Astronomy by Correspondence

Introduction

The present essay is a case study that aims to shed light on the public by concentrating on the epistolary exchanges between a variety of groups in Mexican society and the director of the National Astronomical Observatory in the first half of the 20th century. Through a very specific example from the history of Mexico, a more general perspective is gained about the different groups, what their interests and attitudes toward science and scientists are, and how they appropriate science. Naturally, the senders of these letters do not represent the whole population. It is very likely that few people in Mexico knew about astronomy, and even fewer had the initiative to write the director of the Observatory. But we can think of the letter writers as representing many other similar people who did not write. The letters contain spontaneous queries and personal information and thus show who these people were and what they wanted. Indirectly, a picture of the science present in culture emerges.

Although the history of science communication is relatively new, it has now been incorporated into the social studies of science. This area of research has developed greatly in the past few decades. There are numerous case studies that concentrate on specific places, periods, and people and several general reflections that have synthesized the state of knowledge in the area at key moments (e.g., Cooter & Pumphrey, 1994; J. A. Secord, 2004; Whitley, 1985). The combination of these two approaches has created a productive area of research and helped convince the community dedicated to science studies that communication within and outside scientific groups is an integral part of science and must be taken into consideration as part of the whole phenomenon (Daum, 2009).

Within the history of science communication, different authors have concentrated on specific parts of this complex social and cultural phenomenon. For example, Biagioli’s (1993) work on Galileo is centered on the role of the scientist as initiator of the communication; Lightman (2007) focuses on the journalists and writers who wrote about science; the essays contained in Cantor and Shuttleworth (2004) concentrate on the material means of communication; and Topham (2004) reviews the practices of the different readers of science.

A lot less is known about the public in the past because fewer documents are preserved that reflect this part of the phenomenon. The British case is a fortunate exception, because many people kept diaries and wrote numerous letters, and much of this has been preserved. A. Secord’s (1994b) work about amateur botanists in 19th-century Britain is a good example in which a lot can be learned about the public through their letters. J. A. Secord’s (2000) work about Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation—the book published anonymously by Robert Chambers—masterfully illustrates the complex web and detailed weaving involved in the production, distribution, uptake, and feedback of knowledge. His work illustrates all the parts and interactions, especially the different kinds of readers of that controversial book.

In addition to helping create a more complete picture of the practice of science, this line of research has also proved to be useful for specialists dedicated to understanding and improving the communication of science today. While both the theoretical approach of philosophy and the practical approach of surveys and evaluations ¹ are mainly prescriptive, a historical approach to the communication of science has the advantage of being descriptive. This allows space for reflection on the manner in which science is communicated and not how it should be.

There are several examples of the use of history specifically for the better understanding of science communication ² (e.g., Bensaude-Vincent, 2001; Biro, 2010; Jensen, 2007; Lewenstein, 1992). However, there is still much to be done. The historical perspective is a powerful tool not only for the understanding of the phenomenon but also to help improve the practice of science communication. The collection of actual examples from the past (both successful and failed) is useful for teaching science communication to beginners because each case can be carefully dissected to observe the parts involved and their interactions. ³ These can also be useful to professionals in the field, since understanding the phenomenon gives them a wider perspective. With the example reviewed in this essay, I hope to give an example of what the historical perspective gives communicators.

Although a lot has been written about the letters exchanged between scientists, there is not much about the role of letters in the public communication of science. In Lightman’s (2004) essay about the British journal Knowledge, we see that letters from the public were published and that they helped shape the magazine. Letters occupy center stage in A. Secord’s (1994a) article about the correspondence between artisan and gentleman botanists. Here we see the importance of the form the communication takes and the way in which the goals of the two groups were attained. The study presented here complements this line of work and contributes to our knowledge of science in history and to the understanding of the appropriation of science in culture, then and now.

Letters from the Public

Joaquín Gallo, ⁴ a geographical engineer, was the director of the National Astronomical Observatory ⁵ between 1915 and 1946. The two decades of correspondence we will study, between 1927 and 1947, ⁶ were a difficult period just after the Mexican Revolution, a civil war that lasted nearly 10 years. After this great upheaval, not only the political but also the economic and social tissues of the country were very badly damaged. In the years following the Revolution, the government had many urgent tasks, such as reestablishing peace in all its territory, restarting the economy, and dealing with debts both inside (like the revolutionary promise to give the land back to the peasants) and outside (a burdensome foreign debt). In the midst of all this, of course, a very unapplied science like astronomy received little support.

During most of the years Gallo was the director, the Observatory had little means and few employees. And despite having many other important duties in trying to keep this institution afloat, Gallo devoted a great part of his time and effort to the communication of astronomy with a variety of audiences. Through the documents preserved in the Fondo Observatorio Astronómico Nacional (FOAN), we know that he wrote pamphlets and newspaper articles, gave conferences and public observation nights, and participated in radio programs. In previous work (Balbuena, 2010; Biro, 2010; Biro & Mateos, 2011), it has been shown that Gallo’s overt motivation for popularizing astronomy was the extension of scientific culture in Mexican society, with the hope of participating in the much desired progress of the nation. However, many of the documents show that he was also very interested in obtaining validation—and hopefully support—from different parts of society like the government, the university, other scientists, and the general public.

In this essay, I will concentrate on the letters that Gallo received from the public. ⁷ This set of documents differs greatly from his other popularization efforts, because in this case the communication originated spontaneously from the public and thus reflects their knowledge and interests. These documents reflect the knowledge about astronomy present in the Mexican culture of the time and the ways in which people appropriated it. ⁸ The population of Mexico at the time was mostly rural and uneducated. There existed only a very small middle class and few educational institutions. Only a small percentage of the population knew how to read and write, and even they did not always have access to newspapers, books, and other sources of information. The hard data would seem to imply very little cultural life at the time; however, the letters Gallo received show something very different.

There are more than 400 letters that arrived at the Observatory from all over Mexico, and most of them came from cities or large towns. The letters preserved are dated between 1927 and 1947, when Gallo retired as the director of the Observatory. Copies of all of Gallo’s replies are also preserved. For the analysis of the present work, I leave out almost half of the letters, because they do not contain the voices of laypeople interested in astronomy. Most of these discarded letters came from geographical engineers, professionals who exchanged technical information with Gallo. The rest of them came from printers or bookstore owners who asked for the ephemerides they needed to make the calendars they sold. Although the publication of calendars and almanacs is an indication of public interest in astronomy, there is no direct information about the final consumer.

As a result of this selection, 204 letters remain. After reading them with special attention to the form, the content, and the tone, I have divided them into three groups that reflect very different subcultures. Taking the activity that each one was most interested in, I have named the groups: “observations”, “theories”, and “daily Life”. We shall look at each group and try to “hear” the voices of the senders of the letters. A portrait of each group emerges by asking three key questions of each one: what and how they knew about astronomy, what they wanted from the director of the Observatory, and what their attitudes toward him were.

Observations

Letters sent by people interested in observing or reading about the phenomena visible in the sky at night are the most abundant (133; 65%). They are generally brief and concise, and through them we learn that most of the correspondents were men (only 6 were women). While some of them were teachers or parents, most were simply people with spare time and with interest in astronomy. In many cases, the authors of these letters define themselves thus: “I am a constant amateur and admirer of Astronomy, that beautiful science which you profess.” ⁹

All of the letters in this group contain one or more questions, and interspersed in these queries are revealed many elements that permit us to know more about the authors. For example, when asking where they can get books on astronomy, they state what they know and where they have read about the subject:

I must tell you that I am rather ignorant on the subject, but I have general knowledge of mathematics and know how to measure the ascension of a star, and what are the declination, longitude, latitude, aberrations, etc., of the stars.

Many mention that they saw Gallo’s articles in the newspaper: “Through ‘EL NACIONAL’ I have learned that this year it will be a century since the foundation of the Astronomical Observatory.” Both from their statements and from Gallo’s replies, it is clear that few books about astronomy were available in Mexico at that time, and most of these were published in Spain or France or were translations. For example, “While I can get Berger’s LE CIEL which you recommend, I have managed to get Tisserand and Andoyer’s Cosmography, in French.”

One frequent query in this group is about something unusual observed at night, such as “a stripe of very bright white, that soon came to seem like a comet, about 3 or 4 times the size of the moon,” or simply “a star that looks like a planet.” Often the questions are about something unknown, for example, “the star which can be seen these days beside the setting Sun” or asking for confirmation of a (re)discovery:

One is a white star, and very bright, and the other is red and less luminous. We observed that both were moving in the same direction (West), but after a few days the red star started to move toward the East while the other continues West. … Can this be Jupiter and Mars?

From these letters, which frequently include drawings or diagrams, we find out how they were observing. The majority state something like “I have observed, naturally, with the naked eye, because I have no telescope.” Fewer say things like, “when I was a small boy, my good mother gave me some very old binoculars and showed me the stars.” And only a very few observed through a telescope: “My telescope is a mere toy, since it only measures 8 centimeters in diameter, ¹⁰ but I have a bit of fun with it.” We also learn what they knew about the stars and planets: “I would like to be able to distinguish the stellar nebulae of Orion and Andromeda, the geographical features of the Moon, and the sunspots.” With his answers, Gallo usually included a copy of one of the informative pamphlets (about general subjects like the constellations, the moon, or the planets) that he wrote.

Amateurs also often asked the best way to obtain a telescope of their own, and we can see that this was not an easy task. Buying one was expensive: “I would not like to pass through this world without having come a bit closer to the infinites which populate space, and this has made me think about acquiring [a telescope], although with sacrifices.” And even getting the materials for making one was very difficult:

Excelsior, the newspaper printed in the capital, published a series of articles that constitute a method for making a Telescope of the Poor … according to the author, 50 pesos is enough to construct a 6-inch diameter telescope, which I have been saving with many difficulties and I now have, but I stumble upon a new difficulty, that I cannot get the objects to construct it, as these are only sold in the Metropolis.

The lucky few who did have telescopes wrote asking for advice on how to best use them. While some correspondents mentioned they had been to the open nights held at the Observatory, others inquired whether this was possible. Only a few mention belonging to, or forming, a group or society of amateur astronomers. ¹¹

Through their queries and specific statements, we can easily extract the answers to our first two questions about what they knew beforehand and what they wanted from the director of the Observatory. Their attitudes, however, must be discovered by more indirect means. A common property of these letters is that while they all contain questions or petitions, none have any kind of proposal or suggestion. This is indicative of their receptivity—almost passivity—and total acceptance of Gallo as the authority on the subject, from whom they felt they had everything to learn. Moreover, many letters began by stating their admiration of Gallo and begging forgiveness for taking up his time. A typical beginning was as follows: “Forgive me for distracting for just a moment your busy and productive attention to ask for advice which I thank you for in advance.”

The phenomenon of amateur science in general (e.g., Vetter, 2011) and of astronomy in particular has been amply studied. This is especially true about Great Britain in the 19th century, when amateur astronomers were important in the development of this field of science (Chapman, 1998). Unlike the cases generally reported (Lankford, 1981a, 1981b; Lightman, 2004; Rothenberg, 1981), here we find no evidence of collaboration between amateurs and professionals. It seems the Mexican amateurs of that time were content with observing interesting heavenly bodies and, at most, imitating the practices of the professionals. Because we are looking at a period well into the 20th century, we might be tempted to think that perhaps what we are seeing is a time when the boundary between amateurs and professionals has already been firmly demarcated, and thus amateurs had no place participating in science. However, even today, this is not true in many countries, as there are fruitful collaborations between amateurs and astronomers. It is more likely that this is a feature particular to the Mexican culture of that time. For example, Sheets-Pyenson (1985) finds very different attitudes in the general public in the English and French cultures of the mid-19th century. While English amateurs preferred to be involved in the production of science, the French were content with simply reading about it.

Theories

Perhaps the best way to introduce the authors of the second group (53 letters; 26%; and only one woman) is with a few examples of the names they gave their theories. These vary from the rather tame-sounding “The Origin of the Universe” or “The Cosmic Ray,” to the quite original “The Chronological Cosmometer” and the extravagant “Universal and Eternal activity of Matter With Its Continuous Movement” and include a great variety of astoundingly original ideas.

In their usually long-winded letters, the authors in this group tell us that they obtained their information from books, newspapers, magazines, and—most importantly—reasoning and imagination. An extreme example of this last source is Gerardo Murillo, the famous Mexican artist also known as Dr. Atl, ¹² who was quite upset when he wrote Gallo in 1940:

To my great surprise, this morning I read an article … in which the author explains and comments the theories and observations of Professor Harlow Shapley, of Harvard University. These correspond fundamentally with everything I thought in 1929 and published in 1933.

He is referring to Shapley’s theory of spiral nebulae (galaxies, as we know them today) and adds,

My theory, explained in a literary manner, is this: our stellar universe is formed by a series of spirals which constitute a great rotating disk which turns round a luminous center, constituted by electrical forces of an optically prismatic shape, and motor of all that exists.

Many of the letters included in this group contain detailed descriptions of the manner in which the theory in question was constructed. Such is the case of a man who, in 1935, lays out before Gallo “a mere hypothesis, though based on scientific facts” to explain why Mars is red. He quotes as his sources a variety of articles from the scientific literature about biology, astronomy, and geology and then goes on to expound on his own theory:

You must know that chlorophyll … has the singular property of being fluorescent; when a concentrated solution of this substance is prepared in a glass globe, and this flask is placed in a dark room and exposed to a ray of Sun … the solution will not appear green, but red, due to the phenomenon of fluorescence.

He then proposes: “In Mars’ atmosphere, chlorophyll dust from the green vegetation which is mixed with the humidity of this atmosphere until saturation may well cause the peculiar red color.” He ends by suggesting that “a conscientious spectral analysis of the planet’s atmosphere” would prove him right.

The authors in this group are very independent and creative, and from their tone we see that they consider themselves Gallo’s equals. Generally, it seems that what they want from the director of the Observatory is feedback, someone to read their theories and to debate with: “If you would be kind enough to send two Men who are astronomers, those with the best reputation in Tacubaya, so we can hold a conference on this matter.” Unlike the members of the previous group, they are not satisfied with receiving knowledge from the experts but use it as the starting point to construct their own. They are very like the poachers described by Certeau (2002) in the way that they snatched bits of information from a wide variety of sources and pasted them together into their theories about the cosmos.

Unlike the amateurs, in this group we find members of society who wanted to participate in the practice of science. Curiously, none of them was interested in the observational or more practical part of astronomy—that is, unless we count the case of the proposal to construct “a small comet, placing in it the appropriate gases to make it rise.”

Several authors in this group wrote Gallo more than once. The extreme case is that of Emilio Nolte, who corresponded with the director of the Observatory for more than 13 years and exchanged more than 30 letters with him (including long treatises and several blueprint copies of diagrams, tables, and calculations). Nolte’s first letter, in 1927, started out by contesting something Gallo had written about the planets in a newspaper article. His next statement should have prepared Gallo for what was to come: “I believe many important discoveries lie sleeping in the shelves of the libraries of sages for fear of enunciating before the World of Science, their valuable and even precious discoveries.”

In the many letters that followed, he went on to contest the standard astronomical knowledge of his time and explain his theories, usually expressed in his own units, like the Nolte Kilometer. He argued, for example, that the Sun is hollow:

Nobody before has thought that the Sun is a hollow star, with a very heavy outer shell … it literally bursts every 11 years, when its equatorial dilation is greatest, in order to release the accumulated expansive energy of its internal metallic gases.

His main finding, which he defended in many ways through the years, was “The Theory of the Transitory Centripetallity of the Planetary System,” based on his very own “Orbital Planetary Curve,” which he admitted “is in contraposition with Kepler’s Ellipse, who in this case was wrong, thus involuntarily stopping the free advance of astronomical science.”

It is clear that it will be interesting to study this case with more detail. Nolte is similar in many respects to Domenico Scandella, the Friulian miller of the 16th century better known as Menocchio, who was burned at the stake by the Inquisition (Ginzburg, 1992). Like Menocchio, Nolte combines information from very different sources, constructs his very original theory of the world, and contests the knowledge accepted by the authority. And also like him, he ends up explaining his theories before the specialized juries of the time—although not with the terrible consequences that Menocchio suffered.

This case, which illustrates the extreme of the group, serves as an example of something important that was going on. Because their intentions and needs were irreconcilable, we find that between Gallo and the members of this group, only misunderstanding was possible (Irwin & Wynne, 1996, see especially the Introduction and Conclusions sections).

Daily Life

The authors of the third group of letters are representatives of what is usually called folklore; however, there is more to them than this term reflects. Through their writing, we can see that they acquired their knowledge about subjects more or less closely related to astronomy in various manners. One of these is the experience obtained from close contact with nature, such as that obtained by the farmers who observed their plants and animals and wanted to know the effect that heavenly bodies have on their development. A typical example concerning plants is:

I wish to know if it is true that eclipses affect the harvesting of beans … and whether there is any way of counteracting this effect, because … 3 or 4 days after such an eclipse, many flowers fell off and the crop’s yield was insignificant.

And another, concerning animals: “Should measures be taken with respect to eggs laid during different phases of the moon?” There are also several examples of what we generally call superstition, such as what the father of a little girl ill with paralysis who has tried everything to make her well again writes: “The doctor who is treating her now wishes to know the phase of the moon on the day the girl fell ill.” There is a letter from a member of the Universal Astrological Institute who in 1930 (when Pluto was discovered) writes asking for “the zodiacal position or longitude of the ultra-Neptunian planet or planets recently discovered.” And there were several letters in 1939, when Mars appeared larger because it came closer to the Earth. One correspondent feared “wars, plagues, epidemics, and other calamities.”

There are very few letters in this last group (only 18; 9%). This may be due to a selection effect, since here we have the least educated people, who perhaps had more questions but probably did not know how to write. Or it may be that they just did not know about Gallo at all.

So here we have a group of people who did not read about astronomy in books or newspapers, did not know the official knowledge coming from the astronomers, yet they knew who Gallo was and appealed to him as the authority on the subject, to clear up their doubts or validate their positions. For example, “I thought of writing you as an authority on the subject, to make the concept I have firmer and to be able to demonstrate to the farmers they are mistaken.”

The members of this last group, although apparently very disparate, are united by the way they know about nature. Following Vetter (2011), we can say that they all produced experiential knowledge, which “derives from the everyday experiences of lay people in particular contexts.”

Discussion

Thus far we have concentrated solely on what the Mexican public of that period wanted. It is interesting to stop now and reflect briefly on what the director of the Observatory wanted. In previous studies, we have shown that when popularizing astronomy in general, Gallo had the double objective of inculcating scientific culture into Mexican society and obtaining validation for professional astronomy from a variety of groups. The case of responding to the letters is different, because the communicative action was initiated outside the Observatory. We must keep in mind the time and effort required to read and respond to all these letters. Although it was not his idea initially, and he was rather busy, Gallo did not waste the opportunity to use this alternative channel of communication. In responding (kindly and promptly) to each query, he endeavored to teach his correspondents what astronomy and astronomers were (Biro, 2002).

Given the divergence of needs, intentions, and desires between the two parts, a new question that arises is whether each part got what they wanted from this interaction. What we are asking is, was there true communication? In order to answer this question, we need further information. The three groups of correspondents we have just reviewed are not only mentioned in descending order of the abundance of the letters; “observers,” “theorists,” and those concerned with daily life are also situated at growing distances epistemologically from professional astronomers. The members of the first group share basic knowledge and terminology with Gallo. Those of the second group also share parts of the knowledge and terminology, but they generally introduce information from other disciplines or else invent what they want or need. Finally, those in the third group practically ignore what astronomers consider proper astronomy.

If we add this information to the general intentions and desires of each group, we can see that amateurs got what they wanted, as they were looking for more information or recommendations. Poachers, however, were likely not very satisfied, since they wanted to participate in the scientific debates and the production of knowledge, and this was clearly opposed to what Gallo wanted. Paradoxically, it is likely that the third group, although they knew very little about official astronomy, did get what they wanted from the director of the Observatory, for they were only looking for a seal of approval from a recognized figure of authority. And let us not forget Gallo: He was probably also satisfied with the interaction, since the fact that they wrote him indicated that they recognized him as the authority on the subject, and the opportunity to correspond with them most likely gave him further exposure before a variety of audiences in Mexican society.

Another interesting aspect visible in the correspondence is the gap present between Gallo and his audiences. As Bensaude-Vincent (2001) has discussed, this gap is neither necessary nor inevitable but contingent and constructed. Naturally, the genealogy of this gap will be different in every case, depending on each society and its customs. In Gallo’s replies, we see a good example of a scientist creating and defending the lay-expert divide. As he responded to every letter, he constantly demarcated his territory, making sure his correspondents knew what science was and who scientists were.

This collection of letters is a window through which we can see that there was knowledge about astronomy in many parts of the Mexican culture of the time that took a variety of forms. The letters permit us to follow and understand how the knowledge got there, that is, how these people went about making astronomy their own. The people who wrote Gallo were not simply passive receivers of his “high” knowledge (Sheets-Pyenson, 1985). Not only did they initiate the communication, but they all had previous conceptions of the subject of their queries that they had actively acquired. Amateurs wanted to imitate the practices of professionals, but they created their own groups and activities. Poachers constructed their own visions of the universe by creatively combining some knowledge produced within official astronomy with very disparate information. And the representatives of folklore brought with them the empirical or traditional knowledge of their cultures and made astronomy practical everyday knowledge.

Through this case study, we can see that both the presence of astronomy in culture and its relationship with professional astronomy are complex. In the past few decades, specialists who study science communication have used a variety of terms to describe the phenomenon: understanding, perception, engagement, or uptake. Because it speaks of the active role individuals play in placing science in culture, I prefer appropriation, a term commonly used in cultural history (Burke, 1992). Although the members of the three subcultures described here are quite different, they can all be described as appropriating and not simply receiving knowledge from professional astronomy. The “cultural consumption” (Chartier, 1984, p. 234) we observe in each of Gallo’s correspondents is also an example of creation.

Although this case study of the epistolary communication of science may seem dated in this age of electronic communications, there is an actuality to it that is interesting to note. Because the Internet is changing the ways in which we communicate, discussions about this have cropped up in many spaces (e.g., Kouper, 2010; Schäfer, 2009; and recent volumes of the journal Information, Communication & Society). For a long time, mass media—and thus one-way communication—dominated the scene. However, now the Internet permits ways of exchange that resemble those of the past. Groups formed online today are very similar to the public sphere as envisioned by Habermas (1991) and other theorists. Also, free access to so much scientific information, together with the personalized access to this information (self-media), allows the construction of one’s own theories more easily than ever. Thus, the perspective gained here of the subcultures, the exchanges, and the process of appropriation can be used to better understand science communication on the web today.

The letters preserved in the FOAN, and seen in this essay, allow us to follow and understand a communicative event that is particular to Mexico and a few decades in the 20th century but that is also quite general in time and space. We can identify the actors involved, the knowledge about science that each one had, the means by which they acquired or created such knowledge, their interests, and the actions they undertook to fulfill them. Also and especially interesting are the attitudes toward science and the scientists of each of the subcultures identified. This work on the history of science communication in Mexico should serve to complete the picture both in the history of science and in science communication studies.