Nathan Reingold
In 1800, the score of professional scientists in the United States was scarcely distinguishable from the somewhat larger group of devoted amateurs-like the gentleman-scholar Thomas Jefferson and the multi-talented Benjamin Franklin. As befitted a nation of farmers, sailors, and craftsmen, most Americans pursued such sciences as zoology, botany, geology, and astron- omy-sciences rooted in the world around them. There was a constitutional mandate to "wromote" the useful...