BEFORE THE PLANETARIUM: THE ASTRAL LANTERN AND COSMOSPHERE OF FRANKLIN HENRY BAILEY

Abstract

Civil War veteran Franklin Henry Bailey traveled the Midwestern and Northeastern parts of the United States lecturing on astronomy with the aid of his two inventions, the Astral Lantern and the Cosmosphere. Bailey's Astral Lantern was a portable light box that provided illuminated representations of the night sky; his Cosmosphere combined terrestrial and celestial globes and was intended to impress general audiences. The ambitious entrepreneur's efforts to promote and sell his educational inventions would not be as successful as he hoped, but his story sheds light on astronomy popularization in the post-Civil War United States as well as on the career dynamics of itinerant science lecturers who attempted to educate and entertain the American public.