Atlantic Disaster: Boston Responds to the Cape Ann Earthquake of 1755

This article examines religious, scientific, and media responses to the 1755 Cape Ann earthquake, which affected Boston and other regions throughout the Atlantic world. The earthquake's prolonged generation of environmental data challenged American colonists' attempts to achieve certainty about the natural disaster. Further news of the famous and devastating Lisbon earthquake forced Americans to broaden their horizon of environmental change to one that extended into the ocean–a formative moment for the development of transatlantic science, and one that can help historians resolve seemingly opposed historiographic currents.