Alexander Dallas Bache - Building the American Nation through Science and Education in the Nineteenth Century

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

The Curious Case of Alexander Dallas Bache

The Revised Theory of Professionalization

Science as a Profession and the American Nation-State

Approach and Methodology

Investigative Agenda

Family Background

The Franklin and Bache Families

The Dallas Family

Tertium Quid

Sophia Dallas Bache

Richard Bache’s Failure

A Career in Science?

West Point

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

National Purpose

Early Research and Institutional Development

Scientist or Administrator?

Bache at the University of Pennsylvania

The Urban Setting

The Franklin Institute’s Raison d’Être

The Report on Steam Boiler Explosions

Weights and Measures

The Debate on Meteor Showers

Research Interests and Institutional Development: Common Denominators

Girard College and Central High School, 1836–1842

Girard College as a Political Symbol

The Design and Ambition of Greek Revivalism

Bache’s European Trip and the Bache-Biddle Correspondence

More on Bache’s European Tour

Central High School

Bache’s Program for National Consolidation I

Bache’s 1842 Address on “American Manufactures”

American Mythology

Prospects for Consolidating the American Nation

“This Most August Sovereign”

Elites in the American Republic

Bache’s Program for National Consolidation II

The United States Coast Survey

The National Institute

Bache’s Speech at the 1844 Meeting of the National Institute

European Conditions

Guarding the Palladium

American Science by an American Union

Bache’s Program for National Consolidation III

The American Association for the Advancement of Science

Bache’s 1851 Speech as Outgoing AAAS President

Bache, Benjamin Peirce, and the Lazzaroni in 1854

A National Club

“The Dark Prospect Appalls Me”

“A Victory for the Evil One”

President of an Invisible National Academy

The 1863 Founding of the National Academy of Sciences

The Timing

The Bache-Lieber Correspondence

“Ignorant of Scriptural Injunctions”

More on the Bache-Lieber Correspondence

The Founding of the National Academy of Sciences

Conclusion

A New Paradigm for Writing the History of Nineteenth-Century American Science as a Profession

Coordinates of Alexander Dallas Bache’s Career

Figures

Selected Bibliography

1. Manuscripts and Archival Material

2. Printed Primary Sources

3. Books and Articles

Index