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Numbers were essential to making transoceanic voyages from the Atlantic to the Pacific possible during the revolutionary period: they were used for navigation, insurance, and especially for negotiating the complexities of trade and exchange.

But how did ordinary Americans in this period learn to understand and use numbers?

Mathematics textbooks were the most common entry point to the pedagogy of numbers, and they were available to a surprisingly wide variety of readers. There was moreover considerable overlap between books from such genres as accounting, bookkeeping, calculation, navigation, commerce, and insurance. 

Relying on a selection of primary sources from the American Antiquarian Society, this exhibit provides a visual introduction to the world of numbers in early America--and to the way that learning numbers introduced early Americans to the far reaches of the globe.

This exhibit supplements chapter 2 of my book Transoceanic America: Risk, Writing, and Revolution in the Global Pacific, published by Oxford University Press.