How Scientific Instruments Have Changed Hands

A.D. Morrison-Low, D.Phil. (2000) in Economic History with Physics, University of York, Research Associate at National Museums Scotland since her retirement in 2015. Her recent publications explore the 18th and 19th century instrument trade, and the early history of Scottish photography.Sara J. Schechner, Ph.D. (1988) in History of Science, Harvard University, is the David P. Wheatland Curator of the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments and Lecturer on the History of Science at Harvard University. Her research has focused on time-finding and social change, instruments of glass, colonial astronomy, and workshop practices in America. Paolo Brenni, Ph.D. (1981) in Experimental Physics, University of Zürich, specialized in the history of science and technology. His researches are focused on scientific instruments, instrument making and trade (18th to early 20th centuries). He studied and restored several collections of instruments and he is working at the Fondazione Scienza e Tecnica in Florence.

• Preface viiA. D. Morrison-Low, Sara J. Schechner and Paolo BrenniList of Illustrations ixNotes on Contributors xviColour Plates xix1 Symbiosis and Style: The Production, Sale and Purchase of Instruments in the Luxury Markets of Eighteenth-century London 1Alexi Baker2 Selling by the Book: British Scientific Trade Literature after 1800 21Joshua Nall and Liba Taub3 The Gentle Art of Persuasion: Advertising Instruments during Britain’s Industrial Revolution 43A. D. Morrison-Low4 Some Considerations about the Prices of Physics Instruments in the Nineteenth Century 57Paolo Brenni5 Mathematical Instruments Changing Hands at World’s Fairs, 1851–1904 88Peggy Aldrich Kidwell6 Connections between the Instrument-making Trades in Great Britain and Ireland and the North American Continent 104Gloria Clifton7 European Pocket Sundials for Colonial Use in American Territories 119Sara J. Schechner8 Selling Mathematical Instruments in America before the Printed Trade Catalogue 171Richard L. Kremer9 Trade in Medical Instruments and Colonialist Policies between Mexico and Europe in the Nineteenth Century 212Laura CházaroGeneral Index 227

"this is a volume that helps to broaden our understanding of the complex nature and status of what for convenience we call scientific instruments and to think about them as consumed commodities."Richard Dunn (Royal Museums Greenwich), British Journal for the History of Science 50:1: 149-150."Recommended. Faculty and professionals only"- N. Sadanand (Central Connecticut State University), Choice, 1 May 2017.