When the Scientific Community Turned Pro

THE LAUNCHING OF MODERN AMERICAN SCIENCE 1846-1876. Robert V. Bruce. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1987. 446 pp. $30. In this long-awaited book, Robert Bruce discusses the major scientific events of mid-l9th century America, including Joseph Henry’s discovery of electromagnetic induction, the debate over Darwinism led by Ass Gray and Louis Agassiz, and J. Willard Gibbs’ development of statistical thermodynamics, among others. Like most who have written on the topic, Bruce focuses on the emergence of an active community of self-conscious professional scientists that founded journals, established formal institutions such as the Smithsonian and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and sought (and often obtained) state and federal support for their work. Bruce uses the previous literature on the topic quite well, and builds on it with own extensive research—including work in over 130 manuscript collections. While much of his book rests firmly on the scholarship of others, he presents the best currently available review of the period. The volume exhibits his fine prose style and the analytical skills that served him well as the prize-winning biographer of Alexander Graham Bell. Bruce’s attention to individuals and their careers leads him to emphasize, perhaps unduly, the Lazzaroni, a group of leading scientists that set out to win tangible support for its work, to distribute scientific patronage and to dominate the antebellum American scientific community. In directing these efforts, Alexander Dallas Bache—the clique’s leader, head of the Coast Survey, and a distinguished geophysicist—assumed a role similar to that later played by such 20th century scientific influentials as Vannevar Bush and Detlev Bronk. In lobbying Congress, Bache regularly cited his great-grandfather, Benjamin Franklin, and never shied away from calling on his West Point classmate, senator and secretary of war, Jefferson Davis. Bruce reviews such well-discussed episodes as the founding of the National Academy of Sciences, the AAAS’s censoring of several volumes of its Proceedings, and the Dudley Observatory affair. Throughout these discussions, the national context that Bruce provides does much to balance his stress on the personal. One of Bruce’s most suggestive and debatable analyses focuses on the scientific style adopted by many of his subjects. Instead of stressing the Baconian philosophy, which, he argues, Americans appealed to as an “accessory after the fact,” Bruce writes of an American concern with “targets of opportunity” and claims that most shared an impatience and diffuseness that led them to rush for scientific results, much as their contemporaries rushed for gold and land. Bruce relates the concern over the tactics of science—rather than the grand strategy—to the prevalent American belief that science contributed effectively to technological development. Even more controversially, he claims that by the end of the century it helped lead to the pragmatism of Charles S. Pierce and William James. Bruce may be going too far here, but his thesis deserves attention. In focusing explicitly on the political economy of American science, Bruce sometimes leaves scientific loose ends. Many might wonder just how B.A. Gould’s anthropometry supported racist attitudes and why Serano Watson’s botany became an “instant classic.” In addition, Bruce relies too heavily on his readers’ familiarity with his subjects, and some discussions—like that of J.W. Gibbs’ achievement—make little sense unless the reader already knows the points that Bruce wants to make. Nevertheless, no other volume provides as detailed and informative an overview of this important period in the development of American science. Sokal, professor of history at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA 01609. has written extensively on the history of American science and technology.

When the Scientific Community Turned Pro

THE LAUNCHING OF MODERN AMERICAN SCIENCE

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