The Mars Mania in America Around 1900: A Book Review

Enjoyable throughout. Full of fun facts. A Lowell book you will go back to. Who knew the size of Mars Mania? “There’s always a Lowell connection” (Marie Sweeney quote).

For the past two weeks I’ve been reading a new book by science writer David Baron called “The Martians: The True Story of an Alien Craze that Captured Turn-of-the-Century America.” The title is a mouthful, but the book is an easy read. I’ve been reading it, yes, but not in a straight line, instead skipping around, sneaking peeks ahead, finding new things in each chapter. On top of everything, the book has been a good diversion from the daily media angst that ratchets up each week.

I grew up at the start of the Space Age in America and Russia or at least I thought so. This new book describes an earlier Space Age dominated by widespread interest in the third planet from our sun.

The Epilogue might be my favorite section of the book as the author ties up a bunch of loose strings and brings the story forward to the modern era and present. We are still talking about Mars as a place to go. Elon Musk, anyone? But don’t rush to get to the end or you will miss the hyperactive popular culture of the late 19th and early 20th centuries when all kinds of folks were jumping on the Mars wagon, including author H. G. Wells, entertainment producer Orson Welles, fizzy and fractious newsman William Randolph Hearst, inventor Nikola Tesla, French astronomer Camille Flammarion (not a relative of mine), many others. Lowell’s younger sister, the inventive poet Amy Lowell of Boston, makes an appearance.

Somebody points up and says, “Look,” and millions of eyes turn skyward. Why were so many people primed to look into the night-scape at this time? Robert Frost once wrote about people at the ocean’s edge just standing there and looking out into the vast water. Mesmerized? Same reason? The scale?

And the man in the middle of a lot of this is one of the “Lowell” Lowells from Boston, astronomer Percival Lowell (1855-1916), who would have made the cover of PEOPLE magazine if there had been one. He was a crossover celebrity hit after promoting the idea that there are canals on Mars, some kind of lines on the surface thought to be artificial, maybe an ancient irrigation system rather than natural depressions from melting ice. His book “Mars” (1895) put him out front in this speculation. He wasn’t the first on the Mars life subject. There was some confusion early on about terminology. A previous astronomer, Schiaparelli of Italy, had seen something up there and applied the Italian word “canali” or “channels.” This framing morphed into “canals” with Lowell, suggesting a system built by intelligent beings and not simply geophysical markings, long ruts worn by flowing ice melt or vast cracks in the surface.

One observer wondered if Lowell’s point of view had been influenced by the 6.5 miles of power canals that had been devised by associates of his family in the pioneering textile mill city named Lowell. Our man Percival was as familiar in his day as Carl Sagan later talking about the universe on TV and Bill Nye the Science Guy, another TV scientist, who incidentally holds a UMass Lowell Honorary Degree among other awards.

There’s a lot here, and the author’s entertaining style, plus pictures, keep the reader moving.

Paul Marion (c) 2025