By Evan Boxer-Cook, 2025 Summer intern at the Osher Map Library.
Evan is a student of Classical & Medieval Studies at Bates College, with a career focus on the history of science and the study of scientific instruments. At the OML, Evan’s research focuses on previously uncatalogued instruments, including demonstrational models such as the Trippensee Planetarium.
The Osher Map Library’s Trippensee Planetarium stands on a ridged brass base containing ringed labels for the calendar months, signs of the zodiac, and seasons. Above this is mounted a wooden maple structure supporting the Sun, Venus, Earth, and Moon, along with the gears and chains regulating their motions. Both Venus and the Moon are simple wooden spheres painted half black, half white in order to demonstrate the progression of their phases as seen from Earth. Earth itself is plastered with elaborately detailed and colored gores, with a simple cartouche reading “The Trippensee Mfg. Co., Detroit, Mich.” From the underside of the orrery’s arm protrudes a metal handle which is used to rotate the arm and thus set the entirety of the model in motion through its various chain drives.
While the bodies that make up the model presented by the Trippensee Planetarium in the collections of the Osher Map Library are fairly intuitive and agreed upon in their identities, far less black-and-white is the classification of the model itself. It has been described as a planetarium by its makers, an orrery by some historians, and a tellurion by others still. What distinguishes each of these instruments? Which term best describes the Trippensee Planetarium? And, where has the confusion come from?
In order to navigate this tangled terminology, we must begin in 1712 with the origin of the term “orrery.” 1712 marked the completion of a commission of an astronomical model that London instrument maker John Rowley was tasked to construct. This model, now in The London Science Museum’s Linbury Gallery, features a central brass sun with gearing designed to drive the motion of the Earth and Moon around it. The man who commissioned it was Charles Boyle, the fourth Earl of Orrery in Ireland. It was at the suggestion of the essayist Sir Richard Steele that the device itself was termed an “orrery,” in honor of Rowley’s patron.
Science Museum Group. Orrery made by John Rowley for the Earl of Orrery. 1952-73 Science Museum Group Collection Online. Accessed 12 June 2025. https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co56970/orrery-made-by-john-rowley-for-the-earl-of-orrery
Under these circumstances, it should presumably be the case that this orrery, the first instrument to go by the classification of orrery, should be without ambiguity agreed to be an orrery. This is not the case. In fact, several historians–even the museum currently holding Rowley’s instrument–caveat that it would more accurately be termed a tellurion. At the core of this matter is the fact that the definitions of the orrery and other planetary models have drifted over the centuries.
Under its definition as established by John Rowley’s work, an orrery models the Sun-Earth-Moon system, with gearing that allows the Earth to rotate around its axis, a moon to orbit the earth, and the Earth-Moon system to orbit the Sun. Emphasis is placed on the tilt of Earth’s axis, with its 23.5 degree inclination remaining consistently oriented as the Earth travels through its orbit. A similar instrument that excludes the moon, focusing its presentation on the features of the Earth’s motion, is known as a tellurion (derived from the Latin tellus, meaning earth). Alternatively, a model that excludes the Earth while presenting the moon in a higher level of detail and priority is, in technical terms, a lunarium.
A planetarium, by its period definition, is an instrument that models the solar system from a broader perspective: a planetarium includes multiple planets (often at minimum the six Copernican planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn) traveling around the sun at their relative orbital speeds, though without gearing to represent the rotation of planets or the orbital motion of their moons. When planetary rotation and lunar motion are introduced into the construction of a planetarium–essentially supplementing its function with that of an orrery–the model that results is known as a grand orrery.
Science Museum Group. George II’s Grand Orrery. 1927-1659 Science Museum Group Collection Online. Accessed 12 June 2025. https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co1522/george-iis-grand-orrery.
Given these shifting definitions, what, then, is the Trippensee Planetarium? Somewhat counterintuitively, the designation of “planetarium” is one of the easiest to rule out due to the intricately geared Earth and Moon system. Such a scope is much finer than the broad planetary orbits planetariums are primarily concerned with.
It is the definition of tellurion that presents the main point of contention and the beginning of a cascade of definition drift. In its modern usage, tellurion tends to describe representationally geared Sun-Earth-Moon models, despite this being the original territory of the orrery. In turn, the term orrery has come to describe what would historically be called a planetarium. Today, “planetarium” is primarily used to describe domed projection centers, capable of simulating the night sky for a given location (or as many will know them for, projecting elaborate, prerecorded educational routines). In this modern understanding of these terms, then, the designation of tellurion most comfortably fits the Trippensee Planetarium. Following the historic precedent set by Rowley’s model, however, it is an orrery. Ultimately, this disconnect comes down to the question of descriptivism vs. prescriptivism. There are those who look at Rowley’s 1712 model and see an orrery, and there are those who see a tellurion. If Rowley’s orrery is understood as the defining template of what an orrery ought to be, then the Trippensee Manufacturing Company produced an orrery. If the colloquial language developed over three centuries is to be held as authoritative, then they produced a tellurion.
With this historical context and binary in mind, the question then becomes: why did the Trippensee Manufacturing Company market their product as a planetarium?
To answer this question we must once again investigate the maker of a planetary model, this one just over 150 years after Rowley’s orrery. In 1866, United States clerk Alfred Andrews founded the A.H. Andrews Company which came to be highly regarded for its production of furniture and school supplies, along with a great variety of terrestrial globes. In the 1880s, Andrews produced the MacVicar tellurion Globe–a tellurion under the historical definition. This model featured a suggestion of the sun, but wholly emphasized the earth and its movements with no moon to be seen. Soon after came the Lunar tellurion Globe, illustrated below, with a uniquely partial representation of the sun, a spike to identify the subsolar point, and a somewhat paradoxical name.
Gross, Howard H. Teachers’ manual for Andrews’ lunar tellurion. Chicago, A. H. Andrews & co, 1881. Pdf. https://www.loc.gov/item/05002134/.
One would think that a tellurion with a moon is simply an orrery, though Andrews’ model blurs this line. Here we arrive at a somewhat inevitable explanation for the trend toward inconsistent naming, that being the hand of marketability, especially for classroom use. By 1880, Andrews’ MacVicar tellurion Globe had already begun to establish itself as an invaluable classroom aid. Thus, naming his next product the “Lunar tellurion Globe” marks it as a successor and, most importantly, an improvement. Labeling the new product the equivalent of “tellurion: now with moon!”–makes far more sense from a business perspective than using the entirely new and potentially unfamiliar term of orrery. Particularly in the late-nineteenth century post-industrial revolution world, when instruments such as orreries were being produced by companies and factories as opposed to masters or guildsmen, pre-existing mechanical templates and naming conventions yielded to the demands of the market. Under these circumstances, precedent and individual preference dictated terminology, with instruments becoming increasingly detached from the historical taxonomies that could be used to describe them.
The effect of these market factors in diverting convention from the historical can be seen in full force when examining the history of the Trippensee Planetarium itself. With terminology and precedent determined, let us now examine the intersecting lives and the resulting businesses that led to the creation of a timeless product still available today–The Trippensee Planetarium.
In order to trace the story of the Trippensee Planetarium, we must first begin with the Trippensee family. In 1849, a man named William F. Trippensee immigrated from Germany to New York where he first established himself as a farmer before marrying Ruffina Teachout, a native of New York. The two went on to have eight children: Albert W., Frank J., William F., Frederick F., Rena, Herbert O., Reuben, and a woman recorded only in relation to her husband, George Reynolds.
After relocating to Michigan and ultimately settling in Saginaw county, brothers Albert and Frank Trippensee both entered the wagon-making trade, their paths diverging as they took up employment in a variety of workshops throughout the 1890s. Frank immersed himself in the craft, working for W.A. Patterson & Company, Durant-Dort Road Cart Company, Flint Wagon Works, and the C. R. Wilson Body Company in Detroit. Meanwhile, Albert ascended the corporate ladder, developing a taste for entrepreneurship that took him beyond the trades. Having impressed his employers at the wagon-making shop of W. F. Stewart and again at subsequent posts, he was promoted time and time again, eventually entering the business sector for himself.
In 1896, while the Trippensee brothers accumulated experience in their respective ventures, just across the Canadian border Alexander Laing of Essex filed both U.S. and Canadian patents for an intricate mechanism that soon became popular in schools across the United States: a string and pulley driven orrery (seen here). The unit included a Sun-Earth-Moon model (plus Venus), that when manually cranked demonstrated the relative motions of each included body. The model was first and foremost an educational tool marketed for the classroom, and, as such, was reasonably priced. Notably, for Laing’s model, in a manner that followed in the footsteps of Rowley, the Moon and Venus were painted half white, half black, and geared to demonstrate their phases as seen from earth.
The School Journal. United States: E.L. Kellogg & Company, 1904.
https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_School_Journal/n6hLAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0
Laing’s Planetarium was highly regarded by its target demographic, with educators praising the model in the review sections of school supply catalogues and educational journals. For example in a 1900 review one educator noted:
Laing’s Planetarium is a most admirably contrived instrument for illustrating the various motions and problems which present themselves in connection with the study of mathematical geography and elementary astronomy. It recommends itself at first sight by the simplicity of its mechanism. An instructor using it does not need to talk; the instrument speaks for itself. No progressing teacher of geography can afford to be without such a device. It is of use equally in the elementary and in higher schools. It assists in making clear all sorts of difficult problems relating to Diurnal Motion, the Ecliptic, Equinoxes and Solstices, Seasons, Zones, Circle of Illumination, Apogee, and Perigee, etc.
Although described in The School Journal as an orrery, Laing marketed his product as a planetarium: the specialty of the newly founded Laing Planetarium Company, which he later moved to Detroit. We don’t know why Laing decided to call his product a planetarium. Whether stemming from a lacking awareness of technical terms or an intentional preference for a term perceived to hold more public stock than “orrery,” Laing’s choice forever shaped the legacy of his product and, by extension, the vocabularies of generations of children, and their teachers.
By 1905, with automobiles beginning to displace his trade of wooden carriage manufacturing, we find Frank J. Trippensee is still in Michigan, working for the Laing Planetarium Company. The company was struggling financially during this period, with two years of unpaid taxes resulting in the company’s original charter falling void. Having notified his brothers Albert W. and William F. Trippensee of this financial instability and the opportunity it presented, the Trippensees bought out Laing, reconfiguring the business into the Trippensee Manufacturing Company. The three brothers each took on a leadership role, settling on William F. Trippensee as President, Albert W. Trippensee as Vice President, and Frank J. Trippensee as Secretary and Treasurer of their new enterprise.
Between 1905 and 1908, the Trippensee Manufacturing Company sold rebranded Laing planetariums, still making use of his original string and pulley design. Seeing as though the Laing Planetarium had already become ensconced within the U.S. market, these units retained continuity and were thus branded as “Trippensee Planetariums.” In 1907, Frank filed a patent that brought an innovative identity to the new company. The next year, the patent was approved and his innovation was instituted in a new model, where the strings and pulleys that drove the Laing Planetarium were replaced with a chain-and-gear system that was simpler to manufacture, easier to maintain, and much more durable.
Alongside this reconfigured planetarium design, the Trippensee Manufacturing Company extended its range to the production of automobile bodies (1907), the logical progression of the carriage bodies that Frank and Albert had spent their early careers working on. This aspect of the Trippensees’ business experienced great success, and the three brothers decided to sell the planetarium side of their business to their younger siblings. In 1920, the Trippensee Planetarium Company was officially formed and separated from the Trippensee Manufacturing Company. This change in leadership is visible in planetarium models produced after 1920, which feature oval “Trippensee Planetarium Company” labels in place of rectangular “Trippensee Manufacturing Company” ones. By 1922, the Trippensee Manufacturing Company had reconfigured to focus exclusively on the manufacture of automobile bodies. One year later, it merged with the Everett Brothers Company, rebranding as the Trippensee Closed Body Corporation with Frank J. Trippensee as President.
Under new management, the Trippensee Planetarium Company painted the maple components of its units black starting in 1925. By 1929, two versions of the planetarium were sold: one hand-cranked and one electric. In the decades that followed, the wood and brass components of the planetariums were gradually replaced with bakelite or plastic.
Science Museum Group. Orrery planetary model by the Trippensee Planetarium Company, 1968-9. 1969-464 Science Museum Group Collection Online. Accessed 12 June 2025. https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co57045/orrery-planetary-model-by-the-trippensee-planetarium-company-1968-9.
In 1999, the Trippensee Planetarium Company was bought by Science First, a company which continues to produce the plastic Trippensee Planetarium to this day in both hand-cranked and electric versions.
Today, many recall the Trippensee planetariums of their childhood classrooms. In an era before video demonstrations and digital simulations of the solar system, such physical models were indispensable in K-12 and University classrooms and, according to reviews, helped communicate the intricacies of celestial motion and related concepts that would otherwise require months of textual study.
With particular mind to the vast quantities of former students who fondly remember the planetariums from their youth, the sense of labeling this terminology as incorrect should be considered. Certainly, Laing’s decision to call his orrery a planetarium contributed to the slippage of terms evident in today’s cultural lexicon, but so too did the term “orrery” arbitrarily replace the terminology that preceded it in 1712. It could be argued that there is hypocrisy in defining Rowley’s orrery as an orrery but not defining the Trippensee Planetarium as a planetarium.
The question of “what is the Trippensee Planetarium?” brings to attention the difficulties that plague attempts to codify the seams of classification. Considering the fact that today’s museums continue to operate under an inconsistent naming scheme for planetary models, a clean answer cannot be given. However, as previously outlined, the two most common camps are those that follow–the first being more historically based and the second more evidently colloquial:
Orrery: The Trippensee Planetarium is an orrery, as established by John Rowley’s 1712 instrument. An orrery includes a detailed Sun-Earth-Moon model, with gearing to represent the axial tilt, rotations, orbits, and relative speeds of its included bodies. It follows that removing the moon would result in a tellurion, and adding a fuller spread of geared planets and moons would result in a grand orrery. The modern dome-projection planetarium is not particularly distinguished within this vocabulary, with context instead dictating which type of planetarium is being referred to.
Tellurion: The Trippensee Planetarium is a tellurion–an instrument that models the Sun-Earth-Moon system (though the moon does not necessarily have to be included) with particular emphasis on the dynamics of Earth’s tilted axis. It is distinct from an orrery, which models a wider array of planets at their relative speeds. A grand orrery advances the orrery mechanically (often at a larger scale), including additional gearing to represent the intricate rotations of the plants and their moons. The term “planetarium” distinctly refers to dome-projection centers.
While these two stances tend to be the most common, there exist still other schemes more or less nuanced in their designations and definitions. While a satisfying and conclusive scheme of terminology may not be available, the context gathered thus far allows indexed pieces and collections to be understood within their own terms. Often when one looks too closely at the boundaries of instrument classification, a sort of coastline paradox results. Sometimes, against the instinct toward intricate, technically accurate typologies, classification remains a matter of precedent–precedent shaped by cultural vocabularies and the individual preferences of institutions.
Returning to the Osher Map Library’s Trippensee Planetarium reveals a number of key details: Not mentioned up until now is the fact that this Trippensee Planetarium is accompanied by its original box, which contains a telling label reading “Trippensee Planetarium Co.” Taken alone, this might simply indicate that the unit was produced after 1920 when manufacture migrated away from the original Trippensee Manufacturing Company, however this cannot be the case. The unit itself carries a rectangular label reading “Trippensee Manufacturing Co.” Together, these details reveal two key pieces of information. Because this model is branded with the original company name (and made from plain maple–not yet painted black), its manufacture could theoretically be dated to any year between 1908 and 1920. That is, between the implementation of Frank Trippensee’s patent and the separation of the Trippensee Planetarium company. However, due to the discrepancy between the company name on the unit itself and its box’s label, it is evident that this unit was sold during a transitional period where the boxes had been updated to reflect the new manufacturer while some older stock remained, still labeled “Trippensee Manufacturing Co.” This places the unit’s sale soon after 1920, assuming the Trippensee Planetarium Company prioritised sending out its existing stock. Due to the unlikelihood of an unboxed Trippensee Planetarium remaining unsold for an extended period, I speculate that this unit was one of the last produced prior to the company’s reorganization. It was likely manufactured in the years preceding 1920, allowing it to be built under the Trippensee Manufacturing Company but boxed and sold under the Trippensee Planetarium Company.
1. Although he has been occasionally credited with the invention of the orrery, Rowley himself acknowledges (in a plaque on his instrument) that George Graham’s 1700 design predated his own.
2. There is an argument to be made that is not considered at length here, but is worth mentioning for the additional perspective it provides. There are those who consider the term orrery to be entirely void as a term of classification, considering its use comparable to modern genericide (when a brand name becomes so widely known that its name replaces the generic term within a cultural lexicon; think Google(ing), Post-Its, Xerox, etc.). Prior to Rowley’s orrery, similar models were called tellurions or planeteria.
Barry J. Sobel, “The Story of the Orrery and the Trippensee Company,” Rittenhouse 15 (2001): 83-92.
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Gross, Howard H. Teachers’ manual for Andrews’ lunar tellurion. Chicago, A. H. Andrews & co, 1881. Pdf. https://www.loc.gov/item/05002134/.
Index to School Science and Mathematics: Volume 29. Mount Morris: The Central Association of Science and Mathematics Teachers, 1929.
H. Kellogg, ed. Index to Good Health: Volume 38. Battle Creek: Good Health Publishing Company, 1903.
Kyle, “Trippensee tellurion/planetarium: A collectors guide,” Collecting Antique and Vintage Globes (blog), March 15, 2018. https://antiqueglobes.blogspot.com/2018/03/trippensee-tellurion-planetarium.html
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Science Museum Group. George II’s Grand Orrery. 1927-1659 Science Museum Group Collection Online. Accessed 12 June 2025. https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co1522/george-iis-grand-orrery.
Science Museum Group. Orrery made by John Rowley for the Earl of Orrery. 1952-73 Science Museum Group Collection Online. Accessed 12 June 2025. https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co56970/orrery-made-by-john-rowley-for-the-earl-of-orrery.
Science Museum Group. Orrery planetary model by the Trippensee Planetarium Company, 1968-9. 1969-464 Science Museum Group Collection Online. Accessed 12 June 2025. https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co57045/orrery-planetary-model-by-the-trippensee-planetarium-company-1968-9.
Smythe, R. M. Obsolete American Securities and Corporations, Illustrated with Photographs of Important Repudiated Bonds. New York: R. M. Smythe, Room 452, Produce Exchange, 1911.
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