Warren Colburn

Background

Warren Colburn was born in Dedham, Massachusetts, United States on March 1, 1793. His parents were poor, and when a boy he worked in factories in the different villages to which they moved.

Education

He learned the machinist's trade, but early manifested a taste for mathematics, and entered Harvard in 1816, from where he graduated 1820.

Career

He opened a school in Boston. In April 1823 he became superintendent of the Boston Manufacturing Company at Waltham, Massachusetts, and in August 1824 of the Merrimack Manufacturing Company at Lowell. In these capacities, he invented important improvements in machinery. In the Fall of 1825, he delivered a course of lectures on the natural history of animals, illustrated with the magic lantern. This he followed in later years with further popular lectures on light, the eye, the seasons, electricity, hydraulics, astronomy, commerce, etc. These lectures continued through many years.

Among his most successful books were First Lessons in Intellectual Arithmetic (1821), with its sequel (1823); An Introduction to Algebra upon the Inductive Method of Instruction (1825); and the series of Lessons in Reading and Grammar (1830 - 1833). He died at Lowell, Massachussets, September 13, 1833.

Achievements

• Colburn devised several useful improvements in machinery, but his greatest success was as a lecturer on science, dealing with mathematics and physics in simple, everyday language.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Colburn's First Lessons

    (Excerpt from Colburn's First Lessons: Intellectual Arithm...)

  • First Lessons in Arithmetic

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • Colburn's first lessons. Intellectual arithmetic, upon the inductive method of instruction

    (This historic book may have numerous typos and missing te...)

  • A Key Containing the Answers to the Examples in the Introduction to Algebra Upon the Inductive method of Instruction