What was science like in America 250 years ago?
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What role did science play in the founding of America?
Hi, I'm Ira Flatow, and you're listening to Science Friday. We're celebrating the nation's 250th, and where better to have that conversation than in Boston, the birthplace of the American Revolution? You may not realize how connected science is to the birth of our country. The founders of our country found the role of science to be so important to our democracy that the founders specifically called for the support and promotion of science all the way up at the top of our Constitution, Article 1. So now if I say colonial America and science, probably the first thing that comes up is... Ben Franklin, yes. Ben was one of America's greatest scientists even to this day, but Ben wasn't the only one thinking big thoughts, asking big questions.
There were plenty of natural philosophers looking at the world in new ways and trying to make sense of how the world worked. I'm here in WBUR's city space, and joining me is Dr. Robert Allison, professor of history at Suffolk University, is also chair of Revolution 250. and president of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts. Thanks for being here with us.
Thanks Ira, it's great to be here.
Okay, let's begin with Franklin, why not? What made him such a great scientist?
Because he was, actually the great thing about Franklin for scientists is he wrote things down. He recorded a protocol. Franklin came to Boston, he left, he grew up in Boston. Philadelphia is going to say the revolution began there. We know it began here. We like to say the revolution happened in Massachusetts. They went to Philadelphia to fill out the paperwork. Franklin grew up in Boston, ran away from home when he was 16, went to Philadelphia, and brought to Philadelphia a lot of the things he had learned in Boston. He develops in Philadelphia. But he comes back to Boston in the 1740s, sees Dr. Spence demonstrating this electrical apparatus we can talk about later. And he is fascinated with this, the electrical fluid.
He buys the apparatus from Spence, goes to Philadelphia. He and a group of guys get together to experiment with the electrical fluid. And Franklin invented a lot of the words we still use for things involving the electrical fluid. Like what do you call guys who work with electricity? That's what these guys were. Franklin is experimenting with these things, along with a group of other guys who are doing things, and he writes down the protocols for everything they're doing so they can be replicated. So he takes electricity, which had been a parlor trick, and turns it into a science.
And all of this can be verified, right? This is not just mythology. And you said he had a paper trail.
He did leave an extensive paper trail. His experiments are being published in Europe, not here, but in Europe, where they're called the Philadelphia Experiments, because this guy in Philadelphia, which to Europe was the edge of the universe, was coming up with these things that then people in Europe are replicating. seeing how they work. So Franklin gets honorary degrees in Europe when the famous experiment with electricity and the clouds is published. Immanuel Kant calls Franklin the Prometheus of the modern age. It's really hard to overstate how important Franklin was, and actually much better known as a natural philosopher in Europe than he was in the American colonies.
And that was that famous kite flying experiment.
That's right, yes.
And you say the whole story of the kite, he wasn't the first to do that. It was already done in France.
So Franklin had written this protocol. In one of his books, it's published in Europe, says if you put a sentry box on top of a church steeple and you ran an iron pipe up from that and you have a guy in the sentry box with a Leyden jar. And Franklin also coined the term Leyden jar for something that a Dr. Muschenbrook had invented in the city of Leyden. He then can collect the electrical fluid if in fact the clouds contain electricity. The problem Franklin had in doing this experiment in Philadelphia, there are no church steeples. You grew up in Boston where there were plenty of church steeples.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What role did science play in the founding of America?
0:02–5:22
2
How did Benjamin Franklin contribute to early American science?
5:22–7:56
3
What were the scientific methods used by early natural philosophers?
7:56–14:05
4
Who were the notable natural philosophers in colonial America?
14:05–21:02
5
How did early Americans approach experimentation and data collection?
21:02–29:45
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from Science Friday
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