Tellurian
date: label: date made
content: 1840s
name: label: associated person
content: Holbrook, Josiah
label: associated person
content: Holbrook, Alfred
label: associated person
content: Holbrook, Dwight
label: maker
content: Holbrook & Co.
notes: label: Description
content: Josiah Holbrook (1788-1854) was an educational reformer, an advocate of the method known as “object teaching,” and an entrepreneur who began selling simple and inexpensive educational apparatus in the 1830s. Holbrook’s sons, Alfred and Dwight, established a “Lyceum Village” at Berea, Ohio, in the 1840s, and manufactured school apparatus.
label: Description
content: Holbrook’s tellurian with pulley adjustment was intended “to illustrate all the phenomena resulting from the relations of the Earth, Moon and Sun to each other.” In this example the Sun is a 5-inch wooden sphere painted yellow. The Earth is a 3-inch wooden sphere covered with an engraved paper map. The horizon is marked “HOLBROOK & CO BEREA, OHIO.” The plane of the ecliptic is marked “Holbrook & Co. Berea, Ohio.” The "J. Brainerd Sc. Cleveland, O.” inscription refers to Jehu Brainerd (1807-1878), a microscopist, a homeopathic physician, and an examiner in the Patent Office in Washington, D.C.
label: Description
content: Ref: <i>Text-Book to Accompany Holbrook’s Scientific Apparatus</i> (Hartford, 1853), pp. 40-54.
label: Description
content: D. J. Warner, “The Geography of Heaven and Earth,” <i>Rittenhouse</i> 2 (1988): 94-95.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Ohio, Berea
topic: label: Subject
content: Astronomy
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Physical Sciences
label: See more items in
content: Globes
label: See more items in
content: Measuring & Mapping
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1988.0141.01
label: accession number
content: 1988.0141
label: catalog number
content: 1988.0141.01
objectType: label: Object Name
content: tellurian
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: wood (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 30.5 cm x 19.7 cm x 52.7 cm; 12 in x 7 3/4 in x 20 3/4 in
label: Measurements
content: overall: 12 1/2 in x 20 3/4 in x 7 3/4 in; 31.75 cm x 52.705 cm x 19.685 cm