Portable 'Umbrella' Globe

Several enterprising publishers issued globes that were readily portable. However, the resulting objects, such as dissected globes and pocket globes tended to be too small to include detail. John Betts (working from 1839, died c.1863) produced a globe that was both portable and large enough for the clear display of small features.

Tools and instruments are integral features of the history of mathematics, aiding numerous pursuits such as navigation, description of the natural world, and regulation of commerce. The world's oldest scientific instruments were developed to aid calculation. For hundreds of years, ruler-like tools were the most common calculating devices and their use persisted alongside mechanical innovations that automated simple mathematical procedures.

The Whipple Museum is in possession of more than 700 'calculators', from sectors used by Early Modern astronomers to an impressive collection of handheld calculators of the sort used by twentieth-century astronauts. The articles in this section explain various aspects of the history of calculating devices.

Calculation is an integral part of how societies function and has been used since ancient times to regulate trade and fix dimensions of land and buildings. Theoretical developments in mathematics, along with the growing complexity of calculations, inspired the design of calculating machines during the Early Modern period. These analogue devices, along with technologies developed for factory automation and advances in electronics engineering, gave rise to the first digital computers.

"[I]t is unworthy of excellent men to lose hours like slaves in the labor of calculation, which could safely be relegated to anyone else if machines were used." Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, 1671.(1)

Inspiration

The idea of an inexpensive, portable globe for teaching had been suggested in the late 18th century. Richard and Maria Edgeworth, a father-daughter pair of educationalists, asked in their 1798 publication Practical Education: "Might not a cheap, portable, and convenient globe be made of oiled silk, to be inflated by a common pair of bellows?" It was another forty years, however, until such a globe was first produced. Their request was answered in around 1830 with the invention of the balloon globe, an object made of fabric gores stitched together, which was inflated with an air pump. However, in 1850, John Betts designed an attractive alternative that did not require being inflated with a pump. Betts' "New Portable Globe", used an umbrella mechanism to support the gores in a spherical shape.

Portability

The Edgeworths had held that aids to geography teaching should be large, such that children could observe features easily, but also portable. Betts specialised in low cost educational products and was aware of such demands. When erected, Betts' globe probably attained a diameter of around 16 inches. However, for transportation, the umbrella mechanism could be released, and the collapsed globe packed into a thin carry case measuring around 30 inches in length.

Commercial success

Although Betts first made umbrella-type globes around 1850, the example in the Whipple Museum dates from around 1880. Betts was keen to keep his globe up-to-date, however, as the inscription on the Whipple version testifies. Betts declares that cartography has been "compiled from the latest and best authorities". Conscientious updating of the cartography, as well as the portability and large size of the globe, probably played a part in maintaining the market for Betts' umbrella globes. Indeed, the umbrella globes remained in demand. George Philip & Son, who took over Betts' firm sometime towards the end of the 19th century, continued to produce new editions into the 1920s.