Includes bibliographical references and index.

Intro -- Series -- Title page -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Notes on Contributors -- Introduction The History of American Science -- Part I Disciplines -- 1 Agricultural Sciences -- Agriculture Defined -- Agriculture Science Defined -- Historical Roots of Agricultural Science -- History of Agricultural Sciences in the United States -- Ethical and Social Influences -- The Green Revolution and Genetic Modification -- Agricultural Sciences Today -- Bibliographic Essay -- 2 Anthropology -- Philology and Native Americans in the Early Republic -- The American School of Ethnology -- Nineteenth-Century Professionalization -- Boas and the Boasians -- Hooton and the Hootonians -- New Currents and New Fractures -- Bibliographic Essay -- 3 Astronomy and Astrophysics -- The Indigenous Period: Native American Astronomy -- Colonial American Astronomy -- The Early Republic and Antebellum Years -- American Astronomy's Gilded Era, 1865-1940 -- Big Science for a Big Universe, 1940 to the Present -- Bibliographical Essay -- 4 Chemistry -- Classifying the Elements -- Atomic Weight -- The Discovery of Elements -- Bibliographical Essay -- 5 Computer Science -- The Computer -- Early Computing during World War II -- Computer Centers and Early "Computer Science" -- Changing Associations -- Professionalization and Institutionalization -- Theorization -- Bibliographic Essay -- 6 Conservation Biology -- Nineteenth-Century Conservation and the Continuum of Concern -- Conservation of Sites for Scientific Study -- The Broader Conservation Message -- Establishing the Science of Ecology -- Ecology and the New Environmental Movement -- A Synthesis for Conservation Biology -- Bibliographic Essay -- 7 Economics -- In the Beginning was the Word Laissez-Faire -- Postbellum to Fin de Siècle: Advocacy, Objectivity, and Religion.

Pluralism and Social Control: The First Half of the Twentieth Century -- Doing Economics with Models -- Doing Economics with Keynesian Models -- Models to Live By -- Bibliographic Essay -- 8 Experimental Psychology -- Wilhelm Wundt and Edward Titchener: The Laboratory Model -- William James: Darwinian Consciousness -- G.S. Hall: The Profession Builder -- Behaviorism: Psychology without a Mind -- Clark Hull: A Mechanics of Behavior -- Bibliographic Essay -- 9 Genetics -- Professionalization of Genetics -- Key Discoveries and Breakthroughs in American Genetics -- Genetics, Policy and Ethics -- Bibliographical Essay -- 10 Geophysics -- Geophysics Before the Civil War -- From the Civil War to World War II -- Cold War Geophysics -- Bibliographic Essay -- 11 Marine Biology -- Open Ocean Research: Onboard Naturalists and Marine Zoologists -- Fisheries Research: Culturists and Fisheries Biologists -- Marine Stations: Fisheries and Academic Laboratories -- Marine Biology Defined -- Marine Biology in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries -- Bibliographic Essay -- 12 Medical Genetics -- The Emergence of Medical Genetics -- The Heredity Clinics -- Human Cytogenetics in the United States -- Building Genetic Medicine in Baltimore -- Diagnostic Medical Genetics -- Professionalization in Medical Genetics -- Medical Genetics and the Private Sector -- Bibliographic Essay -- 13 Meteorology and Atmospheric Science -- Meteorology to 1870: The Emergence of a National Network -- 1870-1919: The Signal Service, the Weather Bureau, and the Political Contingency of Data -- 1900-1939: Climatology, Long-Range Forecasting, and the Persistence of Agricultural Interests -- 1919-1945: The Upper Atmosphere and the Change in Focus of Meteorology -- 1945-Present: From National to Global -- From Global Back to Local? -- Bibliographic Essay -- 14 Molecular and Cellular Biology.

The Cell and the Emergence of American Cell Biology -- The Creation and Early Development of Molecular Biology -- Expansion of Molecular Biology and Molecular Cell Biology -- Bibliographical Essay -- 15 Nuclear, High Energy, and Solid State Physics -- American Physics Ascendant -- Nuclear Physics -- High Energy Physics -- Solid State Physics -- Bibliographic Essay -- 16 Nutrition -- Pioneering Calorimetry: Technologies of American Nutrition -- Nutrition in the United States -- Federal Food Guides Codify the Science -- Vitamins - A New Era in Nutrition -- Bibliographic Essay -- 17 Paleoanthropology and Human Evolution -- Human Evolution Comes to the United States -- Modern Biology and Paleoanthropology Meet -- New Techniques and New Ideas -- The Focus on Africa -- Bibliographic Essay -- 18 Paleontology -- The First American Fossils -- Paleontology and Western Exploration -- Paleontology Moves into Museums -- From Modern Evolutionary Synthesis to Paleobiological Revolution -- Bibliographical Essay -- 19 Ecology -- Physiological and Physiographical Ecology -- Animal Ecology -- Ecosystem Ecology -- Ecology in the "Atomic Age" -- Ecology and Environmentalism -- Population Ecology -- Long-Term Ecological Research -- Bibliographic Essay -- 20 Sociobiology and Evolutionary Psychology -- Establishing the Principles of Sociobiology -- Developments in Evolutionary Psychology -- Bibliographic Essay -- 21 Sociology -- Narrating the Rise of Sociology as a Profession -- Cold War Social Science and the Rise of Modernization Theory -- Decentering the United States: Postcolonial Approaches to the History of Sociology -- Bibliographic Essay -- 22 Space and Planetary Sciences -- NASA as an Engineering Agency -- Organizing Science in NASA -- The Space Sciences and Human Space Flight -- NASA and the National Academy of Science -- Building New Specialist Communities.

Bibliographic Essay -- Part II Topics -- 23 Biotechnology -- Defining Biotechnology: Problems and Particulars -- Biotechnology before Biotechnologie -- Biotechnology from World War I to Genetic Engineering -- Biotechnology as Bioengineering -- Bibliographic Essay -- 24 Darwinism -- What is Darwinism? -- The First Four Decades of American Darwinism -- The Evolutionary Synthesis -- Molecular Evolution -- Punctuated Equilibria -- Sociobiology and Evolutionary Psychology -- Perspective: Unification and "Dys-synthesis" in American Darwinism -- Bibliographic Essay -- 25 Science Education -- Science in the American Colonies -- Teaching the Laws of Nature and Nature's God in the Early Republic -- Science Education and the American Civil War -- Teaching Science at the Turn of the Twentieth Century -- Science, Sputnik, and Cold War Education -- Science, Schools, and the Next Generation -- Bibliographic Essay -- 26 Environmental Science -- Humboldtian Science and American Western Exploration -- Scientific Specialization -- The Progressive Era: Environmental Health, Conservation, and Preservation -- Ecology -- The Human Place in Nature: Environmentalism and Humanists -- Bibliographic Essay -- 27 The American Eugenics Movement -- Setting the Stage for Eugenics -- The Rise of Eugenic Ideology -- Putting Eugenic Ideas into Practice -- Legal and Legislative Victories -- Cracks in the System -- Bibliographical Essay -- 28 Evolution and Creation Debates -- The Debate Crosses the Atlantic -- The Debate Becomes a Culture War -- The Scopes Trial -- The Contemporary Legal Battles -- The Philosophical Debates -- Public and Private Debates -- Bibliographic Essay -- 29 Field and Laboratory -- Rise of the Laboratory -- Modes of Field Practice -- Lab-Field Borderlands -- Lab and Field: Twentieth-Century Transformations -- Bibliographic Essay -- 30 Gender and Science.

The Scientific Origins of "Gender" -- Gender as a Feminist Category -- The History of Women in American Science -- The Maturation of a Feminist Science Studies Field -- Emergent Historiographical Themes -- Bibliographic Essay -- 31 The Germ Theory -- Germs in Theory: Victorian Debates and the Architects of the Germ Theory -- Germs in Practice: The Laboratory, the Hospital, and the Home -- Beyond Germs: From Bacteria to Viruses and Beyond -- Bibliographic Essay -- 32 Instrumentation -- Defining Scientific Instrumentation -- Historiography -- Bibliographic Essay -- 33 Science and Literature -- Colonial Era and Gothic Fictions of Science -- Nineteenth-Century American Literature -- Medicine as a Site of Literary-Scientific Intersection -- Bibliographic Essay -- 34 Museums -- From Peale to Barnum -- The United States National Museum -- Curation and Display -- Objects Today -- Bibliographic Essay -- 35 Natural History -- American Natural History -- Natural History Institutions -- Educational Institutions -- Bibliographic Essay -- 36 Nature Study -- The Nature Study Approach -- Framing a Movement -- Impact of Nature Study -- Bibliographical Essay -- 37 Science and Policy -- Policy for Science: 1789-1940 -- Policy for Science: 1940-1980 -- Policy for Science: 1980 to the Present -- Science for Policy: Private-Interest Science -- Science for Policy: Public Engagement -- Bibliographical Essay -- 38 Popularizing Science -- "Men of Science" and the Lecture Circuit -- Republicanism and Cheap Print -- The Graphic Revolution and the Celebrity Scientist -- Science, Religion, and the Mythology of Warfare -- Scientists, (Women) Popularizers, and Mythologies of the Public -- Modern Democracy and the Professional Popularizer -- Drama in Every Test Tube: Selling the Romance of Science -- Controversy, Democracy, and the Theater of Science.

Post World War II and the Public Understanding of Science.

A Companion to the History of American Science offers a collection of essays that give an authoritative overview of the most recent scholarship on the history of American science. * Covers topics including astronomy, agriculture, chemistry, eugenics, Big Science, military technology, and more * Features contributions by the most accomplished scholars in the field of science history * Covers pivotal events in U.S. history that shaped the development of science and science policy such as WWII, the Cold War, and the Women's Rights movement