In Scientific
Americans , Susan Branson explores the place
of science and technology in American efforts to achieve cultural
independence from Europe and America's nation building in the early
...republic and antebellum eras. This engaging tour of
scientific education and practices among ordinary citizens charts
the development of nationalism and national identity alongside
roads, rails, and machines.
Scientific Americans shows how informal scientific
education provided by almanacs, public lectures, and
demonstrations, along with the financial encouragement of early
scientific societies, generated an enthusiasm for the application
of science and technology to civic, commercial, and domestic
improvements. Not only that: Americans were excited, awed, and
intrigued with the practicality of inventions.
Bringing together scientific research and popular wonder,
Branson charts how everything from mechanical clocks to steam
engines informed the creation and expansion of the American nation.
From the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations to the fate of
the Amistad captives, Scientific Americans shows how the
promotion and celebration of discoveries, inventions, and
technologies articulated Americans' earliest ambitions, as well as
prejudices, throughout the first American century.
In 1823, theHistory of the Celebrated Mrs. Ann Carsonrattled Philadelphia society and became one of the most scandalous, and eagerly read, memoirs of the age. This tale of a woman who tried to rescue ...her lover from the gallows and attempted to kidnap the governor of Pennsylvania tantalized its audience with illicit love, betrayal, and murder. Carson's ghostwriter, Mary Clarke, was no less daring. Clarke pursued dangerous associations and wrote scandalous exposés based on her own and others' experiences. She immersed herself in the world of criminals and disreputable actors, using her acquaintance with this demimonde to shape a career as a sensationalist writer. InDangerous to Know, Susan Branson follows the fascinating lives of Ann Carson and Mary Clarke, offering an engaging study of gender and class in the early nineteenth century. According to Branson, episodes in both women's lives illustrate their struggles within a society that constrained women's activities and ambitions. She argues that both women simultaneously tried to conform to and manipulate the dominant sexual, economic, and social ideologies of the time. In their own lives and through their writing, the pair challenged conventions prescribed by these ideologies to further their own ends and redefine what was possible for women in early American public life.
Philadelphia Stories Hemphill, C. Dallett; Hessinger, Rodney; Richter, Daniel K
2021, 2021-05-07
eBook
For the average tourist, the history of Philadelphia can be like a leisurely carriage ride through Old City. The Liberty Bell. Independence Hall. Benjamin Franklin. The grooves in the cobblestone are ...so familiar, one barely notices the ride. Yet there are other paths to travel, and the ride can be bumpy. Beyond the famed founders, other Americans walked the streets of Philadelphia whose lives were, in their own ways, just as emblematic of the promises and perils of the new nation. Philadelphia Stories chronicles twelve of these lives to explore the city's people and places from the colonial era to the years before the Civil War. This collective portrait includes men and women, Black and white Americans, immigrants and native born. If mostly forgotten today, banker Stephen Girard was one of the wealthiest men ever to have lived, and his material legacy can be seen by visiting sites such as Girard College. In a different register, but equally impressive, were the accomplishments of Sarah Thorn Tyndale. In a few short years as a widow she made enough money on her porcelain business to retire to a life as a reformer. Others faced frustration. Take, for example, Grace Growden Galloway. Born to an important family, she saw her home invaded and her property confiscated by patriot forces. Or consider the life of Francis Johnson, a Black bandleader and composer who often performed at the Musical Fund Hall, which still stands today. And yet he was barred from joining its Society. Philadelphia Stories examines their rich lives, as well as those of others who shaped the city's past.Many of the places inhabited by these people survive to this day. In the pages of this book and on the streets of the city, one can visit both the people and places of Philadelphia's rich history.
This paper highlights the circumstances of the Amistad case to discuss the connection between phrenology and race in antebellum American society. The trial of the Amistad captives in 1840–41 occurred ...at a time when opinions about racial differences were evolving into scientific theories about racial hierarchies. Phrenology was a popular science disseminated through publications, itinerant practitioners, and visual exhibitions that reinforced long-held beliefs about race. As subjects of phrenological investigation, the African men and children of the Amistad were examined, measured, and assessed within the context of ongoing debates about race and about American slavery.
On July 4, 1796, a group of women gathered in York, Pennsylvania, to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of American independence. They drank tea and toasted the Revolution, the Constitution, and, ...finally, the rights of women. This event would have been unheard of thirty years before, but a popular political culture developed after the war in which women were actively involved, despite the fact that they could not vote or hold political office. This newfound atmosphere not only provided women with opportunities to celebrate national occasions outside the home but also enabled them to conceive of possessing specific rights in the young republic and to demand those rights in very public ways. Susan Branson examines the avenues through which women's presence became central to the competition for control of the nation's political life and, despite attempts to quell the emerging power of women-typified by William Cobbett's derogatory label of politically active women as "these fiery Frenchified dames"-demonstrates that the social, political, and intellectual ideas regarding women in the post-Revolutionary era contributed to a more significant change in women's public lives than most historians have recognized. As an early capital of the United States, the leading publishing center, and the largest and most cosmopolitan city in America during the eighteenth century, Philadelphia exerted a considerable influence on national politics, society, and culture. It was in Philadelphia that the Federalists and Democratic Republicans first struggled for America's political future, with women's involvement critical to the outcome of their heated partisan debates. Middle and upper-class women of Philadelphia were able to achieve a greater share in the culture and politics of the new nation through several key developments, including theaters and salons that were revitalized following the war, allowing women to intermingle and participate in political discussions, and the wider availability of national and international writings, particularly those that described women's involvement in the French Revolution-perhaps the most important and controversial historical event in the early development of American women's political consciousness. Given these circumstances, Branson argues, American women were able to create new more active social and political roles for themselves that brought them out of the home and into the public sphere. Although excluded from the formal political arenas of voting and lawmaking, American women in the Age of Revolution nevertheless thought and acted politically and were able to make their presence and opinions known to the benefit of a young nation.
Aeronautics was the preeminent technology of the late eighteenth century. In the 1780s, Europeans were enthralled by the first successful attempts at flight. The Montgolfier brothers launched air ...balloons in Paris, and Pierre Blanchard and John Jeffries crossed the English Channel by balloon. Aeronautics was not the first technology to receive popular attention; enthusiasm for new discoveries in electricity and in the miniature world revealed by the microscope fostered numerous lectures and demonstrations. But aerial technology attracted large audiences because balloons were exhibited out of doors, not in lecture halls. Air balloons generated an excitement that spilled over into literature,
Fair America Branson, Susan
Scientific Americans,
01/2022
Book Chapter
Agriculture, manufacturing, and all manner of domestic productions benefited from organizations that promoted and encouraged individuals to create, invent, and improve. Societies, institutes, and ...lyceums formed in the early republic fostered a constituency interested in science and technology. The decades-old American Philosophical Society for the Promotion of Useful Knowledge (APS) was a model for the societies created in the postwar era. Most of the APS members were merchants, scholars, or gentlemen—not scientists. And most activities of the APS related to practical and applied science, “such subjects as tend to the improvement of their country, and advancement of its interest
Introduction Branson, Susan
Scientific Americans,
01/2022
Book Chapter
The United States had a lot to prove in 1776. Independence meant doing without two things Americans had taken for granted as colonials: an economy and an identity. Both were derived from the most ...important global power of the day. Liberated from the constraints of the colonial system, but at the same time handicapped by the withdrawal of Britain’s all-encompassing trade networks, the nation began to find its way toward a new economic system. Developments in science and technology helped the United States achieve economic independence. Exploring the ways Americans chose to characterize discoveries, inventions, and mammoth civic projects illuminates
Conclusion Branson, Susan
Scientific Americans,
01/2022
Book Chapter
On May 10, 1876, the International Exhibition of Arts, Manufactures, and Products of the Soil and Mine opened in Philadelphia. The Centennial Exhibition, as it was commonly called, was a national ...celebration of progress intended to “make evident to the world the advancement of which a self-governed people is capable.” Years of planning and fund-raising resulted in the largest fair ever staged in the United States. Two hundred and fifty buildings were constructed on 285 acres in Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park. Over thirty thousand exhibitors displayed their machines, raw materials, products, foodstuffs, and art. Seventeen states and nine foreign nations had
