Project History

Scientific American, first published in 1845, is one of the longest-running magazines in the United States and an unparalleled record of nineteenth-century American invention. Its pages are filled with detailed mechanical engravings of the machines, tools, and devices of the era.

Beginning in 2010, successive teams of Worcester Polytechnic Institute students indexed these engravings as Interactive Qualifying Projects, under Professors Steven Bullock and M. David Samson and at the request of the American Antiquarian Society. Each drawing was cataloged with its title, subject, inventor, date, and a link to the scanned issue, producing the searchable database of 9,174 drawings presented here (Scientific American Vol. 1, 1845 through the new series Vol. 21, 1869).

In 2026 the site was migrated to a lightweight static archive — the full catalog is preserved and searchable, with each entry still linking to the original scan on HathiTrust.