Biologists and the Promise of American Life: From Meriwether Lewis to Alfred Kinsey

Philip J. Pauly

Princeton University Press, 2000 - Biography & Autobiography - 313 pages

Explorers, evolutionists, eugenicists, sexologists, and high school biology teachers--all have contributed to the prominence of the biological sciences in American life. In this book, Philip Pauly weaves their stories together into a fascinating history of biology in America over the last two hundred years.


Beginning with the return of the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1806, botanists and zoologists identified science with national culture, linking their work to continental imperialism and the creation of an industrial republic. Pauly examines this nineteenth-century movement in local scientific communities with national reach: the partnership of Asa Gray and Louis Agassiz at Harvard University, the excitement of work at the Smithsonian Institution and the Geological Survey, and disputes at the Agriculture Department over the continent's future. He then describes the establishment of biology as an academic discipline in the late nineteenth century, and the retreat of life scientists from the problems of American nature. The early twentieth century, however, witnessed a new burst of public-oriented activity among biologists. Here Pauly chronicles such topics as the introduction of biology into high school curricula, the efforts of eugenicists to alter the "breeding" of Americans, and the influence of sexual biology on Americans' most private lives.


Throughout much of American history, Pauly argues, life scientists linked their study of nature with a desire to culture--to use intelligence and craft to improve American plants, animals, and humans. They often disagreed and frequently overreached, but they sought to build a nation whose people would be prosperous, humane, secular, and liberal. Life scientists were significant participants in efforts to realize what Progressive Era oracle Herbert Croly called "the promise of American life." Pauly tells their story in its entirety and explains why now, in a society that is rapidly returning to a complex ethnic mix similar to the one that existed for a hundred years prior to the Cold War, it is important to reconnect with the progressive creators of American secular culture.

Contents

• Natural History and Manifest Destiny 18001865: 15
• Nature in the Early Republic: 17
• Asa Gray American Botanical Entrepreneur: 25
• Gray Agassiz and the Impending Crisis: 33
• Darwin and the Unions Struggle for Existence: 39
• Culturing Fish Culturing People Federal Naturalists in the Gilded Age 18651893: 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
• Conflicting Visions of American Ecological Independence: 71
• Americas 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
• Whitmans American Biology: 94
• Life Science Initiatives in the Late Nineteenth Century: 99
• A CrossCountry Tour: 103
• 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
• A Place of Their Own The Significance of Woods Hole: 145
• Summer Colonies: 146
• Summering Scientists: 148
• The Development of Woods Hole: 150
• Whitmans Desires: 152
• The Biological Community: 153
• Woods Hole and American Biology: 158
• Neglecting American Life: 160
• A View from the Heights: 166
• The Development of High School Biology: 171
• Life in Hells Kitchen: 173
• Biology Education and Mental Development: 179
• Pedagogical Problems: 185
• Producing Modern Americans: 191
• Big Questions: 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
• Good Breeding in Modern America: 214
• The Imperfect Amalgamation of Eugenics and Biology: 215
• Charles B Davenport and the Difficulty of Eugenic Research: 221
• Solving the Problems of Sex: 227
• Alfred Kinseys America: 233
• EPILOGUE: 239
• Notes: 245
• Index: 303

About the author

Philip J. Pauly is Professor of History at Rutgers University. He is the author of Controlling Life: Jacques Loeb and the Engineering Ideal in Biology.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Biologists and the Promise of American Life: From Meriwether Lewis to Alfred Kinsey; Book collections on Project MUSE
• Author: Philip J. Pauly
• Edition: illustrated, reprint, revised
• Publisher: Princeton University Press, 2000
• ISBN: 0691092869, 9780691092867
• Length: 313 pages
• Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / Science & Technology; History / United States / 19th Century; History / United States / 20th Century; Science / History; Science / Life Sciences / Biology; Science / Philosophy & Social Aspects