A Short Commentary on Percival Lowell’s “Mars as the Abode of Life”

Abstract

Percival Lawrence Lowell was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on March 13, 1855, the eldest son of Augustus and Katherine Bigelow Lowell. A ‘patrician’ American family, the Lowells were financially successful and politically well-connected. Their wealth could be traced to the efforts of an ancestor, Francis Cabot Lowell, Percival’s great-great uncle, who, after visiting the mechanized textile mills of Lancashire, in northern England, returned to the ‘colonies’ with his own ideas to establish a cotton mill at Waltham, MA. Such a venture was to dramatically change the fortunes of the family, propelling them to the top of the social pecking order (Fig. 25.1).