Theme

History of Science

Featured Items

Detail of a printed book shows a full-page colored illustration of a plant with insects on it. On the opposite page, text in Latin is visible.

Dissertatio de generatione et metamorphosibus insectorum Surinamensium

Maria Sibylla Merian
1719
Detail of a printed book shows text in English reading "Appendix" at the top of the page.

Medical Inquiries and Observations

Benjamin Rush
1789
Detail of an engraved map shows the direction of flow of the "Golfe de Floride." Other text in French labels nearby landmarks such as "Isles de Bahama.'

The Gulf Stream flowing northwards…

Benjamin Franklin
1778
Detail of manuscript diary shows childlike drawings of a house, a person, and a ship.

Diary of Captain Samuel Tillinghast

Samuel Tillinghast
1761-1766
Detail from a printed text shows questions and follow-up answers about astronomy.

An astronomical and geographical catechism. For the use of children.

Caleb Bingham
1795
Detail of an engraved, hand colored full-page illustration shows a yam.

A collection of exotics, from the Island of Antigua

Lydia Byam
1797
Detail of a hand colored map, engraved in copper, shows Latin text.

Claudii Ptolemaei Cosmographaie [sic]

Ptolemy
1477
Detail of a printed book shows full-page illustrations of plants. Text in Latin also visible.

Aromatum, et simplicium aliquot medicamentorum apud Indos

Garcia de Orta
1567

Related

illustration of sixteenth-century technological developments

Drugs from the Colonies: The New American Medicine Chest

Fall - Winter 2011
Europeans and Africans at the shore

Voyage to the Islands: Hans Sloane, Slavery, and Scientific Travel in the Caribbean

Spring - Summer 2012
agave or maguey

Atlantic Materia Medica

Winter - Spring 2007
men work inside a mine

Subterranean Worlds: Under the Earth in the Early Americas

Spring - Summer 2015
a Mohawk man teaches children in a schoolhouse

Controlling Colonial Impressions

May-October 2019
map showing water, volcanoes, the sun, mountaintops, waterways and towns

Bodies of Water/Bodies at Work

Summer - Fall 2018
printed title page of a religious text in Algonquian and English
I found it at the JCB

A healthy conversion: John Eliot, Robert Boyle, and the Algonquians

January 1
16th century charts documenting the calculations of solar and lunar calculations
New Acquisitions

Eclipses in Print

October 24

See Also

Commodities and Food

Atlas