Episode 140: Tamara Thornton, Nathaniel Bowditch: 19th-Century Man of Business, Science, and the Sea

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

 

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Time Warp PlainTime 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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