Vaunting the independent amateur: Scientific American and the representation of lay scientists

SUMMARY

This paper traces how media representations encouraged enthusiasts, youth and skilled volunteers to participate actively in science and technology during the twentieth century. It assesses how distinctive discourses about scientific amateurs positioned them with respect to professionals in shifting political and cultural environments. In particular, the account assesses the seminal role of a periodical, Scientific American magazine, in shaping and championing an enduring vision of autonomous scientific enthusiasms. Between the 1920s and 1970s, editors Albert G. Ingalls and Clair L. Stong shepherded generations of adult ‘amateur scientists’. Their columns and books popularized a vision of independent non-professional research that celebrated the frugal ingenuity and skills of inveterate tinkerers. Some of these attributes have found more recent expression in present-day ‘maker culture’. The topic consequently is relevant to the historiography of scientific practice, science popularization and science education. Its focus on independent non-professionals highlights political dimensions of agency and autonomy that have often been implicit for such historical (and contemporary) actors.

The paper argues that the Scientific American template of adult scientific amateurism contrasted with other representations: those promoted by earlier periodicals and by a science education organization, Science Service, and by the national demands for recruiting scientific labour during and after the Second World War. The evidence indicates that advocates of the alternative models had distinctive goals and adapted their narrative tactics to reach their intended audiences, which typically were conceived as young persons requiring instruction or mentoring. By contrast, the monthly Scientific American columns established a long-lived and stable image of the independent lay scientist.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank anonymous referees for their helpful comments.

Disclosure statement

No conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Sean F. Johnston http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6156-9768

Notes

1 For example, amateur enthusiasms during the early twenty-first century have been expressed through so-called ‘maker culture’ and ‘maker spaces’, which encourage and facilitate the sharing of expertise between peers in special cultural environments.

2 The seminal work on the topic is Nathan Reingold, 'Definitions and Speculations: The Professionalization of Science in America in the Nineteenth Century', in The Pursuit of Knowledge in the Early American Republic, ed. by J. Oleson and A. Voss (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976), pp. 33–69. On related case studies, see also John D. Holmfield, 'From Amateurs to Professionals in American Science: The Controversy over the Proceedings of an 1853 Scientific Meeting', Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 114 (1970), 22–36; Allan Chapman, The Victorian Amateur Astronomer (London: Wiley, 1999); Jack Meadows, The Victorian Scientist: The Growth of a Profession (London: British Library, 2004).

3 Oliver R. Impey and Arthur MacGregor, The Origins of Museums: The Cabinet of Curiosities in Sixteenth and Seventeenth-Century Europe (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985); Robert E. Kohler, 'Finders, keepers: collecting sciences and collecting practice', History of Science, 45 (2007), 428–54. On Victorian life-science amateurs see, for example, Elizabeth B. Keeney, The Botanizers: Amateur Scientists in Nineteenth-Century America (Chapel Hill & London: University of North Carolina Press, 1992).

4 See, for example, Thomas P. Hughes, American Genesis: A Century of Invention and Technological Enthusiasm, 1870-1970 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989); John L. Wright, ed., Possible Dreams: Enthusiasm for Technology in America (Dearborn: Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Village, 1992).

5 Ronald Kline, 'Construing "technology" as "applied science": public rhetoric of scientists and engineers in the United States, 1880-1945', Isis, 86 (1995), 194–221.

6 Sevan G. Terzian, 'The 1939-1940 New York World's Fair and the Transformation of the American Science Extracurriculum', Science Education, 93 (2009), 892–914; Sevan G. Terzian, Science Education and Citizenship: Fairs, Clubs, and Talent Searches for American Youth, 1918-1958 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013); Rebecca Stiles Onion, Innocent Experiments: Childhood and the Culture of Popular Science in the United States (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016). On historical studies of education, see, for example, Michael D. Stephens, 'The role of the amateur in nineteenth century American and English scientific education', The Vocational Aspect of Education, 34 (1982), 1–5; E. W. Jenkins, 'School science, citizenship and the public understanding of science', International Journal of Science Education, 21 (1999), 703–10; Michael G. Gibbs and Margaret Berendsen, 'Effectiveness of amateur astronomers as informal science educators', Astronomy Education Review, 5 (2006), 114–26.

7 E.g. Ronald Tobey, The American Ideology of National Science (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press., 1971); W. Patrick McCray, Keep Watching the Skies! The Story of Operation Moonwatch and the Dawn of the Space Age (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008). On historically-informed present-day policy-making, see P. J. Fensham, 'The link between policy and practice in science education: the role of research', Science Education, 93 (2009), 1076–95.

8 This is a theme of the sources cited in footnote 2, but more explicit in Morris Berman, '"Hegemony" and the amateur tradition in British science', Journal of Social History, 8 (1975), 30–50, and Marc Rothenberg, 'Organization and control: professionals and amateurs in American astronomy, 1899–1918', Social Studies of Science, 11 (1981), 305–25. Linking historical and contemporary contexts, see; Richard Edwards, 'The “citizens” in citizen science projects: educational and conceptual issues', International Journal of Science Education, Part B, 4 (2014), 376–91; Sean F. Johnston, Benjamin Franks and Sandy Whitelaw, 'Crowd-sourced science: societal engagement, scientific authority and ethical practice', Journal of Information Ethics, 26 (2017), 49–65.

9 E.g. R. A. Stebbins, 'The amateur: two sociological dimensions', Pacific Sociological Review, 20 (1977), 582–606; R. A. Stebbins, 'Avocational science: the amateur routine in archaeology and astronomy', International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 21 (1980), 34–48; R. A. Stebbins, 'Science amateurs? Rewards and costs in amateur astronomy and archaeology', Journal of Leisure Research, 13 (1981), 289–304.

10 See, for example, Ross McKibbin, 'Work and hobbies in Britain, 1880-1950', in The Working Class in Modern British History: Essays in Honour of Henry Pelling, ed. by J. Lerner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 143–45; Steven M. Gelber, Hobbies: Leisure and the Culture of Work in America (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999); Rachel P. Maines, Hedonizing Technologies: Paths to Pleasure in Hobbies and Leisure (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009).

11 Gary L. Cameron, Public Skies: Telescopes and the Popularization of Astronomy in the Twentieth Century, thesis, Iowa State University (2010), esp. Chapter 4; Kristen Haring, Ham Radio's Technical Culture (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007). The American Astronomical Society has also favoured historical studies of its membership, e.g. Brant L. Sponberg, 'Amateurs in the Early A.A.S.', Washington, DC, 1999.

12 Marcel C. LaFollette, Making Science Our Own: Public Images of Science 1910-1955 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990); Marcel C. LaFollette, Science on the Air: Popularizers and Personalities on Radio and Early Television (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008); Marcel C. Lafollette, Science on American Television: A History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013); John C. Burnham, How Superstition Won and Science Lost: Popularizing Science and Health in the United States (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1987).

13 Susan Sheets-Pyenson, 'Popular science periodicals in Paris and London: The emergence of a low scientific culture, 1820–1875', Annals of Science, 42 (1985), 549–72. For complementary coverage see also Peter Broks, Media Science Before the Great War (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1996) and Peter Bowler, Science for All: The Popularization of Science in Early Twentieth-Century Britain (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009). Ina Heumann, Gegenstücke: Populäres Wissen im transatlantischen Vergleich (1948–1984) (Wien: Böhlau Verlag, 2014), esp. pp. 298–311, explores some of the primary sources and historical actors discussed in the present paper, comparing the popular communication of scientific knowledge after the Second World War in the USA and Germany via Scientific American and Bild der Wissenschaft.

14 Among the more prominent of the genre were Popular Science (1872-), Electrician and Mechanic (1890–1914), Popular Mechanics (1902--) and Technical World Magazine (1904–1923).

15 John Dizer, Tom Swift & Company: “Boys’ Books” by Stratemeyer and Others (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1982); Deirdre Johnson, Edward Stratemeyer and the Stratemeyer Syndicate (New York: Twayne, 1993); Francis J. Molson, 'The boy inventor in American series fiction: 1900-1930', Journal of Popular Culture, 28 (1994), 31–48.

16 The successful format fitted the American cultural and political landscape between about 1910 and 1970. Everett Bleiler argues for the capitalist underpinnings of such juvenile fiction into the twentieth century, noting that the Tom Swift stories communicated ‘economic parables’ about intelligence and hard graft as much as scientific adventure [Everett F. Bleiler, 'From the Newark Steam Man to Tom Swift', Extrapolation, 30.2 (1989), 101–16 (112)]. A late example of such fiction is a series of adventures (1954-71) featuring the updated inventions of the original protagonist’s son, Tom Swift Jr, to capture the enthusiasm of readers of the baby-boom generation.

17 Keith Massie and Stephen D. Perry, 'Hugo Gernsbach and radio magazines: an influential intersection in broadcast history', Journal of Radio Studies, 9 (2002), 264–81; Mike Ashley, The Gernsback Days (Holicong, PA: Wildside Press, 2004).

18 E.g. 'How two boys cultivated plants with electricity', Everyday Mechanics, 1 (3) ; 'How to make an electric water-finder', The Experimenter, 1 (Nov 1924), 24–28.

19 In Britain, a similarly prolific and influential publisher was Frederick J. Camm (1895-1959), promoting active engagement in scientifically-informed hobbies. His first book was on model aircraft, and he founded Practical Wireless (1932-), Practical Mechanics (1933–63), and Practical Television (1934–2008), authoring over a hundred books to become the doyen of amateur British radio in the interwar and postwar periods [Gordon G. Cullingham, F. J. Camm, The Practical Man (Windsor, UK: Thamesweb publishing, 1996)].

20 E. W. Scripps, ‘The American Society for the Dissemination of Science’, in Smithsonian Institution Archives, Washington DC (henceforth SI) RU7091 Box 1 Folder 1 (1919).

21 W. E. Ritter, 'Possible aims of "The American Society for the Dissemination of Science"', Oct 1919, SI RU7091 Box 1 Folder 1.

22 Edwin E. Slosson, 'Notes of a talk to trustees of Science Service at the meeting of 17 June 1921: Hostility toward science', typescript, 17 Jun 1921, SI RU7091 Box 1 Folder 2. See also David J. Rhees, A New Voice for Science: Science Service Under Edwin E. Slosson, 1921-1929, MA dissertation thesis, History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1979). Chemists re-presented their science in positive terms; see David J. Rhees, The Chemists' Crusade: The Rise of an Industrial Science in Modern America, 1907-1922, PhD thesis, University of Pennsylvania (1987), especially Chapter 5.

23 Edwin E. Slosson, 'A new agency for the popularization of science', Science, 53 (1371), 8 Apr 1921, 321–23.

24 An amateur radio club station in Connecticut, 1BCG, transmitted Morse signals around the world in December 1921, and enthusiasts experimented with two-way communication during 1923-24.

25 Herbert Hoover, 'Statement of the Secretary of Commerce at the opening of the Radio Conference on February 27, 1922', press release, 27 Feb 1922, SI RU7091 Box 11 Folder 2. Science Service identified this as citizen empowerment: ‘There is one block of the ether that the conference granted to “that precious thing – the American small boy, to whom so much of this rapid expansion of interest is due”’. [Watson Davis, 'A new addition to our national life: results of the Radio Conference', typescript, n.d., c Mar 1922, SI RU7091 Box 11 Folder 3]

26 Bureau of Standards, 'Construction and operation of a very simple radio receiving equipment', Letter Circular LC 43, 16 Mar 1922, SI RU7091 Box 11 Folder 2; U.S. Dept. of Agriculture and State Agricultural Colleges, 'Cooperative extension work in agriculture and home economics - boys and girls radio clubs', n.d., c 1922, SI RU7091 Box 11 Folder 3.

27 Articles linking youth, innate abilities and scientific enthusiasms were common, e.g. Gaston P. Fontaine, 'Fourteen year old genius makes own successful television receiver', Television: America's First Television Journal, 1 (3) (1929), 76.

28 Watson Davis, 'Make your own telescope', promotion letter to newspaper editors, n.d., 1930, SI RU7091 Box 120 Folder 9.

29 Albert G. Ingalls to Bernard Williams Powell, 10 Apr 1953, Archives Center of the National Museum of American History, Washington DC (henceforth ACNMAH) 0175 Box 8, folder 2 1953.

30 Russell W. Porter, 'The poor man's telescope', Popular Astronomy, 29 (1921), 527–36; see also Horace A Smith, 'Popular Astronomy Magazine and the Development of Variable Star Observing in the United States', The Journal of the American Association of Variable Star Observers, 9 (1980), 40–42. On Porter, whose father and uncle had been inventors, see Berton C. Willard, Russell W. Porter - Arctic Explorer Artist Telescope Maker (Freeport, ME: Bond Wheelwright Company, 1976); Jordan D. Marché II, 'Porter, Russell W.', in Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers (Springer, 2007), pp. 926–27.

31 W. F. A. Ellison, The Amateur's Telescope (Belfast: Carswell & Son, 1920).

32 Albert G. Ingalls, 'The heavens declare the glory of God: how a group of enthusiasts learned to make telescopes and became amateur astronomers', Scientific American, 133 (November 1925), 293–95.

33 Ingalls visited Ellison in Ireland in 1928 [Ingalls to O. Gingerich, letter, 2 Dec 1948, ACNMAH 0175 Ingalls papers, Box 3 file 6].

34 On Ingalls’s influence on the amateur telescope movement, see Thomas R. Williams, ‘Albert Ingalls and the ATM Movement’, Sky & Telescope, 81 (February 1991), 140–42.

35 Albert G. Ingalls, Amateur Telescope Making (New York: Scientific American, 1933 (3rd edition)), cited on pp. vii--viii, x.

36 Ingalls, Amateur Telescope Making (note 35), quotation p. viii.

37 Oscar S. Marshall, 'Russell W. Porter -- some glimpses of the Vermonter who will assist in designing and building the World's Greatest Telescope', The Vermonter, 33 (1928), 118–22; Webb Waldron, 'On a mountaintop in Vermont I found one really happy man', American Magazine, 112 (Nov 1931), 50–53; Anonymous, 'Hobby of a Theta Chi brings happiness to many and scientific recognition and gain to himself', The Rattle of Theta Chi, 20 (1932), 18–22.

38 'From Russell W. Porter', Engineering and Science Monthly, 11 (1948), 32.

39 Russell W. Porter, 'The telescope makers of Springfield, Vermont: one way of absorbing astronomy', Popular Astronomy, 31 (1923), 153–63.

40 Albert G. Ingalls, Amateur Telescope Making Advanced: A Sequel to Amateur Telescope Making (New York: Munn, 1937), p. 306. Among them, as an adolescent in 1948, was the later historian of astronomy, Owen Gingerich [ACNMAH 0175, Box 3 file 6 (correspondence, 1946–1948)].

41 Harlow Shapley, ‘Foreword’, in Ingalls, Amateur Telescope Making (note 35), p. xi.

42 Ingalls, Amateur Telescope Making (note 35), p. xi.

43 Ingalls, Amateur Telescope Making (note 35), p. iii.

44 C. A. Olson, 'A Piece of Glass', in Amateur Telescope Making Advanced, ed. by A. G. Ingalls (New York: Scientific American, 1937), p. 3.

45 Henry David Thoreau, Walden; or, Life in the Woods (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1854).

46 James Stokley to A. G. Ingalls, 28 Mar 1930, SI RU7091 Box 120 Folder 8.

47 James Stokley to A. G. Ingalls, 21 Mar 1930, SI RU7091 Box 120 Folder 8.

48 Albert G. Ingalls to R. W. Porter, n.d. c1930, ACNMAH 0175 Box 22, folder 7.

49 Albert G. Ingalls to J. Stokley, letter, 8 Apr 1930, SI RU7091 Box 120 Folder 8.

50 Usage of the terms ‘amateur radio’ and ‘amateur telescope making’ trebled in print by 1939 and 1945, respectively. The terms ‘telescope making’ and ‘telescope makers’ appeared most frequently in publications between 1930 and the early 1950s, peaking in the late forties, falling by a factor of four by the mid-1950s. See http://books.google.com/ngrams.com (retrieved 7 June 2017).

51 Watson Davis, 'Science teaching and science clubs now and postwar', School Science and Mathematics, 45 (1945), 257–64. On the national and corporate dimensions, see Terzian, Science Education and Citizenship (note 6); Sevam G. Terzian and Leigh Shapiro, 'Corporate Science Education: Westinghouse and the Value of Science in Mid-Twentieth Century America', Public Understanding of Science 24.2 (2015), 147–66.

52 Watson Davis, ‘Science for Everybody’, Science News Letter, 25 Oct 1941.

53 Watson Davis, 'Adventures in Science: Charles A. Federer, amateur astronomy (radio script broadcast 2 Jul 1941)', CBS radio script, 2 July 1941, SI RU7091 Box 388, folder 42. On this radio series, see Sevan G. Terzian, '“Adventures in science”: casting scientifically talented youth as national resources on American radio, 1942–1958', Paedagogica Historica, 44 (2008), 309–25.

54 Albert G. Ingalls to G. Chartier, 11 July 1949, ACNMAH 0175 Box 3, folder 4.

55 See Rhees, A New Voice for Science (note 22). Eventually the organization oversaw some 800 science clubs across the USA and its possessions, and later still in Canada, Portugal and the British West Indies.

56 Watson Davis, ‘Science Clubs and the Future’, in SI RU7091 Box 444 Folder 1 (1948).

57 Watson Davis, 'Adventures in Science: Fourth Annual Science Talent Search (radio script, broadcast 17 Feb 1945)', SI RU7091 Box 391, folder 1, 1945.

58 Lafollette, Science on American Television (note 12).

59 See also Don Herbert, Mr Wizard's Science Secrets (USA: Popular Mechanics Co., 1952). Rather like a junior version of ‘The Amateur Scientist’, the book and programme sought to encourage curiosity and practical skills ‘while learning science, … the part of science that’s fun to investigate for yourself right at home. Milk bottles are your flasks, glasses are your beakers and the whole house is your laboratory’ [p. 5].

60 H. F. Moorhouse, 'The work ethic and leisure activity: the hot rod in post-war America', inThe Historical Meaning of Work, ed. by P. Joyce (New York, 1987), pp. 257–81.

61 Kristen Haring, Ham Radio's Technical Culture (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007).

62 Watson Davis, ‘Adventures in Science: George W. Bailey, President of the American Radio Relay League’, in SI RU 7091 Box 388, folder 36 (1945).

63 AAFI -ATM, 'Personality analysis results', TN News, 1.3 (1948), Oct 2, cited p. 5.

64 Albert G. Ingalls to R. W. Porter, 3 Dec 1954, ACNMAH 0175 Box 8, folder 3.

65 Scientific American magazine, 'An Author's Guide to Scientific American', New York, 1949. On the evolving adult readerships for popular science, see Bruce V. Lewenstein, 'Magazine Publishing and Popular Science After World War II', American Journalism, 6 (1989), 218–34.

66 The changing vision of the imagined readership – as well as their varying commitment to science over engineering – is indicated by successive titles of Ingalls’s column: ‘The Back Yard Astronomer’ (1928–1929), ‘The Amateur Astronomer’ (1929–1935); ‘The Amateur Telescope Maker’ (1935–1937); ‘Telescoptics’ (1937–1948) and, again, ‘The Amateur Astronomer’ (1948–1952).

67 John Morton Stong (son), 'J. Morton Stong', http://www.qsl.net/w0zs/aboutme.html, last updated 2004; [accessed 3 April 2017]; Marjorie Adickes (daughter) to author, email, 14 Apr 2015. On Stong’s manual arts of science, see James E Hammesfahr and Clair L. Stong, Creative Glass Blowing (New York: W. H. Allen, 1968).

68 C. L. Stong to H. Morgenroth, 2 Feb 1955, ACNMAH 0012 Box 4, folder 1.

69 C. L. Stong to H. Morgenroth, 2 Feb 1955, ACNMAH 0012 Box 4, folder 1.

70 C. L. Stong to H. H. Larkin, 11 Sep 1951, ACNMAH 0012 Box 1, folder 1.

71 Albert G. Ingalls to B. W. Powell, 17 Mar 1953, ACNMAH 0175 Box 8, folder 2; Albert G. Ingalls to R. Hayward, 26 Oct 1954, ACNMAH 0175 Box 13, folder 1.

72 C. L. Stong to R. Hayward, 3 Apr 1955, ACNMAH 0012 Box 4, folder 8 (emphasis added).

73 C. L. Stong to A. J. Southgate, 1 Jul 1955, ACNMAH 0012 Box 4, folder 1 (emphasis added).

74 C.L. Stong to S. M. Heumann, 30 Jun 1966, ACNMAH 0012 Box 23, folder 7.

75 C. L. Stong to I. C. Cornog, 4 Mar 1952, ACNMAH 0012 Box 1, folder 4. Only one column was to feature a Westinghouse winner: Carol De Decker on geological analysis [A. G. Ingalls, ‘The Amateur Scientist: Mountain geology and an amateur contribution to a new ruling engine’, Scientific American, June 1952; see ACNMAH 0012 Box 1 folder 3]. Adolescents were occasional contributors, as they had been in Ingalls’s columns. Examples include columns on mouse genetics (Dec 1952), an observatory (Jun 1955), archaeology (Dec 1967) and a spectrometer (Jan 1975).

76 C. L. Stong to C. L. De Decker, 10 Feb 1951, ACNMAH 0012 Box 4, folder 8.

77 C. L. Stong to F. H. H. Roberts Jr, letter, 25 Mar 1952, ACNMAH 0012 Box 1, folder 4. Most columns were illustrated by artist/engineer Roger Hayward, who also illustrated the books of mid-century chemist Linus Pauling and experimental physicist John Strong, aimed at the same readership.

78 Analysis by the author of some 400 ‘Amateur Scientist’ topics, Apr 1953--Jan 1976. Some months’ columns included two or three subjects, and numerous topics had an instrumentation slant, such as recording voiceprints of birdsongs (Feb 1975), apparatus to measure wind speed (Oct 1971) and bio-medical telemetry (Mar 1968). Stong’s 1960 book collection of 56 articles had a similar distribution, with discipline-labelled chapters and contents weighted towards the physical sciences: Astronomy (6), Nuclear Physics (7), Aerodynamics (7), Optics/Light/Heat (7), Mathematical Machines (7) and Earth Sciences (8, featuring instruments to measure seismology, satellite tracking, earth rotation and charge). The other three chapters, located nearer the beginning of the book, were Archaeology (2), Biology (5) and Natural Sciences (5), and dealt principally with experimental procedures such as growing algae, experimenting with animals and performing chemical analysis by electrophoresis.

79 C. L. Stong, ‘The Amateur Scientist: Mostly about how to study artificial satellites without complex equipment’, Scientific American 201 (1948), 98–109; C. L. Stong, ‘The Amateur Scientist: How a persevering amateur can build a gas laser in the home’, Scientific American 211 (1964), 127–34; C. L. Stong, ‘The Amateur Scientist: How to make holograms and experiment with them or with ready-made holograms’, Scientific American 216 (1967), 122–28.

80 Other postwar suppliers of optics parts advertising in Scientific American included the Associated Surplus Company, United Trading Company, F. W. Ballantyne, Columbo Trading Company, A. Cottone, A. Jaegers and Harry Ross, each based in either California or New York.

81 Jessica Wang, American Science in an Age of Anxiety: Scientists, Anticommunism, and the Cold War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999). See also Wendy Swanberg, ‘The Forgotten Censorship of Scientific American in 1950’, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Annual Conference. Chicago, IL, 2008.

82 John L. Rudolphs, Scientists in the Classroom: The Cold War Reconstruction of American Science Education (New York: Palgrave, 2002).

83 The Science Talent Institute, 'Teen-age scientists offer cures for threats to U.S. technological survival', press release, 5 Mar 1956, SI RU7091 Box 330 Folder 5.

84 The American Congress allocated $40 million to the NSF in 1958, eleven times more than in 1952, and its subsequent budgets spiralled upwards to reach one billion dollars in 1983.

85 Science Service, '1955 Science Talent Search winners', press release, 28 Feb 1955, SI RU7091 Box 330 Folder 5.

86 Willy Ley, ‘Foreword’, in Rocket Manual for Amateurs, ed. by Bertrand R. Brinley (New York: Ballantyne, 1960), p. vi.

87 Charles M. Parkin Jr, The Rocket Handbook for Amateurs (New York: John Day, 1959).

88 Brinley, Rocket Manual for Amateurs (note 85), p. 16 (original emphases).

89 E.g. Orville Carlisle (1917–1988), a pyrotechnics enthusiast, developed the ‘Rock-A-Chute’ in 1954, a development of traditional fireworks technology. With G. Harry Stine (1928–1997) – a physicist and writer of popular science who had worked at White Sands Proving Grounds, the Naval Ordnance Missile Test Facility and Martin during the 1950s – he founded the National Association of Rocketry in 1957. Fireworks manufacturer Vernon Estes (b. 1930), supplying ‘kits, engines, information and supplies for future space scientists’, sold a growing variety of model rockets in the form of nearly-ready-to-fly packages, complete kits of rocket parts, tools and ‘scientists’ specials’ – grab bags of varied components – for the self-constructor [G. Harry Stine, 'The roots of model rocketry', Sport Rocketry (Jan-Feb 1998), 6–9; G. Harry Stine, The Handbook of Model Rocketry (Chicago: Follet Publishing, 1965)].

90 Estes sold associated items to broaden scientific expertise further. An ‘Altiscope’, provided with trigonometric tables, allowed maximum altitude to be measured; a ‘2-D Computer’ consisting of graph paper and rulers could plot the trajectory of a flight, and slide rules could help compute rocket performance and stability. Both accessories fitted neatly into high school mathematics curricula. With them, the hobbyist could adopt the roles of designer, flight technician and applied scientist.

91 Estes Industries Inc, Model Rocket Supplies Catalog No. 651 (Penrose, CO: Estes Industries Inc, 1966). From the early 1950s, Edmund had pioneered the educational market by packaging low-cost collections of components and demonstration supplies for schools, and during the late 1960s the firm expanded into home meteorology apparatus, chemistry kits and science gadgets to satisfy the rising interest in amateur science and technology. Other firms of the period aimed at other markets, notably Atomic Laboratories Inc (Berkeley, CA) specializing in kits marketed directly to schools, and Science Associates (Princeton, NJ) focusing on equipment for industrial prototype and training departments [American Institute of Physics Niels Bohr Library and Archives (College Park, MD), ‘Education and Manpower Division’ box 4, ‘American apparatus firms correspondence’, 1958].

92 W. Patrick McCray, 'Amateur scientists, the International Geophysical Year, and the ambitions of Fred Whipple', Isis, 97 (2006), 634–58; W. Patrick McCray, Keep Watching the Skies! The Story of Operation Moonwatch and the Dawn of the Space Age (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008).

93 C. L. Stong, ‘Preface’, The Scientific American Book of Projects for the Amateur Scientist (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1960), p. xxi.

94 V. Bush, ‘Introduction’, in The Scientific American Book of Projects for the Amateur Scientist, ed. by C. L. Stong, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1960), pp. xviii--xix.

95 For one such biographical account, see Homer Hickam Jr, Rocket Boys (New York: Delacorte, 1998) and footnote 98.

96 The magazine published Stong’s pending columns monthly until Jan 1976, and subsequently reoriented the column towards simple home scientific experiments under physicist Jearl Walker until 1988. It appeared intermittently thereafter without a regular editor until 1995. Monthly columns resumed under Shawn Carlson until 2001.

97 The model of independent innovators and experimenters re-emerged in the home computing movement and, more recently, ‘Maker culture’. The Ingalls/Stong identity for amateurs contrasts with the end-of-century stereotype of the ‘geek’, but links a recognizable culture of autonomous enthusiasts that mutated over the second half of the century from radio hams to electronics hobbyists to software hackers. See, for example, Roli Varma, 'Women in computing: the role of geek culture', Science as Culture, 16 (2007), 359–76 and Douglas Thomas, Hacker Culture (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003).

98 Perhaps because of the no-nonsense correspondence from Ingalls and Stong, their correspondents typically focused on the technical details, and strayed into social dimensions only rarely. Ingalls found a confidante in Bernard Powell, for example, who saw ‘Science as a way of life’, having studied creative writing, philosophy and geology at college, experimented with fossil collecting, radioactivity and micrometeorite detectors [Bernard Williams Powell to A. G. Ingalls, 28 Mar 1953, ACNMAH 0175 Box 8, folder 2]. Stong found his equivalent sounding-board in another traceable amateur, Sylvain (later Sylvan) Heumann (1925–2013), a New Jersey furniture-maker with lifelong interests in ham radio, astronomy, aviation, home computing and new technologies, who contributed not only two articles on home-built lasers to the ‘Amateur Scientist’ column during the 1960s, but also pieces for Sky & Telescope and Experimental Aircraft magazines, and who remained an active amateur into his later years (Wendy Heumann to author, email, 21 Jan 2015; Makerbot llc, ‘We love the Makerbot operators: Sylvan Heumann’, www.makerbot.com/blog/2011/09/09/we-2/ (9 September 2011 [Accessed 16 February 2015])).

99 Particular cases have been explored in studies of amateur meteorology by inter-comparing historical and contemporary practices of non-professional science, e.g. in V. Jankovic, Reading the Skies. A Cultural History of the English Weather, 1650-1820 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001), Carol Morris and Georgina Endfield, 'Exploring contemporary amateur meteorology through an historical lens', Weather, 67 (2012), 4–8, and in the practice of amateur experimental biology, identifying a continuity between Victorian garden practices and the empowerment of present-day non-institutional science (Helen Anne Curry, 'From garden biotech to garage biotech: amateur experimental biology in historical perspective', British Journal for the History of Science, 47 (2014), 539--66).

100 Such citizen science projects have been particularly promoted for astronomy, distributed computing and ecology. See, for example, Eric Paulos, Sunyoung Kim and Stacey Kuznetsov, 'The rise of the expert amateur: citizen science and microvolunteerism', in From Social Butterfy to Engaged Citizen: Urban Informatics, Social Media, Ubiquitous Computing and Mobile Technology to Support Citizen Engagement, ed. by M. Foth, L. Forlano, C. Satchell and M. Gibbs (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011), pp. 167–91; Janis Dickinson and Rick Bonney, eds., Citizen Science: Public Participation in Environmental Research (Ithaca, 2015).

Additional information

Funding

The Author is grateful for the support of this research from grants provided by the Center for the History of Physics of the American Institute of Physics and the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland [grant number 31542].