Amateurs Under the Scrutiny of Magazines. Satirical Media and Astronomy in Chile (Early 20th Century) – Verónica Ramírez Errázuriz

À la suite de notre session « Visual Culture of Amateurs in Science (1850–1950) », durant le neuvième congrès de l’ESHS, Verónica Ramírez Errázuriz nous propose ici un résumé de son intervention.

When Pedro Montt became president of Chile in 1906, he set out to save the Observatory by channelling significant public funding to hire a new director and expand its facilities throughout the country. With the government spending more money on astronomy, the press and, consequently, public opinion focused their attention on the Observatory during those years. Chile’s newfound interest in astronomy can also be explained by the great earthquake of 1906 in Valparaíso: astronomers were responsible for providing the population with scientific knowledge, due to the fact that, without a seismology centre, Chilean seismologists worked in the country’s two observatories. In addition, the arrival of Halley’s Comet in 1910 provoked fear throughout the country, as around the world, prompting the press to once again shift its attention toward local astronomers.

It was precisely during these same years that Chile experienced the emergence of various newspapers and illustrated magazines that promoted modern material formats as well as new commercial ventures. In these magazines, images (I mean illustrations and photographs) became a central component and a key to capturing a heterogeneous readership. In this sense, the image took on qualities of a communication code just as relevant as the word. Cartoon and graphic humour, for example, quickly evolved over the years. As I mentioned above, the general population was quite interested in astronomy during this period and magazines picked up on this growing trend, devoting special segments and visibility to professional and amateur astronomers. In the magazines I have studied, humour was one of the main tools used by illustrators to represent and criticize the attitudes of certain sky watchers.

Illustrators of Chilean magazines at the beginning of the early 20^th century portrayed professional astronomers as incapable of carrying out serious and useful work. Meanwhile, in their characterizations of enthusiasts, stargazing seems to be intended for non-scientific purposes, being more broadly useful and practical for society. Astronomy applied to non-scientific situations is what provokes humour in many of these characterizations, and the incorporation of public figures, not experts in science, is an essential element to produce a comical shift. The majority of enthusiastic observers represented in these magazines are politicians, which implies an important relationship between astronomical events and political projects. The game appears to have unfolded like this: if the work of professional scientists could not provide what the population expected, which seems to have been reduced in these years to the prediction of natural disasters, then enthusiasts and laypersons would use observation to predict human catastrophes, such as political and economic problems.

This can be seen, for example, in an image where President Montt appears on the right with a set of binoculars and, on the left, most likely Albert Obrecht, then director of the National Observatory, in front of a telescope. The drawing was published in the magazine Zig-Zag in March 1907. The cartoon is titled ‘Observing the Comet’ and the text reads: ‘A star is seen on the horizon… What could it be? Is it the approaching comet or the gold going away?’ This last reference alludes to Montt’s proposal to reestablish a gold standard regime (a system in which the monetary value is fixed according to a determined quantity of gold), since the 1904 law to adopt a paper currency faced setbacks that led various companies to bankruptcy. Montt had planned to veto this law, but his ministers opposed the motion, forcing him to abandon his original plans, which would explain why the cartoon depicts the gold leaving. Thus, the representation of amateur observers is applied to non-scientific purposes, but for an important economic and political objective for the Chilean population.

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Verónica Ramírez Errázuriz has a doctorate in literature from the University of Chile. She is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Liberal Arts of the Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Chile. She is also FONDECYT researcher, and studies the relationship between science and literature in the Chilean press.

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