Book, A General Geometry and Calculus
date: label: date made
content: 1871
name: label: author
content: Olney, Edward
notes: label: Description
content: Olney's textbooks were published by a small textbook and religious book publisher, Sheldon & Company of New York. Although this company gradually built up a varied list from its founding in 1854, it ceased to exist after the firm was purchased by the American Book Company sometime between 1895 and 1905. This book is a first edition of 1871. Olney explicitly acknowledged his debt to Comte in the preface to the textbook. The book is also notable for relying upon infinitesimals rather than on limits. Like older mathematics textbooks, General Geometry and Calculus opens with a discourse on the philosophy and definitions of calculus. The "general geometry" treated is analytical geometry. The bookplate pasted inside the front cover bears the names of Jacob Foster Schmeltzer, father-in-law of the donor, Mrs. Chauncey Brockway Schmeltzer, and A. O. Woodworth of Champaign, Illinois. Woodworth appears to have been a student at the Illinois Industrial University (now University of Illinois), for class dates in January 1877 are penciled next to several sections between pages 34-92 and 184-204. There are also marks for a review of the material in March, which was a common practice in college recitations. In addition to penciled calculations and corrections adjacent to the title page, on page 186, and on pages 25 and 67 in the calculus part of the book, there is a historical note in the back end papers containing trivia about England.
label: Description
content: References:
label: Description
content: <I>Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography</I>, vol. 4, p. 578.
label: Description
content: Rossiter Johnson, <I>Twentieth-Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans</I>, vol. 8.
label: Description
content: John Tebbel, <I>A History of Publishing in the United States</I>, vol. 1, pp. 349-351, 409-414, vol. 2, pp. 568-569.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
topic: label: Subject
content: Education
label: Subject
content: Mathematics
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Mathematics
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Mrs. C. B. Schmeltzer in Memory of C. B. Schmeltzer
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1986.3110.08
label: catalog number
content: 1986.3110.08
label: nonaccession number
content: 1986.3110
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Book
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: paper (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 2.3 cm x 15 cm x 21.3 cm; 29/32 in x 5 29/32 in x 8 3/8 in