Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge
The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (also SDUK ), founded in 1826, was an organization of the British Whig Party, London , which published inexpensive texts with the aim of making scientific and high-quality materials available to the rapidly literate and comprehensively reading population deliver.
Its establishment was mainly driven by Henry Peter Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux with the aim of creating an educational opportunity for people who could not find access to formal educational institutions or who preferred self-taught learning.
aims
Publications of the SDUK were aimed at the working class and the middle class as target groups in order to counteract other publications for the poor, the Pauper Presses , which were perceived as radical . The SDUK acted as an intermediary between authors and various series of publishers starting publications and handled this through a committee of important people who were also close to the newly founded University College London and various regional Mechanics Institutes . The SDUK distributed the publications itself. Baldwin & Cradock were among the commissioned printers , who were then replaced by the publisher Charles Knight .
development
Conceived with lofty ideals, the project initially generated financial losses when subscribers dropped out and the number of copies sold fell. Charles Knight was largely responsible for the fact that the publications were still very successful through his dedicated advertising and improvements in the readability of sometimes absurd texts. Nevertheless, many of the titles aroused interest from the readership, which meant that Penny Magazine was able to record a weekly circulation of 200,000 issues. The SDUK was liquidated in 1848, but some of its projects apparently continued to be published.
Publications
Library of Useful Knowledge
A prominent series of publications by the SDUK was the Library of Useful Knowledge , which cost 6 pence and was published every two weeks. Her books were devoted to scientific topics. The first edition, an introduction to the series, sold over 33,000 copies. However, attempts to reach workers in this way were largely unsuccessful. It was only in the middle class that there was sustained interest in popular scientific literature.
Like many other projects in the new genre of popular science literature, e.g. B. The Bridgewater Treatises and Humphry Davys Consolations in Travel , the books in the Library of Useful Knowledge focused on natural theology and were imbued with a science-fixated belief in progress: actualism in geology, the nebular hypothesis in astronomy, and the scala naturae in biology. According to the historian James Secord, these publications tended to represent universal theories and simple laws and, as they spread, helped to gain greater social recognition of the authority of science and specific scientific disciplines.
Further publications
- Maps , especially in a two-volume design and with a very high quality standard
- Penny Magazine
- Penny Cyclopaedia
- British Almanac (and associated Companion )
- Library of Entertaining Knowledge
- Farmers Series
- Working Man's Companion
- Quarterly Journal of Education
- Gallery of Portraits
- Biographical Dictionary
reception
References to the SDUK are rare in modern times, but in steampunk it is not uncommon to refer to the society itself or its better-known publications to create a Victorian flair.
The in-house magazine of the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles is called "Society for the Diffusion of Useful Information ".
literature
- Mead T. Cain, 'The Maps of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge: A Publishing History', Imago Mundi, Vol. 46, 1994 (1994), pp. 151-167.
- Janet Percival, 'The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, 1826-1848: A handlist of the Society's correspondence and papers', The Library of University College London, Occasional Papers, No 5 1978, ISSN 0309-3352
- James A. Secord. Victorian Sensation: The Extraordinary Publication, Reception, and Secret Authorship of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. University of Chicago Press, 2000. ISBN 0-226-74410-8
- The University College London offers a complete set of publications and many authors and readers' letters in digital form, as well as other records.
Web links
- Mathematics I. , a volume in the Library of Useful Knowledge digitized by Google Book Search .