Synopses & Reviews
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.
Review
"Ambitious in its scope . . . Pauly's book grafts the stories of local and regional communities of scientists onto a narrative stock of national improvement and progress. . . . [A] valuable contribution to the local and regional history of biology in American culture."
--Gregg Mitman, American Scientist
Review
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.
Review
"This book is a significant contribution to the worthy task of integrating the history of science and American history."
--Christine Keiner, Perspectives in Biology and Medicine
Review
"An engaging, intelligent, and challenging study. . . . It is a masterful narrative that raises fascinating and thought-provoking issues."
--Otniel E. Dror, Journal of the History of Medicine
Review
An engaging history that will be valued by both specialists and general readers. . . . The treatment of people is insightful and sympathetic. In a series of vignettes Pauly captures each person's essential qualities--and eccentricities--and shows how in diverse ways they expressed the many varieties of American experience. . . . While covering vast ground, he engages the reader's attention by keeping the individuals in clear focus.
Review
"
Biologists and the Promise of American Life offers a fascinating overview of the development of American biology from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the second World War."
--Gerald J. Fitzgerald, Environmental History
Review
"A tantalizing and ambitious study that places American biologists squarely in the middle of national, social political, and economic development . . .Pauly has an elegant writing style that makes this book a pleasure to read. . . . A remarkable vision of the place of science in American life that will be enjoyed by historians and scientists alike."
--Audra J. Wolfe, Science
Review
"Here, at last, is a book that skillfully narrates stories from the biological sciences in ways that demonstrate their connection to other aspects of American culture. An important book."
--Sally Gergory Kohlestedt, The Journal of American History
Review
"A wonderful book about biologists and their work on the American continent. . . .
Biologists and the Promise of American Life is an important and well-crafted contribution to American history."
--John L. Rudolph, History of Education Quarterly
Synopsis
"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
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.
Table of Contents
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