Creating an Ordered World in Disordered Times: The Pope Orrery

November 2-3, 2023  •  Harvard Science Center • Room 469  •  1 Oxford Street • Cambridge, MA

The Pope Orrery is a grand orrery (a mechanical model of the solar system) built between 1776 and 1787 in Boston by a clockmaker and inventor, Joseph Pope.  It is made of mahogany, brass, ivory, and glass—all materials that were of necessity imported to make this “American” product.  The inner section of the movement contains a mix-and-match of gears and parts imported from England, while the outer sections exhibit the use of very thin brass wheels, wrought iron, copper, and cardboard, making it appear that Pope added to it over many years under some hardships of the war and perhaps without having a full design at the start.  In place of the usual caryatids at the corners of the twelve-sided skirt, the orrery has cast-brass statuettes of scientific and political figures Isaac Newton, Benjamin Franklin, and James Bowdoin (amateur scientist and Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts at the time of the orrery’s completion).  The glazed beehive dome, representing the sphere of fixed stars, thus literally rests on the shoulders of science and the state.   

Other artisans helped in its production, although they did not sign it.  For instance, the wood patterns for the twelve brass figures were carved by Simeon Skillin Jr, a woodcarver best known for ship figureheads.  The brass castings have been attributed to Paul Revere.  Pope also was advised by Benjamin Waterhouse, the notable physician and professor of Harvard Medical School, who served as his go-between with Governor Bowdoin and more elite individuals.

Magnificent in scale and as political and scientific furniture, the Pope orrery was a spectacle in its day.  Still unfinished, it made the news when it narrowly escaped the great fire in Boston’s South End in 1787. In 1788 it was praised by members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and purchased by Harvard College with funds raised from gambling.  A fixture in Harvard’s Philosophy Chamber, the orrery was shown off to visitors such as George Washington (1789) and used to teach John Quincy Adams (1786) and other students.  Today it remains a star object at Harvard in the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments.

The Workshop

This event gathered specialists—historians of science, furniture, labor, and politics, as well as horologists, and conservators—around the Pope Orrery (built 1776-1787 in Boston) to interpret it from their diverse vantage points.   Together we used the Pope Orrery as a mise-en-scène for an examination of Boston and the British world during the American Revolution, as witnessed by the labor, technology, economics, and politics of its production and sale, the social classes involved, and its use as a spectacle, prestige item, and model for teaching natural philosophy and religion. 

The public part of the workshop—on November 3, 2023—included talks and discussions.  It was held in-person at Harvard University with a hybrid option via Zoom. The proceedings were recorded, and will be available for online streaming via the CHSI YouTube channel in the near future.

The workshop was the endorsed by the IUHPST Scientific Instrument Commission, an international body.  We are grateful to the David P. Wheatland Charitable Trust for financial support.