"...useful to researchers in the history of science and in early American history." --ARBA

Famous, fascinating Benjamin Franklin -- he would be neither without his accomplishments in science. Joyce Chaplin's authoritative biography considers all of Franklin's work in the sciences, showing how, during the rise and fall of the first British empire, science became central to public culture and therefore to Franklin's success. Having demonstrated in his earliest experiments and observations that he could master nature, Franklin showed the world that he was uniquely suited to solve problems in every realm. In the famous adage, Franklin "snatched lightning from the sky and the scepter from the tyrants" -- in that order. The famous kite and other experiments with electricity were only part of Franklin's accomplishments. He charted the Gulf Stream, made important observations on meteorology, and used the burgeoning science of "political arithmetic" to make unprecedented statements about America's power. Even as he stepped onto the world stage as an illustrious statesman and diplomat in the years leading up to the American Revolution, his fascination with nature was unrelenting. Franklin was the first American whose "genius" for science qualified him as a genius in political affairs. It is only through understanding Franklin's full engagement with the sciences that we can understand this great Founding Father and the world he shaped.

Organized primarily in terms of genre, this handbook includes original research on key concepts, as well as analysis of interesting texts from throughout colonial America. Separate chapters are devoted to literary genres of great importance at the time of their composition that have been neglected in recent decades.

The American daguerreotype as something completely new: a mechanical invention that produced an image, a hybrid of fine art and science and technology. The daguerreotype, invented in France, came to America in 1839. By 1851, this early photographic method had been improved by American daguerreotypists to such a degree that it was often referred to as “the American process.” The daguerreotype—now perhaps mostly associated with stiffly posed portraits of serious-visaged nineteenth-century personages—was an extremely detailed photographic image, produced though a complicated process involving a copper plate, light-sensitive chemicals, and mercury fumes. It was, as Sarah Kate Gillespie shows in this generously illustrated history, something wholly and remarkably new: a product of science and innovative technology that resulted in a visual object. It was a hybrid, with roots in both fine art and science, and it interacted in reciprocally formative ways with fine art, science, and technology. Gillespie maps the evolution of the daguerreotype, as medium and as profession, from its introduction to the ascendancy of the “American process,” tracing its relationship to other fields and the professionalization of those fields. She does so by recounting the activities of a series of American daguerreotypists, including fine artists, scientists, and mechanical tinkerers. She describes, for example, experiments undertaken by Samuel F. B. Morse as he made the transition from artist to inventor; how artists made use of the daguerreotype, both borrowing conventions from fine art and establishing new ones for a new medium; the use of the daguerreotype in various sciences, particularly astronomy; and technological innovators who drew on their work in the mechanical arts. By the 1860s, the daguerreotype had been supplanted by newer technologies. Its rise (and fall) represents an early instance of the ever-constant stream of emerging visual technologies.

First published in 1996. The intention of this volume is two-fold: first, to give a chronologically arranged overview of selected data on the history of science in the United States, and second, to orient the reader to the substantial reference literature and research sources as guidance to further study of the topic. The subject areas that are covered include astronomy, biology, chemistry, geology, mathematics, physics, and their related disciplines; areas such as anthropology and psychology are covered to a lesser extent. Science is the central focus, but the content of the work recognizes that the boundaries between subjects or activities are not absolute and certainly not when coverage spans several centuries.

This Encyclopedia examines all aspects of the history of science in the United States, with a special emphasis placed on the historiography of science in America. It can be used by students, general readers, scientists, or anyone interested in the facts relating to the development of science in the United States. Special emphasis is placed in the history of medicine and technology and on the relationship between science and technology and science and medicine.

Originally published in 1995, Creation and Evolution in the Early American Scientific Affiliation is the tenth volume in the series, Creationism in Twentieth Century America, reissued in 2021. The volume comprises of original primary sources from the American Science Affiliation, a group formed following an invitation from the president of the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, in answer to the perceived need for an academic society for American Evangelical Scientists to explicate the relationship between science and faith. The society confronted the debate between creation and evolution head on, leaving a paper trail documenting their thoughts and struggles. This diverse and expansive collection includes 53 selections that appeared during the organisation’s first two decades and focuses on the encounter between science and American evangelicalism in the twentieth century, in particular the debates surrounding the ever-increasing preference for evolutionary theory. The collection will be of especial interest to natural historians, and theologians as well as academics of philosophy, and history.