"The idea of an inexpensive, portable globe for teaching had been
suggested in the late 18th century. Richard and Maria Edgeworth, a
father-daughter pair of educationalists, asked in their 1798 publication
Practical Education: "Might not a cheap, portable, and
convenient globe be made of oiled silk, to be inflated by a common pair
of bellows?" It was another forty years, however, until such a globe was
first produced. Their request was answered in around 1830 with the
invention of the balloon globe, an object made of fabric gores stitched
together, which was inflated with an air pump. However, in 1850, John
Betts designed an attractive alternative that did not require being
inflated with a pump. Betts' "New Portable Globe", used an umbrella
mechanism to support the gores in a spherical shape." (courtesy Whipple)
Provincial Booksellers Fairs Association has a lengthy discussion of The Betts Globe below.
