Tainted by trade

28 Oct 2012

A few days ago, I attended an interesting talk by HPS doctoral student Michelle Wallis about medical handbill advertisements in seventeenth-century England. These were one-sheet advertisements of varying sizes, many including images as well as text, which were handed out and posted in different locations in order to sell medical elixirs and services. One thing which struck me was how Michelle (quite rightly) suggested that it may not be worthwhile to label the bulk of the medical practitioners who employed these handbills as 'quacks', despite their often flamboyant approach to advertising and unlikely promises. Dismissing the majority as quacks distorts and oversimplifies the reality and contemporary perceptions of the early modern medical landscape. It also tends to reflect a certain prejudice against practitioners who appealed to and operated in a more public sphere than did the fraction of their fellows who were lucky enough to be able to subsist off of private wealthy patrons. This issue has parallels in the history of longitude - something which our Katy Barrett will no doubt touch upon when she speaks alongside Michelle at BSECS - and in the broader history of early modern 'science' and technology. Just as Michelle's medical wheeler-dealers have often been treated dismissively, modern commentators have often judged longitude projectors more negatively if they publicly advertised their ideas and wares and services and especially if they employed common advertising tropes while touting themselves and their 'products'. Their advertising could take a variety of forms including handbills, newspaper and periodical advertisements and pieces, pamphlets and books, and public lectures and spectacles. Select projectors such as the well-known clockmaker John Harrison have usually been given a pass because they have been judged less showmen or tradesmen than high-minded inventors. In fact, the vast majority of projectors including Harrison and others who drew the attention and patronage of the Board, employed the exact same sorts of strategies and modes of communication as did their fellows. For example, the famous clockmaker showed off his inventions to the public, and he and his friends employed an array of printed media to lobby for funding and rewards and to present their case against the Astronomer Royal Nevil Maskelyne and other individuals. In the early modern period as well, there was still somewhat of a prejudice against actors who were involved in and motivated by trade or by other financial concerns. This led some longitude projectors to pretend in print that they were not seeking compensation for their ideas, and often that 'friends' or knowledgeable authorities had pushed them to overcome their natural gentlemanliness in order to make those ideas known for the benefit of the public. Other projectors concealed their hand in advertising or in print lobbying including at least some of the laudatory news items and letters-to-the-editor which appeared on them in the newspapers and periodicals. Examples include again Harrison and his friends as well as the Irishman Christopher Irwin, who invented a marine chair for stable astronomical viewing aboard ship and was able to drum up public and governmental interest for it at least in part through through strategic print coverage. Similar dynamics and ploys were at play in early modern 'science' and, as I researched during my doctorate, in the trades in scientific instruments and other technologies. Almost all instrument makers and the majority of longitude projectors were concerned with money, whether in terms of making a living through their daily trade or craft or in seeking to be recompensed and rewarded for specific innovations. Despite this and despite the dramatic rise of advertisements in media such as newspapers over the course of the eighteenth century, there remained a lingering feeling that it was poor form for at least certain types of people to seek money or to 'puff' themselves up too openly - something which sometimes creeps into modern judgements of early modern actors as well. As a result, many of these actors pretended to more gentlemanly motivations and behaviour. It was in fact a rare participant in early 'science' and technology and specifically in the search for the longitude who could afford to ignore financial considerations and to refrain from championing themselves to the broader public, such as some of the noble-born participants in these activities and Maskelyne as the long-reigning Astronomer Royal. Image sources: Trade card - Science Museum / SSP.