The history of science in early America was once a story of the genteel scientific circles of Eastern cities like Philadelphia and Boston. It centered on natural philosophers, tradesmen and statesmen like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, and the origins of urban institutions like the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. It was about how––in fits and starts––the foundations of a national scientific culture were built through the efforts of a nascent community of colonial men of science. Ultimately, historians were concerned with elucidating the origins of what made “American science” unique––a historiographic focus that owed much to its development during the Cold War. This framing put a spotlight on Anglo-American relations, as exemplified by classic works by I. Bernard Cohen, Brooke Hindle, Raymond P. Stearns, and John C. Greene. How had Americans gone from colonial junior partners in the scientific enterprise to world scientific leaders in their own right? How had American science achieved its intellectual and institutional independence? Not surprisingly, democracy played a central role in this literature, with the democratic values of the early republic fostering the formation of scientific institutions while also manifesting in an emphasis on utility and a skepticism toward the authority of experts. The struggle for patronage was also a major theme. Scholars like A. Hunter Dupree and William Goetzmann showed how naturalists and geologists vied patriotically for state support. Science at last found a place in the federal budget as the United States itself became an empire that sought to understand and rule an expanding western territory. At a time when the field of the history of science generally remained centered on Europe and dominated by the history of ideas, the emergence of interest in the social and cultural context of science in colonial America and the United States was a refreshing development. Since the 2000s, authors like Joyce Chaplin and Susan Scott Parrish have deepened and complicated our

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边疆科学

美国早期的科学史曾经是费城和波士顿等东方城市上流社会科学界的故事。它以本杰明富兰克林和托马斯杰斐逊等自然哲学家、商人和政治家为中心，以及美国哲学学会和美国艺术与科学学院等城市机构的起源。它是关于如何——断断续续——国家科学文化的基础是通过新生的殖民科学家社区的努力建立起来的。最终，历史学家关心的是阐明“美国科学”独特之处的起源——这种历史学重点很大程度上归功于它在冷战期间的发展。这种框架聚焦于英美关系，例如 I. Bernard Cohen、Brooke Hindle、Raymond P. Stearns 和 John C. Greene。美国人是如何从科学事业中的殖民地初级合伙人变成世界科学领袖的？美国科学是如何实现其知识和制度独立的？毫不奇怪，民主在这些文献中发挥了核心作用，早期共和国的民主价值观促进了科学机构的形成，同时也表现出对实用性的重视和对专家权威的怀疑。争取赞助的斗争也是一个主要主题。像 A. Hunter Dupree 和 William Goetzmann 这样的学者展示了博物学家和地质学家如何爱国地争取国家支持。随着美国本身成为一个寻求理解和统治不断扩大的西部领土的帝国，科学终于在联邦预算中占有一席之地。在科学史领域总体上仍以欧洲为中心、以思想史为主导的时代，对殖民美洲和美国科学的社会和文化背景的兴趣的出现是一个令人耳目一新的发展。自 2000 年代以来，乔伊斯·卓别林 (Joyce Chaplin) 和苏珊·斯科特·帕里什 (Susan Scott Parrish) 等作家深化和复杂化了我们的