Science for the People: Copernicanism and Newtonianism in the Almanacs of Early America

Abstract

No learning can long flourish in an inhospitable climate of public opinion, and in the sciences, as in any other branch of intellectual activity, the measure of support which a people give to the learned is often a result of the contact and exchange between the two. The general acceptance of new ideas may well depend upon the frequency and clarity with which they enter the marketplace, whatever else their virtues. In the first two centuries of American life, the ordinary, literate American, for the annual expenditure of a few pennies, could acquire an insight into the practice of contemporary science, and a general understanding of the physical universe in which he lived. Bound up though it was with the factual miscellanea of everyday life, timetables, the weather, the meetings of local courts or religious societies and a varied assortment of calendrical information, the publication which brought him all these things frequently found space for an essay on popular science. In this role and at a time when the printed word was not yet an overwhelming flood but still cherished and savored, the humble almanac takes on special significance.