Gentlemen Scientists and Revolutionaries: The Founding Fathers in the Age of Enlightenment

The “American Experiment” was not a metaphor in the eyes of our Founding Fathers, according to journalist Shachtman (Rum-springa: To Be or Not to Be Amish) in this lively history of 18th-century science. Retiring early after making his fortune, Benjamin Franklin took up scientific tinkering and his groundbreaking discoveries about electricity made him world-famous. He used his celebrity status to lobby Parliament to address colonial grievances and, when that failed, to persuade France to aid the Continental Congress. Science played a minor role in the Revolution itself, although one major event was Washington’s courageous 1777 decision to inoculate his troops against smallpox—a public health milestone that may have preserved his army. As leaders of the new nation, presidents Washington and Adams aggressively encouraged science, invention, and technological advances, but Jefferson, a man of science himself, outdid them. His administration sponsored several extensive information-gathering expeditions (Lewis & Clark’s being the most notable), supported fossil collection, and promoted vaccination. Shachtman makes an ingenious and convincing case that “science-based thoughts and actions were critical to the nation’s birth and early health—far more so than were religious doctrine or economic considerations.” [em](Oct.) [/em]