Science and technology in the United States has a long history, producing many important figures and developments in the field. The United States of America came into being around the Age of Enlightenment (1685 to 1815), an era in Western philosophy in which writers and thinkers, rejecting the perceived superstitions of the past, instead chose to emphasize the intellectual, scientific and cultural life, centered upon the 18th century, in which reason was advocated as the primary source for legitimacy and authority. Enlightenment philosophers envisioned a "republic of science," where ideas would be exchanged freely and useful knowledge would improve the lot of all citizens.
The United States Constitution itself reflects the desire to encourage scientific creativity. It gives the United States Congress the power "to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."[1] This clause formed the basis for the U.S. patent and copyright systems, whereby creators of original art and technology would get a government granted monopoly, which after a limited period would become free to all citizens, thereby enriching the public domain.[2]
In the early decades of its history, the United States was relatively isolated from Europe and also rather poor. At this stage, America's scientific infrastructure was still quite primitive compared to the long-established societies, institutes, and universities in Europe.
Eight of America's founding fathers were scientists of some repute. Benjamin Franklin conducted a series of experiments that deepened human understanding of electricity. Among other things, he proved what had been suspected but never before shown: that lightning is a form of electricity. Franklin also invented such conveniences as bifocal eyeglasses. Franklin also conceived the mid-room furnace, the "Franklin Stove". However, Franklin's design was flawed, in that his furnace vented the smoke from its base: because the furnace lacked a chimney to "draw" fresh air up through the central chamber, the fire would soon go out. It took David R. Rittenhouse, another hero of early Philadelphia, to improve Franklin's design by adding an L-shaped exhaust pipe that drew air through the furnace and vented its smoke up and along the ceiling, then into an intramural chimney and out of the house.[3]
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), was among the most influential leaders in early America; during the American Revolutionary War (1775–83), Jefferson served in the Virginia legislature, the Continental Congress, was governor of Virginia, later serving as U.S. minister to France, U.S. secretary of state, vice president under John Adams (1735–1826), writer of the Declaration of Independence and the third U.S. president. During Jefferson's two terms in office (1801–1809), the U.S. purchased the Louisiana Territory and Lewis and Clark explored the vast new acquisition.
After leaving office, he retired to his Virginia plantation, Monticello, and helped spearhead the University of Virginia.[4] Jefferson was also a student of agriculture who introduced various types of rice, olive trees, and grasses into the New World. He stressed the scientific aspect of the Lewis and Clark expedition (1804–06),[5] which explored the Pacific Northwest, and detailed, systematic information on the region's plants and animals was one of that expedition's legacies.[6]
Like Franklin and Jefferson, most American scientists of the late 18th century were involved in the struggle to win American independence and forge a new nation. These scientists included the astronomer David Rittenhouse, the medical scientist Benjamin Rush, and the natural historian Charles Willson Peale.[6]
During the American Revolution, Rittenhouse helped design the defenses of Philadelphia and built telescopes and navigation instruments for the United States' military services. After the war, Rittenhouse designed road and canal systems for the state of Pennsylvania. He later returned to studying the stars and planets and gained a worldwide reputation in that field.[6]
As United States Surgeon General, Benjamin Rush saved countless lives of soldiers during the American Revolutionary War by promoting hygiene and public health practices. By introducing new medical treatments, he made the Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia an example of medical enlightenment, and after his military service, Rush established the first free clinic in the United States.[6]
Charles Willson Peale is best remembered as an artist, but he also was a natural historian, inventor, educator, and politician. He created the first major museum in the United States, the Peale Museum in Philadelphia, which housed the young nation's only collection of North American natural history specimens. Peale excavated the bones of an ancient mastodon near West Point, New York; he spent three months assembling the skeleton, and then displayed it in his museum. The Peale Museum started an American tradition of making the knowledge of science interesting and available to the general public.[6]
American political leaders' enthusiasm for knowledge also helped ensure a warm welcome for scientists from other countries. A notable early immigrant was the British chemist Joseph Priestley, who was driven from his homeland because of his dissenting politics. Priestley, who migrated to the United States in 1794, was the first of thousands of talented scientists drawn to the United States in search of a free, creative environment.[6]
Other scientists had come to the United States to take part in the nation's rapid growth. Alexander Graham Bell, who arrived from Scotland by way of Canada in 1872, developed and patented the telephone and related inventions. Charles Proteus Steinmetz, who came from Germany in 1889, developed new alternating-current electrical systems at General Electric Company,[6] and Vladimir Zworykin, an immigrant who arrived from Russia to the States in 1919, bringing his knowledge of x-rays and cathode ray tubes and later won his first patent on a television system he invented. The Serbian Nikola Tesla went to the United States in 1884, and would later adapt the principle of the rotating magnetic field in the development of an alternating current induction motor and polyphase system for the generation, transmission, distribution and use of electrical power.[7]
Into the early 1900s, Europe remained the center of science research, notably in England and Germany. From the 1920s onwards, the tensions heralding the onset of World War II spurred sporadic but steady scientific emigration, or "brain drain", in Europe. Many of these emigrants were Jewish scientists, fearing the repercussions of anti-Semitism, especially in Germany and Italy, and sought sanctuary in the United States.[8] One of the first to do so was Albert Einstein in 1933. At his urging, and often with his support, a good percentage of Germany's theoretical physics community, previously the best in the world, left for the United States. Enrico Fermi, came from Italy in 1938, and led the work that produced the world's first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction. Many other scientists of note moved to the U.S. during this same emigration wave, including Niels Bohr, Victor Weisskopf, Otto Stern, and Eugene Wigner.[9]
Several scientific and technological breakthroughs during the Atomic Age were the handiwork of such immigrants, who recognized the potential threats and uses of new technology. For instance, it was German professor Einstein and his Hungarian colleague, Leó Szilárd, who took the initiative and convinced President Franklin D. Roosevelt to pursue the pivotal Manhattan Project.[10] Many physicists instrumental to the project were also European immigrants, such as the Hungarian Edward Teller, "father of the hydrogen bomb,"[11] and German Nobel laureate Hans Bethe. Their scientific contributions, combined with Allied resources and facilities helped establish the United States during World War II as an unrivaled scientific juggernaut. In fact, the Manhattan Project's Operation Alsos and its components, while not designed to recruit European scientists, successfully collected and evaluated Axis military scientific research at the end of the war, especially that of the German nuclear energy project, only to conclude that it was years behind its American counterpart.[12]
When World War II ended, the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union were all intent on capitalizing on Nazi research and competed for the spoils of war. While President Harry S. Truman refused to provide sanctuary to ideologically committed members of the Nazi party, the Office of Strategic Services introduced Operation Paperclip, conducted under the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency. This program covertly offered otherwise ineligible intellectuals and technicians whitewashed dossiers, biographies, and employment. Ex-Nazi scientists overseen by the JIOA had been employed by the U.S. military since the defeat of the Nazi regime in Project Overcast, but Operation Paperclip ventured to systematically allocate German nuclear and aerospace research and scientists to military and civilian posts, beginning in August 1945. Until the program's termination in 1990, Operation Paperclip was said to have recruited over 1,600 such employees in a variety of professions and disciplines.[13]
