In the 1870s, microscopy societies began to proliferate in the United States. Most of these societies attracted microscopists from surrounding cities, but the American Postal Microscopical Club, modelled on the British Postal Microscopical Society, used the postal system to connect microscopists scattered across the country. Club members exchanged microscope slides and notes following a chain-letter system. The main objective of the club was to teach its members how to make permanent slides. Preparation and mounting methods required technical skill, which was, as even club members had to admit, difficult to learn without personal instruction. Yet members developed ways to share craft knowledge through the post. Drawing on the private notes of a member and published reports on the slides circulated, this paper challenges the widespread assumption that the generation of craft knowledge depended on the co-location of artisans. It argues that microscopists’ knowledge of preparation methods was intertwined with their skill in building and navigating information infrastructures, and that by tracing these infrastructures we gain a better understanding of how craft knowledge travelled in the late nineteenth century.

在 1870 年代，显微镜学会开始在美国激增。这些协会中的大多数都吸引了来自周边城市的显微镜专家，但以英国邮政显微镜协会为蓝本的美国邮政显微镜俱乐部利用邮政系统将分散在全国各地的显微镜专家联系起来。俱乐部成员按照连锁信系统交换显微镜载玻片和笔记。俱乐部的主要目标是教其成员如何制作永久性幻灯片。准备和安装方法需要技术技能，即使俱乐部成员不得不承认，如果没有个人指导，这也很难学会。然而，成员们开发了通过帖子分享工艺知识的方法。根据成员的私人笔记和已发布的幻灯片报告，本文挑战了广泛的假设，即工艺知识的产生取决于工匠的共同定位。它认为显微镜学家对制备方法的了解与他们构建和导航信息基础设施的技能交织在一起，通过追踪这些基础设施，我们可以更好地了解 19 世纪后期工艺知识的传播方式。