Biologists and the Promise of American Life: From Meriwether Lewis to Alfred Kinsey » (Reprint)

"There is no book that covers quite the same territory and places this cluster of internal disciplinary issues in a larger institutional and cultural/political context. Philip Pauly is well informed about current scholarship and has a good eye for the telling quotation or incident."--Charles E. Rosenberg, University of Pennsylvania

"This is a stunning book both for the courage, ambition, and vision of its topic and for the solid style of its achievement."--Mary P. Winsor, University of Toronto

"Philip Pauly is a first-rate American historian, one of the most imaginative writers today. He is not just a historian of science, but rather a historian of the ways that science plays out in American culture and society. Biologists and the Promise of American Life is an excellent and important book that will reach a wide audience--it will be useful for scholars and classrooms alike, and entice historians of science to expand their perspective. And it's fun to read, with a good mix of stories, personalities, practices, resources, and references."--Jane Maienschein, Arizona State University

Christine Keiner - Perspectives in Biology and Medicine

This book is a significant contribution to the worthy task of integrating the history of science and American history.

List of Illustrations xi Preface and Acknowledgments xiii INTRODUCTION Toward a Cultural History of American Biology 3
PART I Naturalist and National Development in the Nineteenth Century CHAPTER ONE Natural History and Manifest Destiny, 1800-1865 15
Lewis to Barton to Pursh: The Lack of Teamwork among American Naturalists 15
Nature in the Early Republic 17
The Education of John Torrey 22
Asa Gray, American Botanical Entrepreneur 25
Gray, Agassiz, and the Impending Crisis 33
Darwin and the Union's Struggle for Existence 39
CHAPTER TWO Culturing Fish, Culturing People: Federal Naturalists in the Gilded Age, 1865-1893 44
The Struggles of Spencer Baird 45
A Golden Age in the Gilded Age 47
A Scientific Community 51
Guiding National Development 56
Evolutionary Culture 60
CHAPTER THREE Conflicting Visions of American Ecological Independence 71
The Beauty and Menace of the Japanese Cherry Trees 71
America's Ecological Open Door 74
The Beginnings of a Federal Response to Pests 76
Ecological Cosmopolitanism in the Bureau of Plant Industry 80
The Return of the Nativists 84
Ecological Independence and Immigration Restriction 89
PART II SPECIALIZATION AND ORGANIZATION PROLOGUE Whitman's American Biology 94
CHAPTER FOUR Life Science Initiatives in the Late Nineteenth Century 99
The Eclipse of the Federal Naturalists 99
From Agassiz to Burbank: A Cross-Country Tour 103
CHAPTER FIVE Academic Biology: Searching for Order in Life 126
American Naturalists 127
A Scientific Confederacy 131
Medical Reform, Universities, and Urban Life 133
Whitman and Chicago 139
Challenges to University Biology 141
CHAPTER SIX A Place of Their Own: The Significance of Woods Hole 145
Summer Colonies 146
Summering Scientists 148
The Development of Woods Hole 150
Whitman's Desires 152
The Biological Community 153
Woods Hole and American Biology 158
Neglecting American Life 160
PART III THE AGE OF BIOLOGY PROLOGUE A View from the Heights 166
CHAPTER SEVEN The Development of High School Biology 171
Life in Hell's Kitchen 173
Biology Education and Mental Development 179
Pedagogical Problems 185
Producing Modern Americans 191
CHAPTER EIGHT Big Questions 194
Why the Scopes Trial Mattered 194
The Rough Rider, and Other Spokesmen for Science 196
Academic Biologists Address the Public 198
William Emerson Ritter and the Glory of life 201
CHAPTER NINE Good Breeding in Modern America 214
The Imperfect Amalgamation of Eugenics and Biology 215
Charles B. Davenport and the Difficullty of Eugenic Research 221
Solving the Problems of Sex 227
Alfred Kinsey's America 233
Epilogue 239
Notes 245
Index 303