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History of Science Today, 1. Uniformity as Hidden Diversity: History of Science in the United States, 1920–1940

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Nathan Reingold
Nathan Reingold
Affiliation:
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. 20560, U.S.A.
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Extract

Between the two World Wars an extensive body of writings appeared in the United States explicitly or implicitly on the historical development of the sciences. I am not referring to the vast literature of popularization in magazines and newspapers but to substantial works, often in book form, coming from various intellectual and scholarly traditions. Only a few examples are classifiable by later standards as professional history of science. Following Arnold Thackray, one can designate some authors as ‘proto-historians’ of science. Most of the writings, including those of the ‘proto-historians,’ have distinctive attributes: methods, attitudes and goals, reflecting traditions other than professional history of science or even the general history exemplified by the American Historical Association's membership of that era. What follows is a bird's eye view of a past of interest for its own sake and for clues about the professionalization of history of science after 1950.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , November 1986 , pp. 243 - 262
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 1986

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References

Prepared for the joint session of the American Historical Association and the History of Science Society, Chicago, 29 December 1984, commemorating the centennials of the founding of the Association and the birth of George Sarton.

1 Thackray has three important articles on the origins of professional history of science in the United States: (with R. K. Merton) ‘On discipline-building: the paradoxes of George Sarton’. Isis, (1972), 63, pp. 473–495Google Scholar; ‘The History of Science Society: five phases of pre-history’, Isis, (1975), 66, pp. 445–453Google Scholar; ‘The pre-history of an academic discipline: the study of the history of science in the United States, 1891–1941’. Minerva, (1980), 18, pp. 448–473.Google Scholar

2 Osborn's book originally appeared as the Hale Lectures of the National Academy of Sciences. Kosmos appeared in five volumes from 1845 – 1855. Both Kosmos and the Hale Lectures were concerned with a concept of unity quite at variance with the growth not simply of specialization but of knowledge of the complexity of physical and biological phenomena.

3 The Nature of the World and of Man was published by the University of Chicago Press, apparently with great success. The essays are fine examples of high popularization, to make a distinction with the articles in the popular press and magazines.

4 I have used the one volume edition of 1931. Wells' book sold well in many editions. It is a considerable achievement. Its author merits a careful reconsideration.

5 Burtt was primarily concerned with the philosophy of religion and related topics. Lovejoy stimulated a considerable body of work in the history of ideas notably deficient in its concern for the context in which the ideas originated and were accepted.

6 Like Lovejoy, Koyré approached his subjects as ideas carefully abstracted from contexts of personality, place and time. I had the privilege of hearing him give a series of seminar talks in 1951–1952 from which the book stemmed. Although greatly impressed, I then sensed (and still do) an incompleteness in such works.

7 Mayer, E., The Growth of Biological Thought…. Cambridge, 1982, p. 17.Google Scholar

8 Cambridge (U.S.), 1926.

9 Brown, E. W. et al. , New Haven, 1923.Google Scholar

10 Oxford, 1923.

11 New Haven, 1928. Perhaps I am over-reacting since a great deal of effort by myself and fellow historians was expended to get beyond and around the essays in that work.

12 Boston, 1922.

13 Another product of the University of Chicago Press whose scope then apparently differed from today's.

14 The full title merits repetition: A Bibliography of American Natural History; The Pioneer Century 1769–1865; The Role Played by the Scientific Societies; Scientific journals; Natural History Museums and Botanic Gardens; State Geological and Natural History Surveys; Federal Exploring Expeditions in the Rise and Progress of American Botany, Geology, Mineralogy, Paleontology and Zoology. 3 vols. Brooklyn, 1924–1929.

15 Osborne, H. F., Cope, Master Naturalist. Princeton, 1931Google Scholar. Schuchert, C. and LeVene, C. M., O.C. Marsh, Pioneer in Paleontology. New Haven, 1940.Google Scholar

16 Merrill, G. P., Contributions to a History of American State Geological and Natural History Surveys. Washington, 1920Google Scholar; and The First Hundred Years of American Geology. New Haven, 1924.Google Scholar

17 Packard, F. R., History of Medicine in the United States. New York, 1931Google Scholar. Sigerist, H.E., American Medicine. New York, 1934.Google Scholar

18 Sarton, George, ‘The history of science versus the history of medicine’, Isis, (1935), 23, pp. 313–320CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Sigerist, 's reply in the Bull. Hist. Med. (1936), 4, pp. 1–13Google Scholar, is in statesmanlike contrast to Sarton's parochialism.

19 Originally published in 1919 by the University of Chicago Press. I have used the New York reprint of 1952.

20 Chicago, 1925. I find it hard to believe that this nice little antiquarian volume could entrance teachers of arithmetic, let alone improve their teaching.

21 Another Univeristy of Chicago Press book, 1983. Cohen is interested in the development of a statistical spirit and overlaps some of Karpinski's topics.

22 Karpinski, L. C., Bibliography of Mathematical Works Printed in America through 1850. Ann Arbor, 1940.Google Scholar

23 Smith, David Eugene and Ginsburg, Jekuthiel, A History of Mathematics in America before 1900. Chicago, 1935. The quotation is from p. 64.Google Scholar

24 Boston, 1928.

25 Ibid., 3.

26 See my introduction to the reprint edition of The Chequered Career of Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler. New York, 1980Google Scholar. The biography appeared originally in 1929.

27 See fn. 18, the specific references are to pp. 317–319.

28 In 1936 Sarton published The Study of the History of Mathematics and The Study of the History of Science. I have used the Dover combined reprint of the two in 1954. The quotation is from p. 5 of Science.

29 (1938), 4, pp. 360–632Google Scholar. For a comment on Sarton and technology, see White, Lynn, ‘Science in China’, Isis, (1984), 75, pp. 171–179.Google Scholar

30 Abraham, Gary A., ‘Misunderstanding the Merton thesis: a boundary dispute between history and sociology’, Isis, (1984), 74, pp. 368–387.Google Scholar

31 This should be read in the context of Merton's chapter X.

32 The quotation above and the material of the last few sentences is from Sarton, Mathematics … (see fn. 28), pp. 14–17.Google Scholar

33 Ballistics in the Seventeenth Century, Cambridge (U.K.), 1952Google Scholar. ‘Merton revisited, or science and society in the seventeenth century’, Hist. Sci. (1963), 2, pp. 1–16Google Scholar. Hall takes an internalist position like Sarton and Koyré. In the 1978 reprint of his book, Merton has a new preface dated 1970 whose last paragraph, without citations, concedes that ‘both science and religion also developed under their own steam’. How this squares with his other points in the preface and the monograph is unclear. Merton reluctantly concedes a problem with his treatment of Puritanism but affirms his adherence to the point about technology.

34 Two recent examples are Morgan, John, ‘Puritanism and science: a reinterpretation’, Hist. J. (1979), 22, pp. 525–560CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Hunter, Michael, The Royal Society and its Fellows 1660–1700… Chalfont St. Giles, 1982.Google Scholar

35 Dictionary of Scientific Biography, I, ix.Google Scholar

36 For example, see his ‘The sociological roots of science’. Am. J. Social. (1941–1942), 47, pp. 544–562Google Scholar. and ‘The origin of William Gilbert's scientific method’, J. Hist. Ideas (1941), 2, pp. 1–32.Google Scholar

37 New York, 1917.

38 And reprinted subsequently. Time has not been too kind to this work, very useful in its day.

39 New York, 1905. The thesis is limited to classical antiquity.

40 Thorndike initially planned to cover ‘The First Thirteen Centuries of Our Era’, but managed to reach Newton.

41 New York, 1921. This is a very limited book at a very interesting, influential figure in the American historical profession.

42 New York, 1930.

43 Fn. 38, 36. Sarton was outraged by the linkage of magic and science. Isis, (1924), 6, pp. 74–89.Google Scholar

44 Fn. 39,1, 4.

45 Religion and the Decline of Magic, New York, 1971Google Scholar. Thomas' book is on the period in England of the foundation of the Royal Society and of Newton's career. It presents a picture of the persistence of older ways just at the point when rationalism and science became accepted by the learned and upper classes. Thomas' work makes Newton's role as the ‘last magician’ (in Keynes' words noted by Thorndike) more interesting and credible.

46 Fn. 39, VIII, p. 261.

47 Ibid., I, p. 3; VIII, p. 603.

48 New York, 1927. Italics in original.

49 By this I simply mean that the passage of a generation had not resulted in any marked improvement over Mayer except in minor details.

50 Fn. 41, 565f.

51 Seven Seals, 213.

52 pp. 404–405.

53 Boston, 1926. Randall's book remained a staple of undergraduate reading lists into the 1950s.

54 New York, 1929, pp. 119, 183.Google Scholar

55 New York, pp. 930–934.Google Scholar

56 Ibid., I, p. 4.

57 Ibid., I, p. 7.

58 Ibid., II, p. 121.

59 Technics and Civilization. New York, 1934, p. 217f.Google Scholar

60 I have used the 2 vol edn. of 1932–1936. I do not mean to denigrate Hayes whose work is quite solid and interesting in its attempt at depth of coverage, including treatments of modern science and cubism at the end of the second volume.

61 Fn.54, I, pp. 13–14.

62 Ibid., II, p. 14.

63 Ibid., I, p. 14; II, p. 9.

64 Hornberger, Theodore, Scientific Thought in the American Colleges, 1628–1800. Austin, 1945.Google Scholar

65 ‘America's influence on the development of the sciences’, Sci. Mthly. (1928), 26, pp. 60–69Google Scholar. ‘Can Americans be scientists: our contributions to physical science’, Technol. Rev. (1930), 32, pp. 233–236, 254, 256.Google Scholar

66 Caullery, M., Universities and Scientific Life in the United States. Cambridge, Mass., 1922.Google Scholar

67 Famous American Men of Science. New York, 1937.Google Scholar

68 Goodman, Nathan G., Benjamin Rush, Physician and Citizen. Philadelphia, 1934.Google Scholar

69 A Scientist in the Early Republic. New York, 1934.Google Scholar

70 Scientific Interests in the Old South. New York, 1936.Google Scholar

71 New York, 1935.

72 Ibid., xv.

73 Ibid., xxi. See also his comments on xx.

74 Ibid.,31.

75 The exception is the volume by Tarbell, Ida, The Nationalizing of Business, New York, 1938.Google Scholar

76 The Rise of the City, 1878–1989. New York, 1933, 220Google Scholar. (Vol. X of A History of American Life.)

77 New York, 1950.

78 Ibid., 8.

79 Ibid., 9.