Science and Technology in U.S. History Textbooks

The significance of science and technology (henceforth, SciTech) in U.S. History should need no advertisement. By the last third of the nineteenth century, the abundance and richness of the land, which had supported the material growth of the country since colonial times, no longer sufficed for an increasing and increasingly demanding population. As John Wesley Powell recommended in 1878, ahead of his time, wise management of resources beyond the one hundredth meridian would require scientific knowledge. While the arable frontier closed, mechanical invention began to transform agriculture, mining, and forestry; it established the foundation of the urban industrial order, joined localities into regions and regions into a far-flung union not only of political culture and institutions but also of financial, material, and informational markets. The closure of the landed frontier coincided with the opening of unlimited prospects in SciTech. The advance of this endless frontier, as Vannevar Bush was to call it after World War II, when proposing ways to explore and exploit it at federal expense, has affected many matters of central interest to American historiography. These include the material development of the country; the quality of American life; the enlargement of socioeconomic opportunity; the evolution of social attitudes; and the shaping of American public policy and government, especially in national security. Without SciTech, contemporary American civilization would not exist as we know it. This fundamental fact is not given adequate attention in leading contemporary textbooks in U.S. history

Ancient history · Economic history · Engineering ethics · History of technology · Political science · Diverse Educational Innovations Studies · Educator Training and Historical Pedagogy · Engineering · History

• Elaborations, Revisions, Dissents

  Open Access•Richard R John•The Business History Review•1997

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• The Peculiarities of the Americans or Are There National Styles in the Sciences

  Open Access•Nathan Reingold•Science in Context•1991

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