Patronage, practice, and the culture of American science

Alexander Dallas Bache and the U.S. Coast Survey

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Last edited by MARC Bot
3 days ago | History

Patronage, practice, and the culture of American science

Alexander Dallas Bache and the U.S. Coast Survey

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In this book Hugh Richard Slotten explores the institutional and cultural history of science in the United States. The main focus is on the activities of Alexander Dallas Bache - great-grandson of Benjamin Franklin and the acknowledged "chief" of the American scientific community during the second third of the nineteenth century.

Bache played a central role in the organization and management of a number of key scientific institutions, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Smithsonian Institution, and the National Academy of Sciences. But his dominance in these institutions was made possible through his control of an organization less well known today, the United States Coast Survey, which he superintended from 1843 until his death in 1867.

Under Bache's command the Coast Survey became the central scientific institution in antebellum America.

Using richly detailed archival records, Slotten pursues an analysis of Bache and the Coast Survey that illuminates important historiographic themes. We gain a better understanding of the particular style of nineteenth-century American science by examining the role of the Coast Survey as a source of patronage. Perhaps most important, this study explores the ways in which scientific knowledge and practice are embedded within local contexts.

Although Bache sought to use the Coast Survey to raise the status of American science partly by emulating European scientific elites, his efforts also reflected the cultural and political values of antebellum America. Slotten thus analyzes the interrelationship between political culture, patterns of patronage, and the institutional practice of science in the United States.

Publish Date
Language
English
Pages
228

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Book Details


Edition Notes

Includes bibliographical references (p. 182-222) and index.

Published in
Cambridge, New York

Classifications

Dewey Decimal Class
306.4/5
Library of Congress
Q175.52.U5 S57 1994, Q172.52.U5 S57 1994

The Physical Object

Pagination
xi, 228 p. :
Number of pages
228

ID Numbers

Open Library
OL1398623M
Internet Archive
patronagepractic0000slot
ISBN 10
0521433959
LCCN
93006230
OCLC/WorldCat
30978427
Library Thing
446150
Goodreads
514414

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History

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3 days ago Edited by MARC Bot import existing book
March 27, 2024 Edited by Scott365Bot Linking back to Internet Archive.
July 19, 2023 Edited by ImportBot import existing book
November 16, 2020 Edited by MARC Bot import existing book
April 1, 2008 Created by an anonymous user Imported from Scriblio MARC record