Coffeehouses and the Rise of Science

Abstract

Coffeehouses emerged as a key social institution in early modern England. In 1962, Jürgen Habermas famously argued that they transformed the public sphere by fostering rational debate, enabling Enlightenment ideas to flourish. This paper tests that claim in the context of Enlightenment science in seventeenth-century London. Exploiting the staggered spread of coffeehouses, we find a substantial increase in the number of applied scientists and scientific instrument shops coinciding with the establishment of the first coffeehouse in a jurisdiction. We argue that coffeehouses fostered this growth by lowering the cost of accessing scientific knowledge and making experimental science more interactive and public. Consistent with this mechanism, coffeehouses especially benefited individuals with weaker ties to elite intellectual circles, strengthened links between theory-oriented scientists and practical instrument makers, and increased the number of experimental instrument shops.