A survey of the American Observatory Movement, 1800–1850

Abstract

The rapid construction of American observatories began in the third and fourth decades of the nineteenth century following several earlier, unsuccessful attempts to construct a permanent observatory. After the year 1830 or so, observatories were built in increasing numbers by private individuals, colleges, communities and the Federal government. Interest in the study of this period arises both from the eventual success of the general movement which led to some notable observatories, as well as from the dramatic failures which illustrate the reception of this basic science in early nineteenth-century America. In some instances failure resulted from the reliance on a community's financial support which ended with the loss of scientific control of an observatory's activities. Financial support from communities, however, was also responsible in large part for the magnitude of productive observatories where invariably the control of public supported equipment rested among an educational institution or professional astronomers. The American observatory movement developed at first independently of the Federal government primarily because the majority of congress interpreted the Federal constitution as prohibiting direct aid to foster the sciences.