American Science in the Age of Jackson

Preface to the 1994 Edition

Preface to the 1994 Edition In 1962, when I began the research that was later published as American Science in the Age ifJackson, American science was either a spurious field, as many people held, or one badly in need ofdefinition, as it appeared to a growing number of young scholars. A handful of books and articles dealing with specificallyAmerican subjects had appeared; many were very well done,and afew ofthem are now regarded as classics.But exacdy what the subject matter ofa "field" ofstudy to be termed "American science" was to be was still unclear.The best-known works up to that time had been biographical studies of those few individuals who had established a connection with the European scientific community and had achieved some recognition from it-one thinks ofFranklin, Gray, and Agassiz, each ofwhom had been the subject ofan excellent study.1 Ofa similar nature was Brooke Hindle's The Pursuit ifScience in RevolutionaryAmerica, which focused on an extraordinary generation ofAmerican colonials who were recognized primarily by their connection to the world scientific community .2 But an "American science" dealing with those individuals who had received some degree ofrecognition by the world scientific community would soon have its subject matter exhausted. The basic proposition of those arguing against an "American science" was, after all, correctAmericans had contributed only minimally to the developing body of world science before the twentieth century. Most early American scientists who had any claim to membership in the world scientific community x Preface (1994) had been the subject of at least one biography, although no others measured up to the standards set by I. Bernard Cohen, Edward Lurie, and A. Hunter Dupree.Works outside this explicit framework were extremely rare.Dupree's Science in the Federal Government-clearly the best ofthesehad pursued one strand ofthe science/society relationship within a purely national framework, andWilliam Stanton's The Leopard's Spots dealt with the relationship between national culture and scientific attitudes with regard to the issue of race. Dirk J. Struik's Yankee Science in the Making, although badly flawed by the author's crude Marxism, was nevertheless suggestive ofwhat was possible.3 Although there had been occasional calls from general American historians for the study ofscience as apart ofthe general culture,it was not until 1964 that A. Hunter Dupree flady made the point that the place of science in America was not dependent upon its relationship to world science,but like religion and art, it should be studied simply because it was a part of American civilization. Moreover, Dupree argued, it was not necessary that the historian have any deep understanding ofthe sciences, for it was not the "things ofscience" that was his subject matter, but the people who were doing the science. As he put it,"The scientists study the things; the historians study the scientists."Writing in the same vein a few years later, Edward Lurie argued that if one viewed science broadly, as a part ofthe social and intellectual context ofan era, it would"provide a key to understanding that is more sophisticated and broadly based than reliance on the history of religion, politics, or 'society' as loosely conceived by an earlier generation."4 This is a briefsketch ofthe context in which American Science in theAge ofJackson was written. Conceived as spadework for the kind of broad understanding that many of us hoped the study of American science would contribute, it had two entirely distinct aims. First, by a process explained in the Introduction to the original publication, the period 1815 to 1845 was selected, and a group offifty-five "leading contributors" to the sixteen "most important" scientific journals was identified. My argument that these men could reasonably be considered representatives of the "American scientific community" has not been challenged, and quite similar arguments have, in fact, been used by others since.5 Then, using biographical data about these individuals and an analysis oftheir writings, I offered a sketch of the scientific community. The men composing it Preface (1994) xi (there were no women) tended to be well educated, primarily employed as scientists, and, in their research interests, highly specialized, with about halfdoing their work in the physical sciences and halfin natural history. An analysis of their work revealed very litde evidence of the practical considerations that had been said to drive science in America; on the contrary,most ofthe men seemed to be primarily oriented toward making contributions to the developing body ofworld science.These conclusions about the scientific...