Teaching Descriptive Geometry in the United States (1817–1915): Circulation Among Military Engineers, Scholars, and Draftsmen

Abstract

In the United States, descriptive geometry was a subject very few mathematicians, teachers, or engineers knew about before 1820. Most of them were self-taught, as it was not introduced in any curriculum before 1817. Moreover, mathematics and science in general were not leading subjects in higher education, so their practice, teaching, and diffusion remained modest and in the making during the first half of the century. This chapter opens with the treatment of the first course on descriptive geometry taught in the United States. French polytechnician, Claude Crozet , was professor of civil engineering at West Point between 1817 and 1823, and introduced the subject into the West Point curriculum in 1817. Descriptive geometry soon became a subject taught in colleges, especially in those that had already started to offer their students elective courses, or special engineering-training programs. Thus, descriptive geometry gradually went from a subject limited in audience to one of general interest often taught as a sequel to the classical geometry course. Textbook authors introduced then new simplification of the method of projections in order to fit the changing readership and the changing place of the subject in the various curricula. After 1875, the practical role played by descriptive geometry remained crucial in emerging technical institutions, reassuming there its original mission as a graphic art for the training of engineers.