Instructor: Dr. Brad D. Hume    Office: HM 460 (x3381)
E-mail: hume@udayton.edu    http://homepages.udayton.edu/~hume
Office Hours: Mon. & Wed. from 1-1:50pm and W 3-4 and by appointment.

American history and the history of American science still remain largely distinct pursuits within history and the history of science disciplines despite assertions from both groups regarding the importance of science in American history. For that reason I have chosen to examine a wide range of topics concerning science in American culture, but all revolving around a central theme: the relationships between science, citizens, and the state. We will examine key scholarly works dealing with subjects such as the use of science in the construction of citizenship; engineering and “social control;” science and American world-views; and tensions surrounding openness or secrecy in a republic.

Through these topics you will be introduced to the role of science in American culture and the overlapping historiographical approaches taken by Americanists and historians of science. Debates concerning the value of “social construction” as a theoretical framework for understanding history, the current genre of “cultural biography,” and suggestions for improving the craft both in American history and history of science will all be addressed.

Course Requirements: We will read the equivalent of one book per week (roughly 150 pages) which will be the basis for discussion. Two of you each week will write a three-page summary of the key arguments/themes of the readings for the week, beginning in week three. The two discussants will open the week’s roundtable. Discussion and the summaries will account for 40% of your grade. In addition students will write a research paper on a topic related to the course, to be chosen in conference with me. Throughout the semester students will hand in materials demonstrating their progress (dates listed below). The last two or three weeks of class (depending on enrollment) will be devoted to student presentations about their topics to the class. The paper will be worth 60% of your grade.

During the last three class periods you will present the results of your research to the class. The week PRIOR to that meeting, you will hand out a copy of your paper for everyone. We will read them for the next meeting and your paper will be the topic of discussion for that week. You will spend 5 or so minutes summarizing your project and what you believe are the most important aspects of it, and we will then discuss your project. You will then have one week to revise your paper if you choose. Your presentation will account for 15% of the 60% of your paper grade (leaving 45% for the paper itself).

Required Texts:
Paul Jerome Croce, Science and Religion in the Era of William James, Volume 1: The Eclipse of Certainty, 1820-1880(University of North Carolina Press, 1995).
James Gilbert. Redeeming Culture: American Religion in an Age of Science (Chicago, 1997).
Ron Numbers and Charles Rosenberg (eds.), The Scientific Enterprise in America: Readings from Isis (Chicago, 1996).
Charles Rosenberg, No Other Gods: On Science and American Social Thought (Chicago, 1997).
Helene Silverberg (ed.) Gender and American Social Science: The Formative Years (Princeton, 1998).

Course Outline:

Week 1, 1/5-1/7 “American Science” or “Science in America?”
Charles Rosenberg, “Science in American Society: A Generation of Historical Debate,” in Numbers and Rosenberg (eds.), 2-21.

Week 2, 1/10-1/14 Science and the Citizen in the New Republic
* Laura Rigal, “Peale’s Mammoth” and “Feathered Federalism,” from The American Manufactory (Princeton, 1998)
* James D. Watkinson, “Useful Knowledge? Concepts, Values, and Access in American Education, 1776-1840,” History of Education Quarterly, 30 (1990), 351-370.
* Simon Baatz, “Philadelphia Patronage: The Institutional Structure of Natural History in the New Republic, 1800-1833,” Journal of the Early Republic, 8 (1988), 111-138.

Week 3, 1/17-1/21 Founding Scientific Boundaries
Rosenberg, No Other Gods, Chs. 1-3
* Reginald Horsman, “Providential Nation” and “Superior and Inferior Races,” from Race and Manifest Destiny (Cambridge, MA, 1981)
* Nancy Isenberg, “Citizenship Understood (and Misunderstood)” and “The Sovereign Body of the Citizen,” from Sex and Citizenship in Antebellum America (Chapel Hill, 1998).

Week 4, 1/24-1/28 The Scientist in Society (1)
George H. Daniels, “The Process of Professionalization in American Science: The Emergent Period, 1820-1860,” in Numbers and Rosenberg (eds.), 21-37.
Sally Gregory Kohlstedt, “Parlors, Primers, and Public Schooling: Education for Science in Nineteenth-Century America,” in Numbers and Rosenberg (eds.), 61-83.
Paul Jerome Croce, Science and Religion in the Era of William James, 1-110

Week 5 The Scientist in Society (2)
Hugh Richard Slotten, “The Dilemmas of Science in the United States: Alexander Dallas Bache and the U. S. Coast Survey,” in Numbers and Rosenberg (eds.), 37-61.
Stanley M. Guralnick, “Sources of Misconception on the Role of Science in the Nineteenth-Century American College,” in Numbers and Rosenberg (eds.), 83-98.
Paul Jerome Croce, Science and Religion in the Era of William James, 111-231
Paper Topic Summaries Due

Week 6, 2/7-2/11Week 6 – Science as a Social Institution
* David E. Shi, “Touched by Fire” and “A Mania for Facts” from Facing Facts: Realism in American Thought and Culture, 1850-1920 (Oxford, 1995)
Rosenberg, No Other Gods, Chs. 5, 6, and 8

Week 7, 2/14-2/18 Science as a Social Institution (2)
Rosenberg, No Other Gods, Chs. 9-12
Robert E. Kohler, “The Ph.D. Machine: Building on the Collegiate Base,” in Numbers and Rosenberg (eds.), 98-123.

Week 8, 2/21-2/25 Eugenics, Biology, and Society
Rosenberg, No Other Gods, Chs. 4 and 13
Philip J. Pauly, “The Development of High School Biology: New York City, 1900-1925,” in Numbers and Rosenberg (eds.), 160-187.
Gregg Mitman, “Cinematic Nature: Hollywood Technology, Popular Culture, and the American Museum of Natural History,” in Ibid., 203-228.
Susan E. Lederer, “Political Animals: The Shaping of Biomedical Research Literature in Twentieth-Century America,” in Ibid., 228-247.

Week 9, 2/28-3/3 Suffrage, Sexology and Disputes over Gender
Helene Silverberg (ed.), Gender and American Social Science, Chs. 1-5.
Margaret W. Rossiter, “’Women’s Work’ in Science, 1880-1910,” in Numbers and Rosenberg (eds.), 160-187.

Week 10, 3/6-3/10
Helene Silverberg (ed.), Gender and American Social Science, Chs. 6-10.
Project Outline and Bibliography Due

Week 11, 3/13-3/17 No Class, Spring Break

Week 12, 3/20-3/24 Paper Week, No Class

Week 13, 3/27-3/21 WWII, Government and Big Science
Larry Owens, “MIT and the Federal ‘Angel’: Academic R&D and Federal-Private Cooperation before World War II,” in Numbers and Rosenberg (eds.) 247-273.
Stanley Goldberg, “Inventing a Climate of Opinion: Vannevar Bush and the Decision to Build the Bomb”, in Ibid., 273-297.
Daniel J. Kevles, “The National Science Foundation and the Debate over Postwar Research Policy, 1942-1945 …,” in Ibid., 297-320.
James Gilbert. Redeeming culture: American Religion in an Age of Science, 1-119.

Week 14, 4/3-4/7 Science, Religion, and the Search for a New America
* Ronald G. Walters, “Uncertainty, Science, and Reform in Twentieth-Century America” from Scientific Authority and Twentieth-Century America (Baltimore, 1997).
David A. Hollinger, “Science as a Weapon in Kulturkämpfe in the United States During and After World War II,” in Numbers and Rosenberg (eds.), 320-335.
James Gilbert. Redeeming culture: American Religion in an Age of Science, 120-323.

Week 15, 4/10-4/14 Student Presentations

Week 16, 4/17-4/21 Student Presentations

Week 17, 4/24-4/28 Student Presentations

Final Papers due one week after presentations.