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Eliza Houghton's Math Book

In 1810, at least two students in Mrs. Rowson's Academy for girls in Boston produced handwritten math books titledĀ Practical Arithmetic. These bound manuscripts suggest that copying math textbooks may have been a way of teaching and learning math.

But they were also much more. Scroll across the page and detail images below to see some of the features of Eliza Houghton's bound manuscript.

Page from Eliza Houghton's Practical Arithmetic illustrating sample bookkeeping entries.