The Popularization of Science in Nineteenth-Century America

Abstract

THE POPULARIZATION OF SCIENCE in nineteenth-century America is inseparable from the democratization of Western society in the early modern era. The contempt for labor that characterized the medieval attitude was gradually replaced by a new spirit whose roots go back to at least the twelfth century and which accompanied the rise in economic importance of the skilled craftsman and mechanic in a modernizing economy. The new importance of the artisan-mechanic to the economy forced a reconsideration of the proper relationship between the artisan and the scientist. The association of knowledge with its applications its utility was interwoven with a growing self-conception that the productions of the craftsman and the mechanic made possible a grasp of regularities and order in nature hitherto not even so conceptualized. Advances in techniques and in the material conditions of life were accompanied by corresponding changes in the perception and conceptualization of nature and society. (1) The artisan achieved a new and elevated status of dignity and place. He worked in close collaboration with scientists, and frequently the distinctions between them were blurred and undefined. (2) Taking their cue from the work of the artisan and his methods, the new men of science now raised the possibility that nature could not only be understood but could be altered to meet the needs of man. In the words of Paolo Rossi:

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