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Image commemorating the 1866 laying of the Trans-Atlantic Cable |
The History of American Science at HSS
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Image commemorating the 1866 laying of the Trans-Atlantic Cable |
Below are the titles of the papers on the History of American Science delivered at recent History of Science Society (HSS) meetings. To see PDF files of the abstracts visit the HSS web site. At the end of each meeting's list there are links that will return you to the top of this page, send you to the home page for this site, or the HSS site. To read a synopsis of the Forum's Anniversary Session at HSS, held in Pittsburgh, PA in 1999 click here.
Milwaukee, WI 2002 (TBA)
Denver, CO 2001
Speakers on the history of science in America were not as populous as in recent years, with 30 papers (compared to 43 papers in 2000 and 61 in 1999). There were three sessions devoted to the history of science in America (compared to 8 sessions in both the 1999 and 2000 meetings). The sessions were: “Biology in the Public Eye: Authority, Science and Politics in the Cold War;” “Beyond Cold War Borders: Examining the Politics of Science in International Affairs;” “Science and Society in America.” The abstracts can be accessed by clicking on the link for PDF material under the “annual meeting” link at http://www.hssonline.org.
An * indicates that the paper was part of a session devoted to the history of American science.
Baatz, Simon. “The Bobby Franks Murder: Leopold-Loeb and American Psychiatry
in the 1920s”
* Barth, Kai-Hendrik. “Transnational
Science, International Affairs: Scientists and Arms Control
Beatty, John. “Radiation Genetics as Atomic Age and Cold-War Eugenics”
Bunner, Patricia A. “John Bartram and His Contribution to the Theory of
Ecological Succession”
Cittadino, Gene. “Ecology on Trial: East Meets West on the Texas-Oklahoma
Border”
Creager, Angela. “Proliferating Radioisotopes: The Atomic Energy
Commission’s Distribution Program and Postwar Biomedical Research”
Devorkin, David. “Evolutionary Thinking in American Astronomy from Lane to
Russell”
* Doel, Ronald E. “U. S. Science
Attaches in the Early Cold War: A Comparative International
Dowbiggin, Ian Robert. “Lives Not Worth Living: Charles Francis Potter and the
Origins of the Euthanasia Movement in America”
Drake, James D. “Appropriating a Continent: Natural Science, Geographical
Categoires, and Anglo-American Identity in the Eighteenth Century”
Fitzpatrick, Anne C. “The Next Big Simulation: Computers in the Nuclear Arms
Race”
* Gumienny, Kevin P. “’An Irreligious Philosopher Must Be Mad:’
Public Lectures on Natural Philosophy and the Experiences of Captain John
MacPherson in Eighteenth-Century Philadelphia”
* Harman, Oren S. “C. D. Darlington
and the Anglo-American Response to the Lysenko Affair”
* Jolly, James C. “Linus Pauling’s Influence on the Scientific Debate over
Fallout Hazards”
* Kimmelman, Barbara A. “Regulation and Debate in International Agricultural
Industries: The
* Krige, John. “Philanthropy and the
national Security State: The Ford Foundation’s Support for
* Krupar, Jason N. From Inner-Space to
Outer Space: T. Keith Glennan and the Science
Levens, Joshua P. “Sexual Arousal and the Central Nervous System: the
Contributions of W. Horsley Gantt and Frank A. Beach”
Lindsay, Debra J. “Paleontology: ‘Canadian’ Fossils/American Science”
McKenzie, Matthew G. “Redefining Science in Local Terms: Navigational Science
and Centers of Calculation in New England, 1760-1800”
McCray, Patrick and Robert W. Smith. “Seeing the Future: The Origins of the
Next Generation
Space Telescope”
Meredith, Margaret. “The Power and Problem of Authority: Early American
History in a Trans-Atlantic Context”
Regal, Brian. “Racing Out of Central Asia: Henry Fairfield Osborn and the
Origins of Man”
Rhode, Joy E. “Coordinating the ‘Coordinating Science’ for the New World
Order: Physical and Cultural Anthropologists in the Postwar United States”
* Selya, Rena E. “The Microbiologist
and His Times: Salvador Luria and the Anti-Vietnam War
Shermer, Michael B. “Stephen Jay Gould as Historian of Science: A Quantitative
Content Analysis of His Works”
Smith, Robert W. See McCray, Patrick.
Timmons, Todd. “Tension Between Practical and Theoretical Science in
nineteenth-Century America: The Case of Nathaniel Bowditch”
* Walls, Laura Dassow. “Cultivating
Truth: Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Life in Science”
* Wolfe, Audra J. “Science and Liberty for All: The Biological Sciences
Curriculum Study”
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History of Science Society
Vancouver, BC (2000)
There were 8 sessions on the history of American science at Vancouver, including: Psychology and Society in Mid-20th Century America (cosponsored by the Forum for the History of Human Science); Science, Standardization and American Youth; Spaces of Health and Illness (cosponsored by the American Association for the History of Medicine); Displaying Biomedical Authority in Modern Anglo-American Culture (cosponsored by the American Association for the History of Medicine); Theory Comes West: The Beginnings of Theoretical Astrophysics in Western America; The Science and Spectacle of Man: Popularization and Professional Debates in American Anthropology; Uncle Sam in the Laboratory: Biomedical Science and the Federal Government (cosponsored by the American Association for the History of Medicine); and Proprietary Knowledge in Biomedical Science and Industry, 1890-Present.
An * indicates that the paper was part of a session devoted to the history of American science.
Arns, Robert G. “Persistence of Belief in a Mechanical Ether in the Twentieth
Century”
* Burba, Juliet M. “Collecting for ‘The Science of Man’: Expeditions and
Expositions in Physical Anthropology”
* Carson, John. “Peace Work: Intelligence, Merit and the Limits of
Democracy”
Davis, Edward B. “Science and Religion, Chicago Style: Liberal Protestants and
Science in the Age of Bryan”
* DeVorkin, David H. “Bringing Theory to Mount Wilson in the 1920s”
Eddy, Mark A. “Educating the Individual: Competing Visions of the Self and
Calls for Educational Reform”
* Ensmenger, Nathan L. “Chess Players, Music Lovers, and Mathematicians:
Towards a Psychological Profile of the Ideal Computer Scientist”
* Francis, Kevin J. “Popularization and the Role of Humans in late Pleistocene
Extinctions,1927-1957”
Hannaway, Caroline C. “NIH Scientists and International Understanding of the
Spread of HIV”
Harris, Benjamin. “Tabloid Psychology, 1920-1940: Did Superstition Win?”
* Hufbauer, Karl. “J. Robert Oppenheimer’s Path to Black Holes”
* Hunt, Bruce J. “Teaching the History of the Atomic Bomb”
* Igo, Sara E. “Arguing with Gallup: Popular Challenges to ‘Scientific’
Polling, 1936-1948”
Jackson, John P. “The Scientists as Social Activist: The Career of Robert E.
Kuttner, 1951-1982”
Kaiser, David. “A Wing and a Prayer: Roger Babson and the Rediscovery of
General Relativity, 1948-1968”
* Kim, Ock-Joo C. “Knowledge out of Suffering: Harvey Cusing’s Brain Tumor
Registry”
* Kirsch, Scott. “Harold Knapp and the Ad Hoc Working Group on Radioiodine in
the Environment: Contested Spaces”
Lafortune, Keith R. “Pickering’s Harem and the New Sociology of Astronomy,
1877-1919”
* Lecuyer, Christophe. “Instrumentalizing Medicine: Physics Research, Medical
Practice, and the Development of Linear Accelerators for Cancer Therapy at
Stanford University and Varian Associations, 1952-1975”
Lederer, Susan E. “Celluloid Science: Teaching Science using Popular Film in
the 1930s and 40s”
Levin, Tanya J. “Winning the Hearts and Minds of Third World Peoples: US
Oceanography During the Cold War”
* McLeary, Erin H. “War Pathologies/the Pathology of War: Museum Collecting in
the First World War”
Miller, Susan A. “Health in the Balance: Learning Lessons from the Landscape
at Girls’ Summer Camps, 1910-1930”
* Mitman, Gregg. “Hay Fever Holiday: Health, Leisure, and Place in Gilded Age
America”
Munns, David P. D. “Becoming Astronomy: Why Cosmic Noise became Radio
Astronomy”
* Murphy, Michelle. “Buildings for Bodies: Ordinary Places, Chemical
Exposures, and the Politics of (Im)Perceptibility in the Late Twentieth Century
U. S.”
* Osterbrock, Donald E. “Herman Zanstra, Donald Menzel, and the Zanstra Method
of Nebular Astrophysics”
Palmeri Jo Ann. “Sagan and Shapely: The Astronomer as Prophet of Science in
the Twentieth Century”
* Parascandola, John L. “Science and Sex: The Venereal Disease Education
Campaign of the U. S. Public Health Service in World War II”
* Park, Buhm Soon. “More Academic Than a University: Three Freedoms and the
Laboratory of Molecular Biology at NIH, 1961-1981”
* Prescott, Heather Munro. “’I Was a Teen-Age Dwarf,’ or What is
‘Normal’ Adolescent Development?”
* Rasmussen, Nicolas. “Steroids at War: Biomedical Researchers, the
Pharmaceutical Industry, and the Hormones of the Adrenal Cortex, 1940-1946”
* Robinson, Michael F. “Chicago’s Eskimo Village: Reconsidering Race at the
World’s Columbian Exposition, 1893”
Ross, Dorothy. “The Social Science Disciplines in Europe and the U. S.:
Enlarging the Historical Lens”
Schwartz, Rebecca P. “Writing the Authorized Biography of the Manhattan
Project: Harry DeWolf Smyth and the Smyth Report”
* Stevens, Marianne P. Fedunkiw. “Malaria and 20th Century
Medicine: Fighting Disease with Film, 1940-2000”
* Swann, John P. “Institutionalizing Regulatory Science and Research in the
FDA”
Toon, Elizabeth A. “Measuring Up: Schoolchildren and Representations of
Physical Growth in the Interwar United States”
* Valencius, Conevery Bolton. “Inside, Outside, Valley, Field: Miasmas and
Healthy Places in the Antebellum U. S.”
* Wilson, Jack. “U. S. Patents on Organisms Prior to Diamond v. Chakrabarty”
Wolfe, Audra J. “Protecting Turfs (Literally): Negotiating the Meanings of
Exobiology at the Dawn of the Space Age”
Zenderland, Leila. “Of Mice, Men, and Mercy-Killing: Steinbeck’s Novel and
the Euthanasia Debate”
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History of Science Society
Pittsburgh, PA (1999)
“Historical Writing on American Science Revisited: The Current State of the Field.” – To help celebrate its 15th Anniversary, the Forum held a special session on the current state of the history of American science on Sunday, November 7. With a large audience of between 55 and 65 people, those in attendance witnessed a lively and informative event organized by Jessica Wang (UCLA), Clark Elliottt (Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology), and Karen Rader (Sarah Lawrence College). In what follows, I have attempted to illustrate the major points addressed by the panelists and audience, and to offer some rudimentary analysis of the session.
Following some preliminary remarks by Clark Elliottt and Karen Rader's introduction of the panelists, Jessica Wang outlined briefly two major trends in the field as she sees it prosecuted today. These are: 1) that the field is being defined more by American history sub fields than by scientific disciplines; and 2) that there is a blurring of history of science and history of technology. Sally Kohlstedt (University of Minnesota) then delivered the session's formal introduction in which she offered a succinct history of the Osiris volume published in 1985 as Historical Writing on American Science, which was edited by Kohlstedt and Margaret Rossiter. Kohlstedt suggested HWAS attributed its inspiration and success to three factors: 1) the establishment of the Forum for the History of Science in America; 2) the necessity of a “Needs and Opportunities”-style work on American science in the 19th/20th centuries; and 3) the recreation of Osiris with its call for new thematic issues. Drawing attention to the parallel between the state of the field in 1985 and today, she urged “younger scholars to push their ideas, much as we did back then, especially now as the field has grown so strong that channels are open for new expressions.”
In his paper, “Historical Writing on Business, Technology, and Industrial Research,” Ronald Kline (Cornell University) discussed emerging methodological trends as well as the status of traditions within the sub field. Following a gloss of the existing methodologies of 1985, he reported on four developing approaches in social and cultural history of technology today. First, analyses of the users of technology, which he characterized as a “very rich and robust area” that has provided new perspectives on the relations between social change and technology. Second, recent work on women and technology has “exploded the view of women as passive consumers of technology,” but Kline sees need for further investigation on women in leadership roles. Third, the use of gender as an analytic category offers historians “a fruitful way to explore the engendering of technology.” Fourth, the social construction of technological systems approach – the study of electrification, for example – furnishes historians with manageable community units for examining the relationships between society and science. Returning to the two ‘traditional’ methods, Kline related how historians of technology are reworking the normative themes of industrialization and technological knowledge with new and exciting results. Two problems remain within the subfield, however, one involving the lack of attention on African Americans, the other being the continuing dominance of “producers of technology” history.
James Fleming (Colby College) gave a provocative talk on the status of environmental history within the history of science. The main thrust of his presentation, entitled “Historiography of Science, Technology, and the Environment: An American Perspective,” was to enlighten historians of American science about the intellectual, methodological, and political possibilities of environmental history. For example, in regard to global warming, Fleming stressed that historians of science are “suitably capable of serving our global community” via the historical dimension of environmental studies. To be sure, historians of science can have an impact on environmental policy debates through their work, and Fleming spurred the audience “not to be timid, but to act.”
Katherine Pandora (University of Oklahoma) likewise made an impassioned plea for active participation by historians of American science in “overcoming the artificial borders of our field.” She noted that many of the themes we study have larger social contexts, and while methodological trends identified in 1985 are still with us, we have “sustained and constrained” these trends in paying too little attention to the intellectual norms and practices of “other” American historians. Concluding her talk, “Varieties of Historiographic Experience: Writing Intellectual and Cultural Histories of American Science,” Pandora suggested that we could begin to meet these goals via a major conference and a separate journal devoted to the field.
Shifting to diplomatic history, Ronald Doel (Oregon State University) presented an insightful look at a sub field bursting with possibilities in “Foreign Pursuits: Linking Diplomatic History with the History of Science.” He noted the possible difficulty one might encounter in obtaining access to official records, he highlighted four areas of potential research in post-1945 diplomatic history of American science. The first pertains to patronage issues and how they shape American science. A second domain of investigation would compare science and science policy developments in the West to counterparts in the East. Of interest here is the question, how much would extant documentation frame our analysis? Thirdly, Doel's called for broadening our scope by examining international relations and foreign developments and their impact upon American science. Finally, he emphasized the use of oral history as a tool for overcoming documentation limitations, as well as the need for historians of American science to seek publication outside of “mainstream history of science journals.”
Margaret Rossiter (Cornell University) concluded the session with the general comment that historians of American science should convene a conference as Katherine Pandora proposed to address all of the issues raised in Pittsburgh. Responding to James Fleming’s call for social action, she implored practitioners in the field to get involved in the environmental movement since “we are living in historic times.” She suggested Osiris should have a special issue on the history of environmental sciences in America. Commenting on Ronald Doel's paper, Rossiter advised that the current “crisis” in diplomatic history might be an opportunity for historians of American science. This drew a remark from the audience that it might be detrimental to the field if it became too closely linked with diplomatic history. An audience member asked “Why is there no big synthesis in the history of American science?” which precipitated a very lively discussion. Perhaps the most substantive response came from Rossiter who, in closing the session, recommended historians of American science hold a conference at which they could debate the question at length.
PAC
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History of Science Society
American science was well represented at the Pittsburgh meeting. Of 213 papers scheduled, there were 61 devoted to American science. Among the papers, 30 were delivered in 8 sessions specifically focused on Americanist topics. Two historiographical sessions centered on the history of American science. The Forum for the History of the Human Sciences sponsored a session devoted to a critical appraisal of Leila Zenderland’s Measuring Minds: Henry Herbert Goddard and the Origins of American Intelligence Testing (Cambridge Studies in the History of Psychology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
Garland E. Allen, “Feeblemindedness and the Biology of Criminality: The
Wedding of H. H.Goddard’s The Criminal Imbecile (1925) and Eugenics in the Municipal Court of
Chicago.”
Jean-Francois Auger, “Toward a History of University, Industry and Government
Relations: Contractual Research in Canadian Universities.”
Amy S. Bix, “Physics and Chemistry for Victory: America’s Engineering,
Science and Management War Training Program, 1940-1945.”
Alexander J. Boese, “The Great Moon Hoax of 1835: Science and Enlightenment in
Antebellum America.”
Francesca M. Bordogna, “Three Rival Scientific Personae in American
Psychology, 1890-1920.”
David C. Brock, “Neurasthenia and the Ruthless Discipline of Measuring
Physics: A. A. Michelson’s Confrontation with the Values of Precisi.”
John Carson, “From the Pathological to the Normal: Zenderland on Goddard and
the Meanings of Intelligence in America.”
Claudia Clark, “‘Let Me Give You an Unbiased Opinion’: A Case Study of
Corporate-sponsored Industrial Health
Researchers Deceiving Radium Workers in the 1920s.”
Hunter A. Crowther-Heyck, “A Place at the Table: the Social Sciences and the
Federal Patron.”
Michael A. Dennis, “Gone to War: Henry Guerlac at the Radiation Laboratory.”
Greg J. Downey, “Embodying Information: Telegraph Messenger Boys as both
Technologies and Agents.”
Maria M. Farland, “Gertrude Stein’s ‘Brain Work’.”
Victoria P. Friedensen, “Translating Risk: Public Protest of Technologies for
Space Exploration.”
Joseph M. Gabriel, “‘The Cocaine Nigger Sure is Hard to Kill’: Sex,
Medicine, and the Racial Politics of Cocaine, 1880-1914.”
Tal Golan, “The Common Liar, the Damned Liar, and the Scientific Expert:
Nineteenth-Century Debates Concerning Scientific Expert Testimony.”
Matthew Pratt Guterl, “‘Homo Albus’: Science, War, Middle-Class Patriotism
and the Emergence of Optic Whiteness.”
Roger Hahn, “History of Science at Berkeley Before and After World War II.”
Ralph R. Hamerla, “Laboratory Practice and Edward Morely’s Personal
Identity, 1881-1895.”
Tanya Hart, “Black and Italian Infant Mortality in New York City,
1915-1924.”
Diana P. Hoyt, “The Politics of Monkey Business: How it Came to Be that NASA
Abandoned the Bion Project.”
Stepen B. Johnson, “Computers and the Practice of Psychology.”
Edward Jones-Imhotep, “Constructing Reliability: Cold-War Military Electronics
and the ‘Topside’ Ionogram.”
D. George Joseph, “‘A Colony in the Homeland’: Leprosy and Tropical
Medicine in Progressive Massachusetts.”
Paul Kelton, “Avoiding the Smallpox Spirits: Epidemics and Southeastern Indian
Survival to1800.”
Daniel J. Kevles, “The Baltimore Case: Obligations, Judgment, and Data.”
Mina Kleiche, “To Convert the Morocco into a Vast Orchard: To Introduce New
Agricultural Methods from California to Morocco during the 1930’s.”
Scott G. Knowles, “The Symbol of Safety: Underwriters’ Laboratories and the
Rise of Consumer Product-Testing in the United States, 1903-1917.”
Thomas Lassman, “University-Industry Relations in Pittsburgh: Edward Condon
and the Rebirth of Industrial Research at Westinghouse, 1937-1945.”
Bruce V. Lewenstein, “Have Books Mattered in American Science since 1945?”
Diana E. Long, “Their Secret Gardens: Women and the Pleasures of Endocrine
Laboratory Life, 1930-1960.”
Paul Lucier, “The Great California Oil Swindle: Silliman, Whitney, and the
Ethics of Scientific Consulting.”
Maura P. Mackowski, “Human Factors: Science, Technology, and Cold War Politics
in the NASA Astronaut Selection Process.”
David Madden, “Culture, Personality, and the Philosophy of Social Science in
American Anthropology.”
Constance A. Malpas, “Organizing Pathology: The Architecture of Anatomy at
Mid-Century.”
Erin H. McLeary, “Pathologists, Professionalism, and the Public: the Medical
Museum enters the Twentieth Century.”
Margaret Meredith, “How Knowledge Travels: Collaboration and Credit in Early
American Natural Historical Inquiry.”
Susan A. Miller, “‘She Knows She is Master’: Eugenics and the Camp Fire
Girls.”
Philip Mirowski, “From Quantum Mechanics to Cyborgs: John von Neumann and 20th
Century Economics.”
Janet C. Olson, “‘A Fantasy of Magazine Science’: American Popular
Magazines and the Eugenics Movement, 1900-1924.”
Mary Brown Parlee, “Visible Bodies and Invisible Work: Gender, Scientific
Authority, and the Institutionalization of the Neurosciences at MIT.”
Wade E. Pickren, “APA Archives and the APA Public Information Campaign since
WWII.”
Hans Pols, “Henry Herbert Goddard, Feeblemindedness, and the Debate on
Citizenship.”
Carsten Reinhardt, “Reinventing Nuclear Magnetic Resonance for Chemistry:
Herbert S. Gutowsky Between Disciplines and Identities, 1948-1968.”
Michael N. M. I. Riordan, “The Termination of the Superconducting Super
Collider.”
Michael F. Robinson, “Blonde Eskimos and Yellow Journalism: Reforming the
Arctic Narrative in Progressive America.”
Graham R. Shutt, “Emerson and the Uses of Natural History.”
Leo B. Slater, “A Career in Steroid Chemistry: Percy Lavon Julian and the
Intersections of Science, Business, and Identity.”
Amy Slaton, “Materials Standards for Industry and the Obstacle of Scientific
Fixity.”
Mark Solovey, “Social Science on the Cold War Battlefield: Project Camelot and
the 1960s Debate over Scholarly Objectivity and the Political Corruption of
Research.”
James Strick, “NASA, the Cold War and the ‘Nucleic Acid Monopoly’: Sidney
Fox, Stanley Miller and Origin of Life Research, 1953-1972.
David K. van Keuren, “Cold War Science in Black and White: U. S. Intelligence
Gathering and Its Scientific Cover at the Naval Research Laboratory,
1948-1962.”
Laura Dassow Walls, “Consilience Revisited: or, Why Should a Thoreauvian Read
Whewell?”
Thomas R. Williams, “The Evolution of Amateur Astronomy in the United States
in the Twentieth Century.”
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