveal the names of those to whom this meeting and our Nation in recognition of their services to the American people do most signal honor.” Punctuated by the drum corps, the “Roll of Honor” was revealed from the skies: Fulton, , Whitney, , Morse, , Goodyear, , McCormick, , Howe, , Westinghouse, , Bell, , Edison, , Mergenthaler, Ottmar, Hall, Charles Martin, and Wright, Wilbur. Centennial Celebration of the American Patent System (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1936), p. 62Google Scholar. For further analysis, see Post, Robert C., “The American Genius,” The Smithsonian Book of Invention (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1978), pp. 22–31Google Scholar.

21 The awards were a “sorry affair,” Benjamin Silliman Jr., confided to Theodore Sedgwick, 1 Feb. 1854 (Crystal Palace Papers, New-York Historical Society). See also Steen, Ivan D., “America's First World's Fair,” New-York Historical Society Quarterly, 47 (1963), 280Google Scholar.

22 See Vogel, Robert M., “Steam Power,” in 1876: A Centennial Exhibition, ed. Post, Robert C. (Washington, D.C.: National Museum of History and Technology, 1976), pp. 29–33Google Scholar.

23 Silliman and Goodrich, p. 6. The role of the so-called “American System of Manufactures” in American industrial and labor history is finally beginning to receive the breadth and depth of study it deserves. See Mayr, Otto and Post, Robert C., eds., Yankee Enterprise: The Rise of the American System of Manufactures (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1981)Google Scholar.

24 Greeley, p. 300.

25 “Biram's Anemometer,” Silliman and Goodrich, p. 12; Richards, p. 123.

26 Richards, p. 142.

27 Association for the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations. Official Awards of Juries (New York: Wm. C. Bryant & Co., 1853), pp. 34–38Google Scholar.

28 Multhauf, Robert P., Holcomb, Fitz, and Peate: Three 19th Century American Telescope Makers (Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1962), p. 158Google Scholar. Messrs. Pike and Fitz have since become neighbours again, each being the subject of an exhibit in the Hall of Physical Sciences of the National Museum of American History.

29 Silliman and Goodrich, p. 39.

30 Silliman and Goodrich, p. xii.

31 Dupree, A. Hunter, Science in the Federal Government (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957), p. 55Google Scholar.

32 Reingold, Nathan, “Alexander Dallas Bache: Science and Technology in the American Idiom,” Technology and Culture, 11 (1970), 165CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

33 Silliman and Goodrich, p. 39.

34 Reingold, Nathan, ed., Science in Nineteenth Century America: A Documentary History (New York: Hill and Wang, 1964), p. 152Google Scholar.

35 “Topographical and Hydrographical Surveys; Charts and Maps,” New York Industrial Exhibition. Special Report of Sir Charles Lyell (London: Harrison and Sons, 1854), p. 39Google Scholar.

36 Dupree, p. 104.

37 Post, Robert C., “Science, Public Policy, and Popular Precepts: Alexander Dallas Bache and Alfred Beach as Symbolic Adversaries,” The Sciences in the American Context: New Perspectives, ed. Reingold, Nathan (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1979), pp. 77–98Google Scholar.

38 Silliman and Goodrich, p. 40. See also American Association for the Advancement of Science, Report on the History and Progress of the American Coast Survey Up to the Year 1858 (Cambridge: Allen and Farnham, [1858])Google Scholar.

39 “The Report of the Superintendent of the Coast Survey, showing the progress of that work during the year ending November, 1849,” Senate Doc. No. 5, 31 Cong., 1 sess., 27 12 1849, p. 2Google Scholar.

40 Dupree, p. 101.

41 One of Maury's handicaps, according to a leading authority, was that “he did not measure up to a set of ill-defined and largely unspoken standards of behavior, often manifested in minor matters of style and tone, but derived from a concept of the ideal scientific life.” ( Reingold, Nathan, “Two Views of Maury…and a Third,” Isis, 55 [1964], 372Google Scholar.) I take this as an implication that Maury was not sufficiently restrained in promoting himself; if so, the differences in “style and tone” between Maury and Bache, at the Crystal Palace at least, must have been exceedingly subtle.

42 Although there is a full-length biography of Davis by his son and namesake, , Life of Charles Henry Davis, 1807–1877 (Boston: Houghton, Miffin and Company, 1899)Google Scholar, more astute is the sketch by Miller, Lillian B. in The Lazzaroni: Science and Scientists in Mid-Nineteenth Century America (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1972), p. 42–48Google Scholar.

43 Coleman, Earle E., “The Exhibition in the Palace: A Bibliographic Essay,” Bulletin of the New York Public Library, 64 (1960), 471Google Scholar.

44 Silliman and Goodrich, p. xii.

45 “Gifts of Science to the Arts,” Silliman and Goodrich, p. 10–11. It is perhaps worth mentioning that the historical evidence for such an assertion is thin.

46 Charles Henry Davis, “The United States Coast Survey,” Silliman and Goodrich, p. 40.

47 “Latitudes and Longitudes – Coast Survey Methods,” Silliman and Goodrich, pp. 121–22, 131.

48 “Saxton's Metallic Deep-Sea Thermometer,” Silliman and Goodrich, pp. 42–43.

49 “Tides and Tide Gauges,” Silliman and Goodrich, pp. 99–101.

50 “Standard Weights and Measures,” Silliman and Goodrich, pp. 117–21.

51 “The Electrotype Process,” Silliman and Goodrich, pp. 53–55.

52 “The American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac,” Silliman and Goodrich, pp. 115–16.

53 Davis, “The United States Coast Survey,” Silliman and Goodrich, p. 41.

54 See Daniels, George H., “The Process of Professionalization in American Science: The Emergent Period, 1820–1860,” Isis, 58 (1967), 151–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

55 John Torrey to Asa Gray, 9 March 1863, quoted in Dupree, p. 141; see also True, Frederick W., ed., A History of the First Half-Century of the National Academy of Sciences 1863–1913 (Washington: National Academy of Sciences, 1913), p. 8Google Scholar.

56 Frazier, Arthur H.'s several monographs that focus on Saxton or treat him incidentally include “Joseph Saxton's First Sojourn at Philadelphia, 1818–1831, and His Contributions to the Independence Hall Clock,” The Smithsonian Journal of History, 3 (Summer 1968), 45–76Google Scholar, and Water Current Meters in the Smithsonian Collections of the National Museum of History and Technology (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1974), pp. 51–56Google Scholar. Still essential for an overview is Henry, Joseph's “Memoir of Joseph Saxton 1799–1873,” National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoirs, 1 (1877), 287–316Google Scholar.

57 I have attempted to deal with this issue in the case of a contemporary of Saxton, 's: Physics, Patents, and Politics: A Biography of Charles Grafton Page (New York: Science History Publications [USA], 1976), chap. IIGoogle Scholar; also, “Stray Sparks from the Induction Coil: The Volta Prize and the Page Patent,” Proceedings of the IEEE, 64 (1976), 1279–1286CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

58 Daniels, George H., “The Pure Science Ideal and Democratic Culture,” Science, 156 (30 06 1967), 1701, 1703CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.