Within recent years fairly exhaustive studies have been made on many aspects on American Science and Technology. To make a comprehensive study of American scientific instruments and instrument makers in the American Colonies is no simple matter, partly because of an indifference to the subject in the past, and partly because of the great volume of sources that must be sifted to accomplish it.
A Companion to the History of American Science offers a collection of essays that give an authoritative overview of the most recent scholarship on the history of American science. Covers topics including astronomy, agriculture, chemistry, eugenics, Big Science, military technology, and more Features contributions by the most accomplished scholars in the field of science history Covers pivotal events in U.S. history that shaped the development of science and science policy such as WWII, the Cold War, and the Women’s Rights movement
"Early American Scientific Instruments and Their Makers" by Silvio A. Bedini. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.
Science, medicine, and technology have become increasingly important to the average individual in modern society. The importance of these three fields is in many ways one of the defining characteristics of modernity. Understanding their history is essential for educated individuals. Science, medicine, and technology are not static endeavors but processes, bodies of knowledge, tools, and techniques that are constantly growing and changing. The entries in this encyclopedia explore the changing character of science, medicine, and technology in the United States; the key individuals, institutions, and organizations responsible for major developments; and the concepts, practices, and processes underlying these changes. Especially since the early decades of the twentieth century, American science, medicine, and technology have played dominant roles internationally. Entries explore distinctive characteristics of American institutions and culture that help explain this development.At the same time, the encyclopedia situates specific events, theories, practices, and institutions in their proper historical context and explores their impact on American society and culture. Entries are written by the experts in the field. Students not only from the humanities and social sciences but also from the sciences and the medical sciences should be attracted to the broad-ranging and in-depth analysis in the encyclopedia.
Most historians rely principally on written sources. Yet there are other traces of the past available to historians: the material things that people have chosen, made, and used. This book examines how material culture can enhance historians' understanding of the past, both worldwide and across time. The successful use of material culture in history depends on treating material things of many kinds not as illustrations, but as primary evidence. Each kind of material thing-and there are many-requires the application of interpretive skills appropriate to it. These skills overlap with those acquired by scholars in disciplines that may abut history but are often relatively unfamiliar to historians, including anthropology, archaeology, and art history. Creative historians can adapt and apply the same skills they honed while studying more traditional text-based documents even as they borrow methods from these fields. They can think through familiar historical problems in new ways. They can also deploy material culture to discover the pasts of constituencies who have left few or no traces in written records. The authors of this volume contribute case studies arranged thematically in six sections that respectively address the relationship of history and material culture to cognition, technology, the symbolic, social distinction, and memory. They range across time and space, from Paleolithic to Punk.
Sweeping survey of 150 years of colonial history (1607–1763) offers authoritative views on agrarian society and leadership, non-English influences, religion, education, literature, music, architecture, and much more. 33 black-and-white illustrations.
"This collection of original historical essays examines aspects of the relationship between science and the nation's oldest academic institution. This is history as viewed from the varying perspectives of a group of scholars for whom science at Harvard University is a significant component of their ongoing research. Thus, the essays are of specialist interest, while collectively the volume is a case study of science in an institutional setting. In conducting their research, the authors have used a wealth of primary sources from the Harvard Archives and other repositories." "The volume opens with a thematic introduction by Margaret Rossiter reflecting the picture of Harvard science drawn in the several papers in the volume, while suggesting ways in which a study of Harvard relates to and illuminates the history of science in America." "The subsequent papers follow a generally chronological sequence, beginning with Sara Schechner Genuth's study of attitudes toward comets in relation to early Harvard University programs and functions. Mary Ann James examines the beginnings of applied science at Harvard, and Bruce Sinclair continues that theme with a comparative study of MIT and Harvard." "Toby Appel's paper on zoologist Jeffries Wyman identifies the special part that personal character plays in institutional history. Curtis Hinsley concentrates on facilities and shows how the Peabody Museum gave rise to teaching in anthropology. David Livingstone's biographical treatment of Nathaniel S. Shaler reveals a number of intellectual strands running through the University in the late nineteenth century, and John Parascandola's paper on L. J. Henderson likewise deals with a figure of wide influence and many interests, ranging from biochemistry to sociology. The latter topic leads to Lawrence Nichols's account of the rise of sociology at Harvard. A view of the internal tensions within psychology are seen in Rodney Triplet's study of Henry A. Murray." "I. Bernard Cohen examines the relations among Howard Aiken, IBM, and Harvard in the development of the Mark I computer, while Peggy Kidwell studies the Observatory community during World War II and its response to national defense and a developing federal support system." "Finally, Clark Elliott considers the history of Harvard science as a field for study through a review of published literature and archival sources and makes suggestions for further investigation."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Providing a comprehensive interdisciplinary assessment, and with a particular focus on expressions of tension and anxiety about modernity, this collection examines visual culture in nineteenth-century Europe as it attempted to redefine itself in the face of social change and new technologies. Contributing scholars from the fields of history, art, literature and the history of science investigate the role of visual representation and the dominance of the image by looking at changing ideas expressed in representations of science, technology, politics, and culture in advertising, art, periodicals, and novels. They investigate how, during the period, new emphasis was placed on the visual with emerging forms of mass communication?photography, lithography, newspapers, advertising, and cinema?while older forms as varied as poetry, the novel, painting, interior decoration, and architecture became transformed. The volume includes investigations into new innovations and scientific development such as the steam engine, transportation and engineering, the microscope, "spirit photography," and the orrery, as well as how this new technology is reproduced in illustrated periodicals. The essays also look at more traditional forms of creative expression to show that the same concerns and anxieties about science, technology and the changing perceptions of the natural world can be seen in the art of Armand Guillaumin, Auguste Rodin, Gustave Caillebotte, and Camille Pissarro, in colonial nineteenth-century novels, in design manuals, in museums, and in the decorations of domestic interior spaces. Visions of the Industrial Age, 1830-1914 offers a thorough exploration of both the nature of modernity, and the nature of the visual.
When this classic volume first appeared, academic freedom was a crucially important issue. It is equally so today. Hofstadter approaches the topic historically, showing how events from various historical epochs expose the degree of freedom in academic institutions. The volume exemplifies Richard Hofstader's qualities as a historian as well as his characteristic narrative ability. Hofstadter first describes the medieval university and how its political independence evolved from its status as a corporate body, establishing a precedent for intellectual freedom that has been a measuring rod ever since. He shows how all intellectual discourse became polarized with the onset of the Reformation. The gradual spread of the Moderate Enlightenment in the colonies led to a major advance for intellectual freedom. But with the beginning of the nineteenth century the rise of denominationalism in both new and established colleges reversed the progress, and the secularization of learning became engulfed by a tidal wave of intensifying piety. Roger L. Geiger's extensive new introduction evaluates Hofstadter's career as a historian and political theorist, his interest in academic freedom, and the continuing significance of Academic Freedom in the Age of the College. While most works about higher education treat the subject only as an agent of social economic mobility, Academic Freedom in the Age of the College is an enduring counterweight to such histories as it examines a more pressing issue: the fact that colleges and universities, at their best, should foster ideas at the frontiers of knowledge and understanding. This classic text will be invaluable to educators, university administrators, sociologist, and historians.
