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P. T. Barnum's Circus Fire...
P. T. Barnum's Circus Fire...
Item # 222501
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December 03, 1887
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN: New York, NY, December 3, 1887.
* P.T. Barnum's Circus Fire
* P.T. Barnum's Circus Fire
* Map of the City of Boston
This 16 page issue is in nice condition and contains illustrations of the latest inventions of the day with accompanying text which include: "Main Pumping Engine of the Boston Sewage System", "Fire Engine Tender", "Burning of Rare Animals", "Boston Drainage System - Reservoirs at Moon Island", Map of the "City of Boston", and "Jay Gould's Tomb in Woodlawn".
Historical Background: Scientific American is a popular science magazine, published (first weekly and later monthly) since August 28, 1845, making it the oldest continuously published magazine in the United States. It brings articles about new and innovative research to the amateur and lay audience.
Scientific American (informally abbreviated to "SciAm") roughly has a monthly circulation of 555,000 US and 90,000 international as of December 2005. Though a well-respected magazine, it is not a peer-reviewed scientific journal in the sense of Nature; rather, it is a forum where scientific theories and discoveries are explained to a wider audience. In the past this target audience was other scientists in unrelated fields, but it is now educated general readers interested in science issues. The magazine American Scientist covers similar ground, but at a level more suitable for the professional science audience in much the same way Scientific American used to.
The magazine was founded by Rufus Porter as a single-page newsletter, and throughout its early years Scientific American put much emphasis on reports of what was going on at the US patent office. It reported on a broad range of inventions that includes perpetual motion machines, an 1849 device for buoying vessels by Abraham Lincoln, and the universal joint which now finds place in nearly every automobile manufactured. Current issues feature a "this date in history" section, featuring an article originally published 50, 100, and 150 years ago where often-humorous, un-scientific, or otherwise noteworthy gems of science history are featured.
Porter sold the newsletter in 1846 to Alfred Ely Beach and Orson Desaix Munn, and until 1948 it remained owned by Munn & Company. Under the second Orson D. Munn, grandson of the first, it had evolved into something of a "workbench" publication, similar to the 20th century incarnation of Popular Science. In the years after World War II, the magazine was dying. Three partners who were planning on starting a new popular science magazine, to be called The Sciences, instead purchased the assets of the old Scientific American and put its name on the designs they had created for their new magazine. Thus the partners -- publisher Gerard Piel, editor Dennis Flanagan, and general manager Donald H. Miller, Jr. -- created essentially a new magazine, the Scientific American magazine of the second half of the twentieth century. Miller retired in 1979, Flanagan by 1984 when Gerard Piel's son Jonathan became president and editor; circulation had grown fifteen-fold since 1948. In 1986 it was sold to the Holtzbrinck group of Germany, who have owned it since. Donald Miller died in December, 1998, Gerard Piel in September 2004 and Dennis Flanagan in January 2005. John Rennie is the current editor-in-chief.
Historical Background: Scientific American is a popular science magazine, published (first weekly and later monthly) since August 28, 1845, making it the oldest continuously published magazine in the United States. It brings articles about new and innovative research to the amateur and lay audience.
Scientific American (informally abbreviated to "SciAm") roughly has a monthly circulation of 555,000 US and 90,000 international as of December 2005. Though a well-respected magazine, it is not a peer-reviewed scientific journal in the sense of Nature; rather, it is a forum where scientific theories and discoveries are explained to a wider audience. In the past this target audience was other scientists in unrelated fields, but it is now educated general readers interested in science issues. The magazine American Scientist covers similar ground, but at a level more suitable for the professional science audience in much the same way Scientific American used to.
The magazine was founded by Rufus Porter as a single-page newsletter, and throughout its early years Scientific American put much emphasis on reports of what was going on at the US patent office. It reported on a broad range of inventions that includes perpetual motion machines, an 1849 device for buoying vessels by Abraham Lincoln, and the universal joint which now finds place in nearly every automobile manufactured. Current issues feature a "this date in history" section, featuring an article originally published 50, 100, and 150 years ago where often-humorous, un-scientific, or otherwise noteworthy gems of science history are featured.
Porter sold the newsletter in 1846 to Alfred Ely Beach and Orson Desaix Munn, and until 1948 it remained owned by Munn & Company. Under the second Orson D. Munn, grandson of the first, it had evolved into something of a "workbench" publication, similar to the 20th century incarnation of Popular Science. In the years after World War II, the magazine was dying. Three partners who were planning on starting a new popular science magazine, to be called The Sciences, instead purchased the assets of the old Scientific American and put its name on the designs they had created for their new magazine. Thus the partners -- publisher Gerard Piel, editor Dennis Flanagan, and general manager Donald H. Miller, Jr. -- created essentially a new magazine, the Scientific American magazine of the second half of the twentieth century. Miller retired in 1979, Flanagan by 1984 when Gerard Piel's son Jonathan became president and editor; circulation had grown fifteen-fold since 1948. In 1986 it was sold to the Holtzbrinck group of Germany, who have owned it since. Donald Miller died in December, 1998, Gerard Piel in September 2004 and Dennis Flanagan in January 2005. John Rennie is the current editor-in-chief.
Category: Post-Civil War
No Longer Available
