Thinkers and Tinkers: Early Men of Science

A remarkable chapter in American history previously ignored by historians is the birth and growth and demise of a movement of mathematical practitioners, who pursued the practical sciences from the establishment of the first British plantations in North America through the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Until now the history of science in America has been told in terms of the accomplishments of a handful of great achievers in the abstract sciences and of the naturalists who recorded the flora and fauna of the New World. Unacknowledged and unstudied have been the achievements of that inconspicuous yet impressive band of self-taught men who charted the wilderness, navigated the unknown waterways, surveyed the new communities and the new territories, made the scientific instruments with which these accomplishments could be achieved, and instructed others in these practical sciences. A single volume cannot encompass the countless individual efforts of these modest men of science and in fact little purpose would be served by a detailed account, for rarely did the individual deserve even a footnote in history. Yet the combined endeavors played a significant role in uniting individual settlements and forging the British colonies into an American nation. It is with this total effort that Thinkers and Tinkers is concerned.

Contents: Part I, Settlement: In Their Beginnings; Surging Seas; Where Wolves Now Howl; Dark Hemisphere. Part II, Development: Men of Ingenuity; Witty Geometers; To Rouse the Genius; New Paths in Science; Such Pleasant Inventions: A Work Adorned. Part III, Revolution: Of Liberty and Life; Wars Weapons. Part IV, Nationhood: One Vast Republic; The True Geography; Promotion of Science; From His Known Shore; Book of Nature; Dignity of Independence. 102 illustrations; 825 reference notes; 28 page glossary of terms; bibliography, index.