Today it’s a truism that we live in an age of science and technology.  How has that come to pass, and what has it meant for our lives?  To answer those questions, this course reviews the social history of science and technology in the colonies and in the United States.  It focusses on two key areas:  (1) the dynamics of building research communities in science and technology and the principal achievements they have produced, and (2) an understanding of how American society has influenced and in turn been influenced by the development of science and technology.
 

Classes:

        Classes will usually meet Mondays and Fridays, although occasionally Wednesday may substitute for Friday. For example, we meet Wednesday October 6, but not Friday, Oct. 8.   Again, we meet Wednesday, November 24, but not Friday, Nov. 26 [Thanksgiving recess].
       With a few exceptions, class meetings consist of discussion of assigned readings. Class participation is essential to making the material one's own, and to arriving at clarification and qualification of ideas in the texts and in the discussion.
        There are a few lengthy reading assignments; when reading them use skimming skills; it is not necessary to know every detail. 
 

Workload:

        Six times during the semester, students are to submit a short paper [1-2 pp], dealing with a topic in the reading, or one suggested by it.  The purpose of these papers is to help focus discussion, and to practice writing.  Students may substitute 2 papers [5pp] instead.
        There will be a midterm and a final exercise.
        Grades will be based on class participation [attendance, quality and frequency of interaction], papers, and exams, in proportions respectively of 30%, 30%, and 40%.
 

       The following are the textbooks for the course: 

R. S. Cowan,  A Social History of American Technology

T.P. Hughes,  American Genesis: A History of the American Genius for Invention

C. Pursell,  The Machine in America: A Social History of Technology 

M.R.Smith and G. Clancey,  Major Problems in the History of American Technology
 

       In addition to the textbooks, there are a series of readings [articles, excerpts and chapters from books] available in a packet obtainable at cost, $7.00 from Mrs. Alice Seeley in the Bronfman Science Center: 

G. Daniels, Chapters 2-3 [from Science in American Society]

G. Daniels,  Chapter 4

F. Kilgour, "Science in the American Colonies and the Early Republic, 1664-1845"

B. Hindle and S. Lubar, “Farming and Raw Materials Processing: Causes and Effects of Mechanization”

G. Daniels,  Chapter 6

J. C. Greene, "Science and the Public in the Age of Jefferson"

D. Zochert, "Science and the Common Man in Ante-Bellum America"

J.C. Greene, "American Science Comes of Age, 1780-1820"

D. deB. Beaver, "Altruism, Patriotism, and Science: Scientific Journals in the Early Republic"

D.E. Nye, "The American Sublime" 

Hindle and Lubar, “The John Bull  and the Rise of American Railroading”  (125-151)

J. Kasson, “Technology and Utopia” (183-234) [Ch. 5 of Kasson]

R. S. Woodbury, "The Legend of Eli Whitney and Interchangeable Parts"

D. A. Hounshell, "The Ethos of Mass Production & Its Critics" 

G. Basalla, "Keaton and Chaplin: The Silent Film's Response to  Technology"

L. Marx, "Alienation and Technology"

L. White, Jr., "Dynamo and Virgin Reconsidered"
 

Boorstin, D.     The Americans: the Democratic Experience

Bruce, R. V.     The Launching of Modern American Science, 1846-1876

Cassedy, J. H. Medicine in America : A Short History

Cowan, R. S.  More Work for Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave, (1983)

Cravens, H., Marcus, A., and Katzman, P.M., eds., Technical Knowledge in American Culture: Science, Technology, and Medicine since the Early 1800s     (1996)

Daniels, G.    American Science in the Age of Jackson

Daniels, G.    Science in American Society    (1971)

Dupree, A. H.    Science in the Federal Government

Duffy, J.     From Humors to Medical Science: A History of American Medicine, 2nd edition,  [Formerly, The Healers]    (1993) 

Elliot, Clark A.     History of Science in the United States: A Chronology and 
Research Guide,   (1996)

Elliott, Clark A., comp.    Biographical lndex to American Science: The  Seventeenth Century to 1920.    1990

Fogel, R.  Railroads and American Economic Growth      (1964)

Hindle, B.   The Pursuit of Science in Pre-Revolutionary America

Hindle, B. and Lubar, S.   Engines of Change: The American Industrial Revolution, 1790-1860.   1986

Hounshell, D.      From the American System to Mass Production, 1800-1932

Hunter, L.   Steamboats on Western Rivers   (1949)

Kasson, J. F.  Civilizing the Machine    (1976)

King, L. S.  Transformations in American Medicine: from Benjamin Rush to William Osler

Link, E. P.  The Social Ideas of American Physicians (1776-1976): Studies of the Humanitarian Tradition in Medicine

Marx, L.  The Machine in the Garden     (1964)

Nye, D.   The American Technological Sublime   (1994)

Pursell, C., ed.,    Technology in America: A History of Individuals and Ideas 

Rae, J. B.   The American Automobile

Reingold, N., ed.    Science in Nineteenth Century America, a Documentary  History

Rothenberg, M.      The History of Science in the United States: A Critical and Selective Bibliography    (1993)

Shryock, R. H Medicine and Society in America, 1660-1860.

Stearns, R. P.     Science in the British Colonies of North America

Struik, D. J.  Yankee Science in the Making 

van Tassel, D. D., and Hall, M. G., eds.   Science and Society in the United States   (1966)

Winner, L.  The Whale and the Reactor   (1986)