Published: North Adams, Mass., 1877 It’s difficult to overstate the importance of the railroad during the 19th century. As it shrank physical distance with land speeds that were unprecedented in human history, rail transportation revolutionized the mobility of people as well as of material goods. But there are certain landscapes that rails cannot efficiently traverse: mountains, for example, get in the way of trains, which don’t like steep grades. As a result, tunnel construction became a widespread and crucially important engineering pursuit in the 1800s. Construction of the Hoosac Tunnel in the Berkshires exemplifies the ingenuity, the expense, the political […]

Published: Boston, 1876 Although it lacks a visual punch, this article concerning Alexander Graham Bell’s research on the telephone marks a pivotal moment in the history of technology. Presented without illustration, and comprising a mere ten pages within volume XII of the Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the article resided in MIT’s open stacks until fairly recently. In it, Bell describes the first successful transmission of human speech via the telephone: “I placed the membrane of the telephone near my mouth, and uttered the sentence, ‘Do you understand what I say?’ Presently an answer was returned […]

Published: Philadelphia, 1875 The British invention of the steam locomotive in the late 18th Century was not only an essential stimulus of the Industrial Revolution; it was the single most important practical application of steam technology ever.  American engineers were well aware of these developments and for decades volleyed new ideas across the Atlantic with their European counterparts.  By the 1840s, the industry was booming, and American railways spread from eastern seaboard to western frontier. It is little surprise that the dominant American railroad of the 19th and early 20th Centuries was headquartered in Pennsylvania, an early nexus of industrial […]

Published: New York, 1874 At MIT, we know Francis Amasa Walker as the Institute’s third president and the namesake of Building 50, but few realize how versatile and prominent he was even before taking the helm at MIT. Walker was a veteran of the Union Army, a newspaper journalist and editor, Chief of the Government’s Bureau of Statistics, superintendent of the Ninth (1870-1872) and Tenth (1879-1881) United States Censuses, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and professor of political economy and history in the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University before coming to MIT as President. It’s quite a list of achievements […]

Published: London, 1873 Maxwell’s Equations: a set of four linear partial differential equations that summarize the classical properties of the electromagnetic field. They’re seared into the brains of all students who pass through an introductory class on electricity and magnetism. They’re so beautiful that budding physicists have been known to sport them as tattoos. These four equations come from the work of James Clerk Maxwell, a giant of physics whose contributions were foundational to the study of electricity and magnetism. Einstein considered the “change in the conception of reality” brought about by Maxwell “the most profound and the most fruitful […]

Published: London, 1872 Touching on everything from seismic activity to subterranean life, Dr. Hartwig’s account of the world beneath our feet was popular enough to warrant publication of several editions. Who, indeed, could resist his inspiring prose?  “There lie concealed the mysterious laboratories of fire,” the author writes of the underground, intending “to describe the wonders of this hidden world in their various relations to man, now raising him to wealth, and now dooming him to destruction.”  For those seeking a sometimes sensational account of the subterranean world—and for those who couldn’t afford the hefty £7.00 price tag of Jules […]

Published: Boston, 1871 After “a portion of a diseased animal was sold at Faneuil Hall Market” in 1871, resulting in the death of a local butcher, more than a few Bostonians were outraged.  The city promptly undertook this official investigation, which focuses on the deplorable conditions under which cattle were transported and killed. “Under the most favorable circumstances,” the report reads, “they leave the train panting, fevered, and unfit to kill; under the least favorable, a regular percentage of dead animals is hauled out of the cars.”  Perhaps it comes as no surprise to us today as we look back […]

Published: Paris, 1870 Through the years, many members of MIT’s faculty have donated materials and resources to help build the Libraries’ collections.  This volume was presented to the Libraries by Professor Charles R. Cross, an early head of the Physics Department. Cross was the individual who invited Alexander Graham Bell to use MIT’s facilities for research that would result in Bell’s invention of the telephone in 1876. Cross was also a major academic innovator, having developed MIT’s electrical engineering curriculum, the first in the nation. An early MIT graduate, Cross taught at the Institute from 1870 to 1917. He donated […]

Published: London, 1869 This volume illustrates beautifully what could come of a 19th century publisher’s determination to sell books: finely detailed cloth bindings embellished with gold accents, intriguing color plates, and a reader-friendly approach to the sciences. As the author notes in her preface, the book was written “to attract those readers who, unversed in microscopic marvels, might possibly feel repelled by a complete and lengthened treatise.” Her publisher took additional steps to make the volume non-repellent. MIT owns two copies of the third edition of The Microscope; one is red, the other green. An already-attractive cover is rendered even […]

Published: London, ca. 1868 In mid-19th-century Britain, as the Industrial Revolution flourished and the empire prospered, popularized science and natural history became increasingly favored forms of entertainment for the growing middle classes. National museums, world’s fairs and expositions, and public lectures and demonstrations showed off imperial spoils as well as sharing “useful knowledge” and the output of the emerging scientific professions. At the same time, children’s literature was taking off to meet growing demand for educational material. Publishers like Routledge rose to meet this demand, producing such books as Papers for Thoughtful Girls, Jabez Hogg on the Microscope, Rev. J.G. […]