Eclipse Education

Fort Worth, Texas on the frontier, was the centerline for this eclipse. Economically Texas and especially Ft Worth was booming. Progress and strong city leadership made Ft. Worth an attractive option for the eclipse. One reason, Ft Worth had a new railroad station, the train finally arrived in 1876. The Railroad was making Ft. Worth a financial powerhouse. However, Ft. Worth was still the Wild West, where guns were worn as a necessity for defense not only from other men but from the common rattler and other critters. It was a small town with grand ambitions. It had nine churches, nine schools, two militia units, and a dozen physicians. With the economic boom based around cattle and railroad, the town also hosted the infamous “Hell’s Half-Acre,” a designated “Red-Light District.”

To this Wild West Town, a scientific party of five, led by Mr. Leonard Waldo, of Harvard College Observatory arrived to study the eclipse. You can find his report of the eclipse on Amazon or Goodreads, links below this post.

I really enjoyed reading the report. Several things popped out to me when reading.

• The size of the expedition’s equipment, which was carried to the final location on several mules. Although I do know a few current eclipse chasers, such as Milo Slav Druckmuller, who do travel with a team and several vehicles full of equipment.
• Professor Waldo’s very common human reaction when seeing the eclipse. You get lost in the moment, his words, “Just as the time-keeper called two, however, I noticed that I had forgotten to remove my shade-glass, which I now immediately did, regretting that I had lost 15 seconds of precious time.” Professor Waldo had spent months preparing for this moment, his report tell of the drills they ran in preparation. But the experience overwhelmed him.
• The amount of time that Waldo and his team had to spend to determine their location by looking at the stars and aligning their location with Sextants.
• The fact that Waldo did not know what time it is. He or a member of his team spends several evenings trying to get a telegraphic “signal” back to the Washington Observatory in D.C. to set his watch.
• The citizen science that took place. Waldo and his team had help from those in Ft Worth and with the help he garnered during his travels, he included the reports from these citizens in McKinney, Allen, and Dallas. He set up a ‘class’ and gave instructions on how to draw the eclipse to several other citizens, who help with viewing the event.