Asa Smith

Asa Smith (1800–1877) was an American educator and author best known for his influential astronomy textbook Smith’s Illustrated Astronomy. Born in Newport, Rhode Island, he became principal of the Public School Society’s No. 12 in New York City, where he developed a reputation as a clear and effective teacher. In 1848 he published Smith’s Illustrated Astronomy, Designed for the Use of the Public or Common Schools in the United States, a work that presented the principles of astronomy in plain language accompanied by more than fifty woodcut illustrations.

The textbook was widely adopted in American schools and went through numerous editions, remaining in print well into the late nineteenth century. Its clear diagrams and concise explanations introduced generations of students to the structure of the solar system, eclipses, comets, and the motions of celestial bodies. Smith’s approach reflected the mid-nineteenth-century drive to make scientific knowledge accessible to a broad audience. He continued to serve in education until his death in 1877, remembered for a work that shaped scientific instruction in American classrooms for decades.