Benjamin Apthorp Gould

Benjamin Apthorp Gould, the first American to earn a Ph.D. in astronomy, was born in Boston in 1824. He earned a degree from Harvard, and traveled to Europe to pursue his education in astronomy. After stays at several European observatories, he earned his Ph.D. under the celebrated mathematician and astronomer Carl Friedrich Gauss at the University of Gottingen, Germany. He returned to the U.S. to found the first American journal of astronomy, the Astronomical Journal, in 1849, and to carry out studies of longitude determination for the U.S. Coast Survey.

While in this post, he became the first director of the Dudley Observatory. His brief (1856-1858) tenure was marred by the Dudley Observatory Controversy. He returned to Cambridge and to the Coast Survey, and engaged for some years in business to repair family fortunes. In 1864 he married Mary Apthorp Quincy, daughter of the president of Harvard, and returned to full time astronomy. He pioneered in astronomical photography from his home observatory in Cambridge. Then, in 1870, he traveled to Argentina to found and direct the Observatorio National Argentino in Cordoba, Argentina. There he made an exhaustive survey of Southern stars, the Uranometria Argentina, made precise determinations of the positions of more than 50,000 Southern stars, continued his efforts in astronomical photography, and discovered the southern portion of a belt of bright stars on the edges of the Milky Way. That belt is now called the Gould belt in his honor. When Gould returned to Cambridge, he reestablished the Astronomical Journal with the assistance of Seth A. Chandler. Chandler would also complete the publishing the Resultados after Gould's death. An original member of the National Academy of Sciences, he continued to carry out and champion astronomical research until his death in 1896.

In his lifetime, he acquired a superb historical collection of astronomical books, a portion of which forms the Gould collection in the Dudley Observatory Library Many of Gould's letters to the trustees of Dudley Observatory both before and during the Controversy can be found in the Dudley Observatory Archives.

 

The Papers of Benjamin A. Gould, Jr., c. 1840-1897

The Papers of Benjamin A. Gould, Jr. were given by bequest to the Dudley Observatory upon the death of Seth A. Chandler, to whom they had been willed upon Gould's death in 1896. The Dudley Observatory also has in its library Gould's collection of rare astronomical books. These valuable books are housed at the Union College Special Collections. Researchers may also find materials on Gould in the Records of the Dudley Observatory, the Records of the Astronomical Journal, the Papers of Seth Chandler and the Papers of James Armsby.

Size: 4 linear feet of shelf space (9 Boxes).

Restrictions: None. Manuscripts cannot be used for publication without regard for common law literary rights, copyright laws, and laws pertaining to libel.

Content Note

The Papers of Benjamin A. Gould, Jr. include correspondence, copybooks, journals, observational data, and manuscripts. The papers are organized chronologically into series identified by form. The papers before processing were in no recognizable order. This arrangement has been initiated at the discretion of the processing archivist. It should be noted that Seth A. Chandler completed the publication of Gould's final work after Gould's death. These materials, owing to the authorship of the original work, are included with these papers.

 

The Papers of Benjamin A. Gould, Jr.

Container List

Box #	Folder #	Form	Folder Title
1	1	Correspondence/Catalogs	1846. Relating to Bessel's Rare Book Collection.
	2	Correspondence/Will	1862-1893.
	3	Correspondence	1886-1897.
	4	Journal	"3. Constellation Lists"
	5	Journal	"Private Astronomical Memoranda"
	6	Journal	"Personal Equations" c. 1840.
	7	Journal	"Observations for Longitude; U. S. Coast Survey; Raleigh." 1853.
	8	Journal	"Cambridge, 1863."
	9	Journal	"Day Book 1865"
	10	Journal	"Day Book 2" 1865-1866
	11	Journal	"Day Book 3" 1866
2	1	Journal	"Time Book No. 1" 1865.
	2	Journal	"Time Book No. 2" 1865.
	3	Journal	"Time Book No. 3" 1865.
	4	Journal	"Time Book No. 4" 1865.
	5	Journal	"Time Book No. 5" 1865.
	6	Journal	"Time Book No. 6" 1865.
	7	Journal	"Time Book No. 7" 1865.
	8	Journal	"Cambridge Transitory, Polar Stars" 1865.
	9	Journal	"Cambridge Transitory" 1865.
	10	Journal	"Instrumental Corrections-Transitory Cambridge" 1866.
3	1	Journal	"Cambridge Transitory" 1865.
	2	Journal	"Cambridge Transitory; Instr. Determ's." 1865
	3	Journal	"Val-H.C.; I-II; Observn's V Computations; Valencia" 1866.
	4	Journal	"Transitory" 1866.
	5	Journal	"Transitory" 1867.
	6	Journal	Manuscript and Library Records (?). c1870.
4	1	Observational Data/ Manuscript	"Reduction of Transitory Observations; Close Polars" 1865. "Determination of Thread Intervals for Large Transit; Cambridge" 1865
	2	Observational Data/ Manuscript	"Polar Stars" 1865-1866.
	3	Observational Data/ Manuscript	"Reduction to 1866 of d'Agelet stars." "Stars Observed/Reductions" 1866-1867.
	4	Manuscript	Cordoba 1875-1882; Papers relating to Northern Uranometry.
	5	Manuscript	Cordoba 1875-1882; Papers relating to Northern Uranometry.
	6	Manuscript	Cordoba 1875-1882; Papers relating to Northern Uranometry.
5	1	Manuscript	"Cordoba Photographs. Photographic Observations of Star Clusters, from Impressions made at the Argentine National Observatory." c1897.
	2	Manuscript	"Cordoba Photographs...." c1897.
	3	Manuscript	"Cordoba Photographs...." c1897.
	4	Manuscript	"Cordoba Photographs...." c1897.
	5	Manuscript	"Cordoba Photographs...." c1897.
	6	Manuscript	"Cordoba Photographs...." c1897.
	7	Manuscript	"Cordoba Photographs...." c1897.
6	1	Letterbook	1895-1896.
	2	Letterbook	1896.
	3	Publications	Biographical Information.
	4	Publications (Photocopies)	Biographical Information.
7		Observational Data	"Cordoba Photographs..." c1897.
8		Observational Data	"Cordoba Photographs..." c1897.