Photograph as originally submitted to this page in the Historical Marker Database www.HMdb.org. Click on photo to resize in browser. Scroll down to see metadata.

Photographer: Allen C. Browne
Taken: February 16, 2015
Caption: David Rittenhouse
Additional Description: This 1796 portrait of David Rittenhouse by Charles Willson Peale hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC.

“A child prodigy who received no formal education, David Rittenhouse became one of early America's most respected scientists and is depicted here as president of the American Philosophical Society. Rittenhouse made his living as a clock-and instrument-maker; his mathematical skills earned him service on commissions determining the boundaries of several states. He constructed two orreries, instruments that accurately depict the motions of the solar system for 5,000 years, backwards and forwards. Rittenhouse achieved international fame when, acting on John Ewing's proposal, he organized the Philosophical Society's participation in an international effort to measure the transit of Venus. This allowed astronomers to more accurately measure distances to celestial objects. Rittenhouse's published observations, along with those of other American scientists, attracted favorable reactions in Europe, bringing a new recognition of American scientific achievement.

Charles Willson Peale, who knew the sitter well, included in this portrait a reflecting telescope that may have been the one Rittenhouse had inherited from Benjamin Franklin.” — National Portrait Gallery
Submitted: May 25, 2015, by Allen C. Browne of Silver Spring, Maryland.
Database Locator Identification Number: p309338
File Size: 1.044 Megabytes

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