Nathaniel Bowditch worked as a navigator, mathematician, astronomer, and business innovator. Over the course of his lifetime, his fellow Americans hailed him as the “American Sir Isaac Newton.”
Tamara Thornton, a professor of history at the University of Buffalo and author of Nathaniel Bowditch and the Power of Numbers: How a Nineteenth-Century Man of Business, Science, and the Sea Changed America, leads us on a detailed exploration of the life of Nathaniel Bowditch.
About the Show
Ben Franklin’s World is a podcast about early American history.
It is a show for people who love history and for those who want to know more about the historical people and events that have impacted and shaped our present-day world.
Each episode features a conversation with a historian who helps us shed light on important people and events in early American history.
Episode Summary
Tamara Thornton, a professor of history at the University of Buffalo and author of Nathaniel Bowditch and the Power of Numbers: How a Nineteenth-Century Man of Business, Science, and the Sea Changed America, leads us on a detailed exploration of the life of Nathaniel Bowditch.
During this exploration, Tamara reveals who Nathaniel Bowditch was and why he was so famous during the early 19th century; Details about Bowditch’s maritime life and business work; And, Nathaniel Bowditch’s greatest contributions to early American society and our present-day lives.
What You’ll Discover
- Nathaniel Bowditch
- Mathematical education in early America
- Salem, Massachusetts during the revolutionary and early republic eras
- What it was like to apprentice in a chandlery
- How Bowditch learned to sail and navigate the seas
- Bowditch’s experiences sailing as a supercargo
- Bowditch’s New American Practical Navigator
- Bowditch’s work with the Essex Fire and Marine Insurance Company
- Marine Insurance and how Bowditch systematized the industry
- How Bowditch built the Massachusetts Hospital Life Insurance Company
- The development of impersonal business procedures in the United States
- Bowditch’s interest in astronomy
- Bowditch’s greatest contribution to early American society
Links to People, Places, and Publications
- Tamara Thornton
- Tamara’s University at Buffalo webpage
- Nathaniel Bowditch and the Power of Numbers: How a Nineteenth-Century Man of Business, Science, and the Sea Changed America
- Handwriting in America: A Cultural History
- Peabody Essex Museum
Sponsor Links
Complementary Episodes
- Episode 057: Max Edling, War, Money, and the American State, 1783-1867
- Episode 098: Gautham Rao, Birth of the American Tax Man
- Episode 113: Brian Murphy, Building the Empire State
- Episode 109: John Dixon, The American Enlightenment & Cadwallader Colden
- Episode 127: Caroline Winterer, American Enlightenments
Time Warp Question
In your opinion, what might have happened if Bowditch had not published A New American Practical Navigator? How would the lack of this publication have affected Bowditch’s career and legacy?
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