Traveling galvinists and armchair travelers: review of the “Fantastic Worlds” exhibit at the Smithsonian

Yesterday I visited the “Fantastic Worlds: Science and Fiction, 1780-1910” exhibit at the National Museum of American History, which opened on July 1st. 

 

Scene from the 1902 silent film "A Trip to the Moon" 

Improvements in printing technology in the 18^th century afforded the general public greater access to information about science, igniting their curiosity, as well as the imagination of writers such as Rudyard Kipling, Edgar Allen Poe, and Mary Shelley.

The exhibit shows how science found its way into popular fiction in the 19^th century, displaying early edition works, including The Origin of Species from the Smithsonian Libraries.

I tend to enjoy small museums and exhibitions whose scopes aren’t too broad, so I found this one, nestled within a small corridor to the Library Gallery pleasant.

I also appreciated that unlike some of the other exhibitions in the museum this one was geared towards adults. Indeed parents seemed to enjoy it, with one dad exclaiming “I loved Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas when I was your age,” shortly before his kid asked if they could leave yet. 

Its housing in the American History Museum is strange as the exhibit mainly features authors and scientists from Britain, Sweden, and France. I am very willing to overlook this though, as it was very nicely organized with six separated subjects, ranging from exploration into the deep sea, Africa, and the Arctic and early studies in man-controlled flight to the more bizarre, such as the re-animation of human bodies with electricity and men on the moon.

In the 19^th century ballooning was used for travel, with aspirations of even travelling to the Arctic, and as a means to study the atmosphere. During one study by meteorologist James Glaisher in 1862, the balloon ascended to 36,000 feet causing him to pass out and his test pigeon to freeze to death. Fiction of the time reflects the great hope placed on ballooning to revolutionize travel, depicting a London sky dominated by aircraft used for everyday errands.

To find out more about ballooning craze of the 18^th century, listen to a podcast about Sophie Blanchard or about a ballooning expedition to the North Pole.

Depiction of man bats as part of The Great Moon hoax, printed in The Sun, 1835.

Of particular interest was information on “The Great Moon hoax”. In 1835 a newspaper in New York published several accounts of the discovery of life on the moon. The discoveries, falsely attributed to the renowned astronomer, Sir Jon Herschel, were published as a series and became increasingly incredible, culminating in the description of man bats.

Listen to this podcast to find out more about The Great Moon hoax.

What I learned from the exhibit was that Edgar Allen Poe was upset at the author of this flimflam for stealing his idea. It turns out that Poe was quite the trickster, also publishing a fake article about a transatlantic hot air balloon ride achieved in 75 hours, setting precedence for the  “War of the Worlds” radio program in the 1960’s.

Though I’ve long been turned off by pulp science fiction, I find the science fiction genre as a whole fascinating. Particularly I am interested in how the genre enables writers to expose societal problems, that otherwise are taboo to discuss, but because set in an alternate world, are more disarming to the general public. In addition, science fiction exposes the anxieties of the day and even in some cases, has predicted the future.

Along these lines, I was interested to learn at the exhibition that the term robot first appeared in a play in 1921. It’s derived from the word robota, Czech for “forced labor,” foreshadowing ideas of both the replacement of human labor by machines and the possibility of artificial intelligence and rebellion by a robot workforce. I can see why people were worried; look how creepy this automaton is from 1870’s.

Patent model of creeping baby doll, 1871

Other interesting facts from the exhibit:

Deptiction of fossils found in the 1800's, including an illustration based on the finding of the ichthyosaur, an extinct marine reptile, found by a then 12-year old Mary Anning. She went on find more fossils in her long career as a paleontolongist.

People once thought that the deep sea was devoid of life. Britain’s Challenger expedition changed this, recording 4,500 new species, in 1873. What drove the exploration of the deep sea in the mid-1800s was the laying of a transatlantic telegraph cable, completed in 1866.

Depiction of Galvani's experiments.

In the late 18^th century Luigi Galvani discovered that an electrical current applied to dissected animals caused their muscles to twitch. This field, a precursor to electrophysiology, was termed galvanism. A fair amount of spectacle surrounded the field as in 1803 a public demonstration was held where an executed criminal was “re-animated” with electro-stimulation.

Mary Shelley was inspired by these accounts, writing Frankenstein, which is prime example of science fiction used as a philosophical study on society and what it means to be human.

Medical induction coils, ca 1850, used for wide array of medical treatments in 1800s.

While Galvani thought he was observing a new form of electricity, termed animal electricity, the physicist Alessandro Volta repeated the experiment and concluded that fluids within the body conducted the electric current derived from the metal. This led to the development of the first battery.