Science in the Old South

IN 1927 HARVARD'S SAMUEL ELIOT MORISON TOUCHED OFF a heated historical debate on science in the Old South when he charged By 1850 the cotton kingdom had killed practically every germ of creative thought , including science. ' Stung by this undocumented snub, Thomas Cary Johnson, Jr., of the University of Virginia rose to his region's defense, accusing the Harvard scholar of unforgivable arrogance and inexcusable sloppiness. To refute Morison's claim, Johnson compiled two hundred pages documenting scientific activity in the Old South: in lecture halls and classrooms, on plantations and in towns, among gentlemen as well as Sweet Southern Girls, to whom he devoted an entire chapter. On the basis of largely anecdotal evidence, he concluded between 1801 and 1861, the people of the Southern States in common with those of the North and of Western Europe were intensely interested in the exploration and mastery of the forces of nature.2 In other words, the cotton kingdom had not destroyed creative thought in the Old South. Although some historians, such as Fletcher M. Green, rejoiced Johnson had disproven the common notion that slavery and its defense stifled intellectual interests . in the antebellum South, others, including Bert James Loewenberg, Carl Bridenbaugh, and Charles Sackett Sydnor, faulted the Virginian for fail

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