Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The concussion of revolution: Publications and reform at the early Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, 1812–1842

  • Published:
Journal of the History of Biology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

References

  1. RichardHarlan, Fauna Americana, being a Description of the Mammiferous Animals Inhabiting North America (Philadelphia: Anthony Finley, 1825), p. ix.

    Google Scholar 

  2. The impact of Pursh's “pirating” on American botanists is discussed by JeannetteGraustein, Thomas Nuttall, Naturalist (Cambridge: Harvad University Press, 1967), pp. 85–91.

    Google Scholar 

  3. Thomas Say to T. Harris, Nov. 10, 1823, Harris Papers, Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.

  4. Say to Harris, May 20, 1830, Harris Papers.

  5. For discussions of Wilson's impact, see Notice of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia (Philadelphia: Mifflin and Parry, 1831), p. 4; Patsy Gerstner, “The Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 1812–1850,” in The Pursuit of Knowledge in the Early American Republic, ed. Alexandra Oleson and Sanborn C. Brown (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976), pp. 174, 186.

  6. For examples of such aspirations, see Harry B.Weiss and Grace M.Ziegler, Thomas Say, Early American Naturalist (Baltimore: Charles C. Thomas, 1931), pp. 36–39; C. S. Rafinesque to George Ord, Oct. 1, 1817, T. J. Fitzpatrick Collection, Spencer Library, Kansas University, Lawrence.

    Google Scholar 

  7. For example, see [Samuel LathomMitchill], “American Ornithology, or the Natural History of the Birds of the United States,” Med. Rep., 14 (1811), 48.

    Google Scholar 

  8. GilbertChinard, “The American Sketchbooks of Charles-Alexandre Le-Sueur,” Proc. Amer. Phil. Soc., 93 (1949) 116–118; Graustein, Thomas Nuttall, pp. 7–12.

    Google Scholar 

  9. Harry B.Weiss and Grace M.Ziegler, Thomas Say, Early American Naturalist (Baltimore: Charles C. Thomas, 1931), p. 39; see also Say to John F. Melsheimer, April 27, 1817, ibid., pp. 50–51.

    Google Scholar 

  10. [JaredSparks], “Wilson's and Bonaparte's Ornithology,” N. A. Rev., 24 (1827), 114; James Wilson, “Audubon's Ornithological Biography,” Blackwood's Magazine, 30 (July 1831), 11; C. L. Bonaparte, American Ornithology; or the Natural History of Birds Inhabiting the United States not Given by Wilson, I (Philadelphia: Samuel Augustus Mitchell, 1825), iii.

    Google Scholar 

  11. Bonaparte, American Ornithology, I, v.

  12. Ibid., p. vi; see also [Richard Harlan], Refutation of Certain Misrepresentations, Issued against the Author of the “Fauna Americana” in the Philadelphia Franklin Journal No. 1, 1826 and in the North American Review, No. 50 (Philadelphia: William Stavely, 1826), p. 10.

  13. WilliamKeating, Narrative of an Expedition to the Source of St. Peter's River, Lake Winnepeck, Lake of the Woods, &c &c (Philadelphia: H. C. Carey and I. Lea, 1824), p. 379.

    Google Scholar 

  14. For more on his role, see J. PercyMoore, “William Maclure — Scientist and Humanitarian,” Proc. Amer. Phil. Soc., 91 (1947), 234–249.

    Google Scholar 

  15. WilliamMaclure, “Observations on the Geology of the United States, Explanatory of a Geologic Map,” Trans. Amer. Phil. Soc., 6 (1809), 411–428; later enlarged and revised as Observations on the Geology of the United States of America (Philadelphia: Abraham Small, 1817), pp. iii–iv. This was the largest survey of its kind in the world.

    Google Scholar 

  16. See “Extracts from Letters Addressed to the Editor [Benjamin Silliman] by William Maclure,” Amer. J. Sci., 9 (1825), 150–161, dated Sept. 10, 1824, Paris.

  17. Arthur E. Bestor, ed., “Education and Reform at New Harmony, Correspondence of William Maclure and Marie DuClos Fretageot, 1820–1833,” Ind. Hist. Soc. Publ., 15 (1948); 371; 388; 401–402; 405; Maximilian, Prince of Wied-Neuweid, Travels in the interior of North America, 1832–1834 trans. H. Evans Lloyd (London: Ackerman, 1843), p. 74; R. G. Thwaites, ed., Early Western Travels, XXII (Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark, 1906), 164.

  18. Notice, p. 5.

  19. ThomasSay, American Entomology, or Descriptions of the Insects of North America, 3 vols. (Philadelphia: Samuel Augustus, Mitchell, 1824), 1825, 1828.

    Google Scholar 

  20. JessiePoesch, Titian Ramsay Peale and His Journals of the Wilkes Expedition (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1961), p. 60.

    Google Scholar 

  21. Unlike vol. I (see note 10, above), vols. II and III were published by Carey, Lea and Carey in 1828; and vol. IV by Carey and Lea in 1833.

  22. JohnGodman, American Natural History (Philadelphia: H. C. Carey and I. Lea, 1826), 3 vols. devoted to mammals.

    Google Scholar 

  23. Samuel G.Morton, Crania Americana, or a Comparative View of the Skulls of Various Aboriginal Nations of North and South America (Philadelphia: J. Dobson, 1839).

    Google Scholar 

  24. ThomasNuttall, The North American Sylva of F. Andrew Michaux, I (Philadelphia: J. Dobson, 1842); II and III (Philadelphia: Robert Smith, 1852).

    Google Scholar 

  25. ThomasSay, American Entomology, or Descriptions of the Insects of North America, 3 vols. (Philadelphia: Samuel Augustus, Mitchell, 1824), III, unpaginated text to plate 40.

    Google Scholar 

  26. This concern was later to be a source of great bitterness for T. Peale; see his “The South Seas Surveying and Exploring Expedition, the Organization, Equipment, Purposes, Results, and Termination,” typed ms. copy, ca. 1855, American Museum of Natural History, New York, N.Y., pp. 10, 16, 26.

  27. EdwinJames, Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains, Performed in the Years 1819 and '20, I (Philadelphia: H. C. Carey and I. Lea, 1823), 78.

    Google Scholar 

  28. ThomasSay, American Entomology, or Descriptions of the Insects of North America, 3 vols. (Philadelphia: Samuel Augustus, Mitchell, 1824), II unpaginated text to plate 20.

    Google Scholar 

  29. See Glossary to Say's Entomology (Philadelphia, S. A. Mitchell, 1825); Glossary to Say's Conchology (New Harmony, Ind.: Richard Beck and James Bennett, 1832). These men's commitment to Owen's ideas predated Maclure's. See Bestor, ed., “Correspondence,” pp. 311–312; Say to Harris, Nov. 28, 1830, Harris Papers; P. Gerstner, “The Academy,” p. 186.

  30. ThomasNuttall, The Genera of North American Plants and Catalogue of the Species to the Year 1817, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: D. Heartt, 1818).

    Google Scholar 

  31. ThomasNuttall, The North American Sylva of F. Andrew Michaux, (Philadelphia: J. Dobson, 1842); I, 59.

    Google Scholar 

  32. For example, see his tribute to the “rural innocence” of the bluebird, American Ornithology, or the Natural History of the Birds of the United States, I (Philadelphia; Bradsford and Inskeep, 1808), 59–60; for more on Wilson's “Foresters,” see Hans Huth, Nature and the American (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1957), pp. 24–26, 31.

  33. Charlotte M. Porter, “‘Scientific Gentlemen’ Go West: Their Published Journals and Popular Taste,” unpub. ms.

  34. Criticism of Buffon can be found in GeorgeOrd, “Zoology of North America,” in A New Geographical, Historical and Commercial Grammar, ed. W.Guthrie, [2nd American ed. (Philadelphia: Johnson and Walker, 1815), ed. Samuel N. Rhoads (Haddonfield N. J.: printed for the author, 1894), p. 313; Bonaparte, American Ornithology, I, 3, 15; II, 1, 15–16; III, 7–8, 20; IV, 3.

    Google Scholar 

  35. ThomasNuttall, The North American Sylva of F. Andrew Michaux, I (Philadelphia: J. Dobson, 1842), 47.

    Google Scholar 

  36. GeorgeOrd, “A Memoir of Thomas Say,” in The Complete Writings of Thomas Say on the Entomology of North America, ed. John L.LeConte, I (New York: Baillière Brothers, 1895), pp. xvi-xvii.

    Google Scholar 

  37. See, for example, MontagueChamberlain, ed., A Popular Handbook of Ornithology of Eastern North America by Thomas Nuttall, I, 2nd rev. ed. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1896), pp. vii-viii.

    Google Scholar 

  38. Bonaparte, American Ornithology, I, p. 6; 38; 49.

  39. As early as 1757, Alexander Garden criticized Linnaeus for placing plants with the same flower, but different fruits, into the same genus. He wrote to John Ellis, May 6, from Charlestown, S. C.: “I am sure a metaphysician would be surprised to see such different effects flowing from the same similar cause, acting similarly” James EdwardSmith, ed., A Selection of the Correspondence of Linnaeus, and Other Naturalists, I (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1821), pp. 396–397.

    Google Scholar 

  40. Stephen H. Long, “Observations on the geology of the Country Traversed by the Expedition,” in James, Account, II, p. 390.

  41. Maclure had first given the Academy a compound microscope and a square microscope; see “Catalogue of the Library of the Academy of Natural Sciences,” J. Acad. Nat. Sci., 1, pt. 1 (1817–1818), 219.

  42. By contrast, see the lines from Stillingsfleet on the title page to Say's American Entomology, vol. I.

  43. As the “Catalogue” entry suggests (see note 41 above), at the Academy, the microscope served more as an aide to identification than as an aid to research.

  44. EdwinJames, Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains, Performed in the Years 1819 and '20, I (Philadelphia: H. C. Carey and I. Lea, 1823), pp. 460–461.

    Google Scholar 

  45. J.Godman, “The Rambles of a Naturalist,” in the 3rd ed. of his American Natural History, II (Philadelphia: R. W. Pomeroy, 1842), p. 298.

    Google Scholar 

  46. Titian R.Peale, Lepidoptera Americanae; or, Original Figures of Moths and Butterflies of North America, I (Philadelphia: William P. Gibbons, 1833), text to plate 7.

    Google Scholar 

  47. C. S. Rafinesque, “Continuation of a Monograph of the Bivalve Shells of the River Ohio,” printed pamphlet dated Oct. 1831, Philadelphia, p. 1.

  48. ThomasSay, “Conchology,” in American Edition of the British Encyclopedia or Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, ed. WilliamNicholson, IV (Philadelphia: Mitchell, Ames, White, 1819), unpaginated.

    Google Scholar 

  49. Notice, p. 11: compare with the description of the cabinet by Samuel G. Morton, “History of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia”, Amer. Quart. Rev., 13 (1841), 436.

  50. ThomasSay, American Entomology or Descriptions of the Insects of North America, 3 vols. (Philadelphia: Samuel Augustus, Mitchell, 1824), 1825. 1828. I, unpaginated text to plate 5.

    Google Scholar 

  51. ThomasSay, American Entomology or Descriptions of the Insects of North America, 3 vols. (Philadelphia: Samuel Augustus, Mitchell, 1824, 1825, 1828). II, unpaginated text to plate 28.

    Google Scholar 

  52. ThomasSay, American Entomology or Descriptions of the Insects of North America, 3 vols. (Philadelphia: Samuel Augustus, Mitchell, 1824), 1825, 1828. I, unpaginated text to plate 4.

    Google Scholar 

  53. Wilson enlarged the refutation of Buffon's theory found in Query Six of Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia to pertain to birds as well as mammals. Through William Bartram, the two men exchanged letters and actually discussed ornithology together in the White House on Dec. 17, 1808: Wilson, acknowledged his debt to Jefferson in the American Ornithology, I, p. 8.

  54. See letter of Thomas Jefferson to Dr. John Manners, Feb. 22, 1818, published by Edmund H. Fulling, “Thomas Jefferson: His Interest in Plant Life as Revealed in His Writings, II,” Bull. Torrey Bot. Club, 72 (May 1945), 249–250.

  55. Bonaparte, American Ornithology, II, 2, 5.

  56. At the time, subscribers paid $180 for Bonaparte's supplement; and $1,000 for Audubon's elephant folio volumes. American enthusiasm for bird books has continued. Audubon's work recently fetched $360,000 at auction.

  57. Bonaparte, American Ornithology, II, pp. 1–5.

  58. For example, the female gold crest in plate 2, fig. 4, of vol. I.

  59. See The American Ornithology: Constable's Miscellany of Original and Selected Publications in the Various Departments of Literature, Science, and the Arts (Edinburgh: Constable, 1831), vol. LXXI.

  60. See, for example, “The American Ornithology of Alexander Wilson and Charles Lucien Bonaparte ...,” Edinburgh Evening Post, Nov. 2, 1832.

  61. Charles Winterfield (pseud. for C. W. Weber), “American Ornithology,” Amer. Rev., 1 (March 1845), p. 263.

  62. Bonaparte, American Ornithology, II, p. 3.

  63. Ibid., I, 52.

  64. ThomasNuttall, The Genera of North American Plants and Catalogue of the Species to the Year 1817, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: D. Heartt, 1818), I. p. vi.

    Google Scholar 

  65. See Say's proposal in the New Harmony Disseminator, Oct. 17 and 24, 1827, quoted in Weiss and Ziegler, Thomas Say, pp. 139–140.

  66. In this regard, drawings by Wilson, LeSueur, T. Peale, and Lucy Say might well be contrasted with illustrations for medical articles in the Academy's Journal; see, for example, the suggestive plate of Simis concolor Halan, J. Acad. Nat. Sci., 5 pt. 2 (1825).

  67. Bonaparte, American Ornithology, I, pp. 3–4.

  68. Despite the example of Hihan's father, Charles Willson Peale; see for example, Charles Coleman Seller, “Peale's Museum,” Trans. Amer. Phil. Soc. n.s. 43 (1953), 254.

    Google Scholar 

  69. See for numerous examples the existensive collection of T. R. Peale's sketches now owned by the Kennedy Galleries, New York, N. Y.

  70. Cited by Francis Hobart Herrick, Audubon the Naturalist, I (New York: D. D. Appleton, 1917), 330. Compare Peale's plates with Audubon's plate iv in Bonaparte's American Ornithology, I.

    Google Scholar 

  71. C. L.Bonaparte, “Observations on the Nomenclature of Wilson's Ornithology,” J. Acad. Nat. Sci., 3, pt. 2 (1824); 340–371; 4 pt. 1 (1824); 25–67; 163–200; 4 pt. 2 (1824); 251–278; 5, pt. 1 (1825–1827); 57–106; “Further Additions to the Ornithology of the United States and Observations of the Nomenclature of Certain Species,” Ann. N. Y. Lyceum Nat. Hist., 2 (1826–1828); 154–161; “The Genera of North American Birds and a Synopsis of the Species Found within the Territory of the United States,” ibid., 7–128; 293–451.

    Google Scholar 

  72. The bitter disputes between Harlan and Godman; Eaton and Featherstonhaugh; Nuttall and Gray have been discussed in my Ph. D. dissertation, “The Excursive Naturalists: The Development of American Taxonomy at the philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, 1812–1842,” Harvard University, 1976, pp. 173–209. For somewhat different interpretations, see A. Hunter Dupree, “Thomas Nuttall's Controversy with Asa Gray,” Rhodora, 54 (Dec. 1952); 293–303; Patsy Gerstner, “Vertebrate Paleontology, an Early Nineteenth Century Transatlantic Science,” J. Hist. Biol., 3 (1970), 137–148.

  73. Say to Harris, July 30, 1825, Harris Papers.

  74. JamesDeKay, Anniversary Address on the Progress of the Natural Sciences in the United States: Delivered before the Lyceum of Natural History of New York (New York: G. and C. Carwell, 1826), p. 76; see also R.S.T., “On the Causes Whcih Retard the Advance of Zoological Knowledge, Mon. Amer. J. Geol. 1 (Jan. 1832), 302.

    Google Scholar 

  75. JohnGodman, American Natural History (Philadelphia: H. C. Carey and I. Lea, 1826), I, p. xi.

    Google Scholar 

  76. JohnLindley, An Introduction to the Natural System of Botany or a Systematic View of the Organization, Natural Affinities and Geographic Distributions of the Whole Vegetable Kingdom with a Catalogue of North American Genera of Plants, by John Torrey, 1st ed. (London; 1830; New York: G. and C. and H. Carvill, 1831).

    Google Scholar 

  77. Examples of the enthusiastic reception are I.Ray, “DeCandolle's Botany,” N. A. Rev, 38 (1834); 61–63; “Notice of New Books,” Amer. J. Sci., 32 (July 1837), 211; A. Gray, “A Natural System of Botany,” Amer. J. Sci., 32 (July 1837), 292–303: “Comparative View of the Linnaean and Natural Systems of Botany,” Mon. Amer. Geol. 1 (March 1832), 416–422; Lewis Schweinitz to Torrey, March 29, 1832, published by C. L. Shear and Neil E. Stevens, “The Correspondence of Schweinitz and Torrey,” Mem. Torrey Bot. Club, 16 (1915–1921), 268.

    Google Scholar 

  78. AmosEaton, A Manual of Botany for North America 6th ed. (Albany: Oliver Steele, 1833), p. v; see also pt. 2 p. 3; C. S. Rafinesque to Torrey, March 2, 1832, and Nuttall to Torrey, Sept. 1838, both letters in the Torrey Papers, New York Botanical Garden, Bronx.

    Google Scholar 

  79. Rafinesque to Torrey, April 1835, Torrey Papers.

  80. Nuttall to Gray, April 17, April 23, 1841, Historic Letter File, Gray Herbarium, Harvard University.

  81. Eaton, Manual 6th ed., p. v.

  82. GeorgeOrd, “A Memoir of Thomas Say,” in The Complete Writings of Thomas Say on the Entomology of North America, ed. John L.LeConte, I (New York: Baillière Brothers, 1859), p. xi; Benjamin H. Coates, Biographical Sketch of the Late Thomas Say, Esq. (Philadelphia: published by the Academy, 1835), pp. 13–15.

    Google Scholar 

  83. GeorgeFeatherstonhaugh, “Eaton's Geology,” Mon. Amer. J. Geol. 1 (Aug. 1831); 82–90; for another evaluation of Eaton's geology, see George Perkins Merrill, The First One Hundred Years of American Geology (New Haven: Yale University ress, 1924), pp. 77–79; 128–133.

    Google Scholar 

  84. Gray to Nuttall, April 14, 1841, letter draft, Historic Letter File.

  85. Francois André Michaux's original French text was translated for American readers by Augustus L. Hillhouse as The North American Sylva, 3 vols. (Paris: printed by C. D. Hautel for T. Dobson and G. Conrad of Philadelphia, 1818, 1819). Maclure had purchased the original plates, which were reused for a New Harmony edition; as to other copperplates purchased at the same time, Elsa G. Allen, “The History of American Ornithology before Audubon,” Trans. Amer. Phil. Soc., n.s. 41 (1951); 551, records that John Cassin wrote to P. L. Slater in 1865 that he was authorized to sell them at the price of “refuse or old copper,” but hoped instead to find a purchaser.

  86. [AsaGray], “The Longevity of Trees,” N. A. Rev., 59 (1844), 193.

    Google Scholar 

  87. Ibid.

  88. AsaGray, “Notice of the Botanical Writings of the Late C. S. Rafinesque,” Amer. J. Sci., 40 (Jan.–March 1841), 221–241.

    Google Scholar 

  89. This point is discussed at length by Charlotte M. Porter, “‘Subsilentio’: Discouraged Works of American Natural History of the Early Nineteenth Century,” J. Soc. Bibliog. Nat. Hist. (Spring 1979).

  90. An excellent discussion and introduction to relevant materials in Daniel C.Haskell, The United States Exploring Expedition, 1838–1842, and Its Publications, 1844–1874 (New York: New York Public Library, 1942), pp. 4–19; 55–59.

    Google Scholar 

  91. JessiePoesch, Titian Ramsay Peale and His Journals of the Wilkes Expedition (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1961), pp. 94–103; Titian Peale, “The South Seas Expedition,” p. 10.

    Google Scholar 

  92. Harley HarrisBartlett, “The Reports of the Wilkes Expedition, and the Work of Specialists in Science,” Proc. Amer. Phil. Soc., 82 (1940), 642.

    Google Scholar 

  93. Harley HarrisBartlett, “The Reports of the Wilkes Expedition, and the Work of Specialists in Science,” Proc. Amer. Phil. Soc., 82 (1940), pp. 644–645; John Cassin, Mammalogy and Ornithology, vol. VIII: United States Exploring Expedition (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1858).

    Google Scholar 

  94. Porter, “‘Subsilentio.’”

  95. Louis Agassiz, Seaside Studies in Natural History, p. 25, cited by G. B. Goode, “The Beginnings of Natural History in America,” Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution, National Museum, pt. 2 (Washington, E. C., 1901), p. 405.

  96. Arthur E.Bestor, Backwoods Utopias: The Sectarian and Owenite Phases of Communitarian Socialism in America, 1663–1829 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1950), pp. 94–229.

    Google Scholar 

  97. A good description of the Educational Society is found in George B.Lockwood with Charles A.Prosser, The New Harmony Experiment (New York: Appleton, 1905), pp. 234–262.

    Google Scholar 

  98. See Contributions of the Maclurian Lyceum to the Arts and Sciences, 1 (Jan. 1827), 1; copies of this rare serial may be seen in Houghton Library, Harvard University.

  99. These “paper tigers” have been nicely discussed by Gerstner, “The Academy,” pp. 175–176.

  100. Notice, p. 7–8.

  101. WilliamMaclure, Opinions on Various Subjects (New Harmony, Ind.: School Press, 1831), pp. 38–39; 40.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Museum of Broadcasting, New York, New York

    Charlotte M. Porter

Authors
  1. Charlotte M. Porter
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Porter, C.M. The concussion of revolution: Publications and reform at the early Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, 1812–1842. J Hist Biol 12, 273–292 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00124194

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00124194

Search

Navigation