Buch, Englisch, 353 Seiten, Format (B × H): 140 mm x 214 mm, Gewicht: 481 g
Building the American Nation through Science and Education in the Nineteenth Century
Buch, Englisch, 353 Seiten, Format (B × H): 140 mm x 214 mm, Gewicht: 481 g
ISBN: 978-3-593-39355-1
Verlag: Campus
Alexander Dallas Bache war der Architekt des amerikanischen Wissenschaftssystems im 19. Jahrhundert, ein amerikanischer Wilhelm von Humboldt. Als die USA im Bürgerkrieg zu zerbrechen drohten, gelang Bache 1863 die Gründung der 'National Academy of Sciences'. Im Namen der Wissenschaft schuf Bache damit ein Zeichen für den Fortbestand der Nation. Auf originelle Weise verknüpft Axel Jansen Biografieanalyse mit Wissenschafts- und Politikgeschichte.
Autoren/Hrsg.
Fachgebiete
- Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Amerikanische Geschichte
- Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Wissenschafts- und Universitätsgeschichte
- Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtswissenschaft Allgemein Biographien & Autobiographien: Historisch, Politisch, Militärisch
Weitere Infos & Material
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments 9
1. Introduction
The Curious Case of Alexander Dallas Bache 11
The Revised Theory of Professionalization 14
Science as a Profession and the American Nation-State 18
Approach and Methodology 21
Investigative Agenda 25
2. Family Background
The Franklin and Bache Families 27
The Dallas Family 33
Tertium Quid 37
Sophia Dallas Bache 41
Richard Bache's Failure 45
3. A Career in Science?
West Point 50
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 59
National Purpose 64
4. Early Research and Institutional Development
Scientist or Administrator? 66
Bache at the University of Pennsylvania 67
The Urban Setting 70
The Franklin Institute's Raison d'Être 73
The Report on Steam Boiler Explosions 79
Weights and Measures 92
The Debate on Meteor Showers 105
Research Interests and Institutional Development:
Common Denominators 117
5. Girard College and Central High School, 1836-1842
Girard College as a Political Symbol 126
The Design and Ambition of Greek Revivalism 133
Bache's European Trip and the Bache-Biddle Correspondence 137
More on Bache's European Tour 150
Central High School 159
Bache Ejected 166
6. Bache's Program for National Consolidation I
Bache's 1842 Address on "American Manufactures" 173
American Mythology 174
Prospects for Consolidating the American Nation 183
"This Most August Sovereign" 189
Elites in the American Republic 194
7. Bache's Program for National Consolidation II
The United States Coast Survey 197
The National Institute 205
Bache's Speech at the 1844 Meeting of the National Institute 209
European Conditions 215
Developing American Science 218
Guarding the Palladium 222
American Science by an American Union 231
8. Bache's Program for National Consolidation III
The American Association for the Advancement of Science 236
Bache's 1851 Speech as Outgoing AAAS President 238
9. Bache, Benjamin Peirce, and the Lazzaroni in 1854
A National Club 248
"The Dark Prospect Appalls Me" 251
"A Victory for the Evil One" 275
President of an Invisible National Academy 281
10. The 1863 Founding of the National Academy of Sciences
The Timing 285
The Bache-Lieber Correspondence 287
"Ignorant of Scriptural Injunctions" 294
More on the Bache-Lieber Correspondence 306
The Founding of the National Academy of Sciences 308
11. Conclusion
A New Paradigm for Writing the History of Nineteenth-Century American Science as a Profession 315
Coordinates of Alexander Dallas Bache's Career 320
List of Figures 327
Selected Bibliography
Manuscripts and Archival Material 328
Printed Primary Sources 329
Books and Articles 333
Index 345
Introduction
The Curious Case of Alexander Dallas Bache
In the history of American science, Alexander Dallas Bache (1806-1867), great-grandson of Benjamin Franklin, occupies a singular and unparalleled position. More than anyone else in his generation and in perhaps any generation before or since, he embodied the American scientific profession, directed its development, and shaped its institutions. Most major national scientific institutions and organizations between 1830 and 1865 relied on his support or leadership: In the 1830s, Bache was the principal organizer of Philadelphia's Franklin Institute, then the most prominent research organization in the United States. In 1843, he became the superintendent of the U.S. Coast Survey, the country's largest government-run scientific enterprise with more scientific employees than any other contemporary science-related institution including Harvard University. From 1847, Bache helped instigate and direct the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the country's first national platform for science. He was one of the regents of the Smithsonian Institution and helped secure the post of secretary (i.e. director) for his colleague Joseph Henry in 1846. Finally, Bache helped found the National Academy of Sciences and became its first president in 1863. In view of this ubiquitous role, A. Hunter Dupree considers him (with physicist Joseph Henry and geologist John Wesley Powell) among the three "great hierarchs of federal science" in the nineteenth century, and Robert V. Bruce has concluded that Bache spoke "more authoritatively for antebellum science than anyone else."
While Bache was the acknowledged leader of mid-nineteenth century American science, however, the authority for his leadership remains enigmatic. One problem is that Bache was less pioneering in his research than in his institutional efforts. In a symposium in honor of Bache's legacy, organized by the American Philosophical Society in 1941, Frank B. Jewett conceded that while Bache's contributions to science "dealt largely with … [scientific problems] of recognized fundamental importance," they nevertheless concerned "departments of physics which neither then nor later could be regarded as spectacular or especially productive." In his more recent assessment, Bruce perhaps overemphasizes this point by arguing that as "a scientist, Bache fell far short of both his famous ancestor [Benjamin Franklin] and his friend Professor [Joseph] Henry." These observations reflect the fact that while Bache plays a prominent role in accounts of the institutional development of American science in the nineteenth century, he is less prominent in accounts of the development of the cognitive content of science in that period. This has left Bache with a somewhat ambivalent reputation. Bache was well connected through relatives in Pennsylvania and in federal politics. Was he not much more than an apt administrator, an institutional booster with good connections and a knack for federal fundraising?
Another aspect of Bache's career complicates matters, and that is his involvement in education before 1842. While historians of American science have focused on his institutional role and his leadership in the professional community, historians of education have focused on Bache's role as president of the Girard College for Orphans and as first principal of Central High School in Philadelphia. In 1836, Bache gave up his professorship at the University of Pennsylvania in order to assume these and other educational activities. How do such efforts fit into the pattern? Was Bache interested in cultural control, a Whiggish interest in "moral and intellectual discipline" both in his educational and in his professional leadership, or was his educational involvement an extension of his administrative interests?
In the absence of a comprehensive biography of Alexander Dallas Bache, and considering his extensive involvement and leadership in mid-nineteenth century American science, any attempt to clarify such issues will provide insights relevant well beyond the immediate task of identifying the motivational coordinates of his career. Bache's singular role in American science is of particular significance when considered in the context of recent developments in theories of the professions.
2. The Revised Theory of Professionalization
Historians have most commonly discussed Bache's career in the context of the emergence of the American scientific community. In his pioneering work on the history of American science, A. Hunter Dupree had focused on the history of science as a development leading to the federal support of research by the twentieth-century activist state. In the 1970s, historians shifted their emphasis toward explaining the emergence of professional institutions in the United States. George Daniels suggested that the American scientific profession got started between 1820 and 1840 as it moved from gathering facts to developing "esoteric" knowledge, a process that culminated in the public acceptance of science before the Civil War. Sally Kohlstedt's classic work on the Formation of the American Scientific Community views the founding of the AAAS in 1848 as a decisive moment. She provides a detailed account of the struggles that led to the organization's founding and of conflicts within the profession. The historiographic focus altered slightly in the 1980s with authors such as Hugh R. Slotten who stressed "boundary work," and that scientists used a particular ethos to facilitate social and cultural control. His work was receptive to views that stressed the role of individual and group interests.
The historical evidence suggested that as a profession, science was somehow distinct from other occupations, and sociological theories seemed to offer the best mode for explaining what it was that scientists were doing and how it was similar to and different from other activities.
In historical writing about the professions, it has proven to be of little benefit to use the term "profession" as one found it at large, because adopting the term from historic sources was to associate it with any occupation claiming professional status. This is why more recent theories have tried to explain the peculiar characteristics of some occupations, such as the tendency by professions to invoke autonomy from outside social and political interference and to organize their own affairs. Very broadly speaking, there have been two sociological positions relevant for historians. A structural-functionalist approach (Talcott Parsons, William J. Goode) stressed the profession's role in developing, preserving, and using esoteric knowledge considered to be an important cultural value. One problem with this idea was that it could not explain why the professions successfully insisted on autonomy and how they had averted control by outside experts or administrators. Another approach focused on the profession as an interest group (Terence J. Johnson, Magali Sarfatti Larson). It considered the profession's claims of representing esoteric knowledge as an ideological tool for establishing market control in order to protect pecuniary interests and advantages. Neither of these two theoretical perspectives addressed the issue of whether professions pursue a specific type of activity different from other activities that do not require autonomy and exclusive organization.
