Sky & Telescope - April 2025 - 32

DETROIT PUBLISHING CO. / LIBRARY OF CONGRESS / PUBLIC DOMAIN
Brooklyn's Astronomy Society
However, in February 1884, Simon Newcomb, director of
the Nautical Almanac Office in Washington, DC, created
a stir when he declined the group's invitation to become a
corresponding member. According to the meeting transcript,
Newcomb asserted that the very name " American Astronomical
Society " implied the local group was a society of leading
U.S. astronomers and thus that it " was attempting to be what
it was not. "
The letter was read aloud at the next AAS meeting, but its
exact text was withheld from reporters (nor was it preserved
in either scrapbook). But the gist made headlines ( " IMPERTINENCE "
read one in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle) and dominated
discussion in the meeting room. The attendees derived little
comfort from the fact that, at that same meeting, the same
invitation had been warmly accepted by six other prominent
professional astronomers.
Not dissuaded, by 1885 the AAS's constitution pamphlet
listed 29 corresponding members. To be sure, some
were merely big names passively adorning the rolls. Others,
however, took lively interest and served as genuine advisors.
Indeed, Newcomb seems to have been the only professional
astronomer ever to decline the group's invitation.
At monthly meetings, talks were usually given by AAS
active members, with mixed success. Surviving manuscripts
indicate that, at worst, some talks were highly specialized,
mathematical, or just tediously long - one topped 2½ hours!
At best, popular lectures by AAS founding member and secretary
Garrett P. Serviss (already well known for his popular
astronomy column in The Sun) attracted audiences of more
than 900. Rarely, a corresponding member appeared as a
guest speaker; for example, Princeton's Young spoke on the
Sun in 1883 and on astrophotography in 1888.
By the late 1880s, however, Serviss had grown uneasy. As
most talks became more technical and insular, public attendance
dwindled and press coverage became brief and desultory.
In February 1888, Serviss wrote to AAS librarian Wallace
Goold Levison, " All of the newspapers had invitations as
usual, but I have observed that they let us pretty severely
alone, of late . . . "
Enter the Brooklyn Institute
Meantime, the city of Brooklyn was booming. With a population
already larger than Chicago's in 1880, it had grown to
806,000 by 1890. Many locals felt that one of the nation's
largest cities needed a world-class cultural center, akin to
Boston's Lowell Institute or Philadelphia's Franklin Institute,
so that " Brooklyn should have an Institute . . . worthy of her
wealth, her position, her culture and her people. "
So, in 1887, a new Board of Trustees resuscitated an old,
nearly moribund Brooklyn Institute (originally founded in
1824) and slightly renamed it the Brooklyn Institute of Arts
and Sciences. The rejuvenated Institute had only a few collections
and an aging building - but it did have ambitions,
backers, and, most importantly, a tireless new president:
Franklin W. Hooper, a 36-year-old biologist and geologist who
was also a brilliant, dynamic leader.
Hooper's vision was to make the Institute the cultural center
for the city of Brooklyn. It would be made up of departments,
" each department forming a society by itself and yet
enjoying all the privileges of the general association. " To that
end, he systematically approached all the intellectual clubs
and organizations in Brooklyn to become departments of the
reconstituted Institute.
In late March 1888, Hooper and two other representatives
approached the officers of the Brooklyn AAS with a proposal
to join the Institute as its Astronomical Department. The first
scrapbook reveals that the terms were a sweetheart deal. The
Institute had property worth a quarter million dollars, and
the AAS was " invited to come in and share with them the
use of that property for scientific purposes, upon equal terms
with them " under a " mutually agreeable " new name, asking
" no surrender of anything we possess. "
In truth, Hooper was bootstrapping the entire Brooklyn
Institute enterprise from a very modest beginning (in early
1888 its total membership, across all departments, was only
82). Thus, the AAS with its 32 regular and 29 corresponding
members was a significant asset, and the Institute would be
the beneficiary.
Hooper wanted an answer by the time of the Institute's
annual meeting in May, so the AAS officers sent a letter to all
corresponding members soliciting their opinions. It explained
that the AAS was " originally designed to be a National Society "
laying a " foundation in the hope that towers, reaching to
the skies would finaly [sic] rest thereon " and " its corresponding
members ultimately take it in hand. "
About 20 professional astronomers replied. Most were in
favor of an American Astronomical Society but opposed the
Brooklyn group retaining that name. However, two wellknown
astronomers - Pickering and Holden - remained in
favor of the group's original vision. Holden even suggested
that Benjamin Apthorp Gould (also a corresponding memUNFINISHED
BUSINESS Although Franklin Hooper and his administration
had grand plans for the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences,
only a portion of the sprawling complex they envisioned was actually
built. Today this building houses the Brooklyn Museum.
32 APRIL 2025 * SKY & TELESCOPE
Sky & Telescope - April 2025

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