The Oxford Encyclopedia of the History of American Science, Medicine, and Technology
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the History of American Science, Medicine, and Technology
Editor: Slotten, Hugh Richard
Publication Year: 2014
Publisher: Oxford University Press, Inc.
Price: Core Collection Only

ISBN: 978-0-19-976666-6
Category: History - United States -- History
Book Status: Available
Table of Contents
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the History of American Science, Medicine, and Technology covers these topics from the early colonial era to present-day.
This book is found in the following Credo Collections:
Table of Contents
- List of Entries
- Introduction Paul S. Boyer
- Preface
- Common Abbreviations Used in This Work
- ABORTION DEBATES AND SCIENCE—LUMBERING
- A
- Abortion Debates and Science
- Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia
- Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome
- Advertising, Medical
- Agassiz, Louis (1807–1873), zoologist, geologist.
- Agricultural Education and Extension
- Agricultural Experiment Stations
- Agricultural Technology
- Agriculture, U.S. Department of
- AIDS
- Airplanes and Air Transport
- Alcohol and Alcohol Abuse
- Alvarez, Luis Walter (1911–1988), Nobel Laureate in physics.
- Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia
- American Association for the Advancement of Science
- American Association for the History of Medicine
- American Institute of Physics
- American Medical Association
- American Museum of Natural History
- American Philosophical Society
- American System of Manufactures
- Amniocentesis
- Anatomy and Human Dissection
- Andrews, Roy Chapman (1884–1960), naturalist and explorer.
- Anesthesiology
- Animal and Human Experimentation
- Animation Technology and Computer Graphics
- Anorexia Nervosa
- Anthropology
- Archaeology
- Armstrong, Edwin Howard (1890–1954), inventor of five important radio circuits,
- Army Corps of Engineers, U.S.
- Arthritis
- Artificial Intelligence
- Asthma and Allergy
- Astronomy and Astrophysics
- Atlantic Cable
- Atomic Energy Commission
- Atoms For Peace
- Audubon, John James (1785–1851), artist and naturalist famed for his striking color portraits of North American birds and mammals.
- Autism
- Automation and Computerization
- B
- Baby and Child Care
- Bache, Alexander Dallas (1806–1867), geophysicist, educator, and science administrator.
- Baird, Spencer Fullerton (1823–1887) naturalist, museum director, and science administrator.
- Barbed Wire
- Bardeen, John (1908–1991), theoretical physicist, Nobel laureate.
- Bartram, John and William (1699–1777) and (1739–1823), botanist, father of William; and naturalist, respectively.
- Beadle, George Wells
- Beaumont, William (1785–1853), physician and scientist, the first American physiologist to achieve international renown.
- Behaviorism
- Bell, Alexander Graham (1847–1922), inventor and scientist best known for his invention of the telephone.
- Bell Laboratories
- Berkner, Lloyd (1905–1967), physicist, engineer, and science administrator.
- Bethe, Hans (1906–2005), theoretical physicist and nuclear weapons expert, Nobel laureate, was born in Strassburg, which was then part of Germany.
- Bicycles and Bicycling
- Biochemistry
- Biological Sciences
- Biology
- Biomedical Research
- Biotechnology
- Birth Control and Family Planning
- Blackwell, Elizabeth (1821–1910),
- Blalock, Alfred (1899–1964), surgeon,
- Blindness, Assistive Technologies and
- Boas, Franz (1858–1942), founder of modern American cultural anthropology.
- Botanical Gardens
- Botany
- Bowditch, Nathaniel (1773–1838), astronomer and navigator.
- BP Gulf Oil Spill
- Bridgman, Percy (1882–1961), Harvard physicist, philosopher of science, and Nobel laureate.
- Brin, Sergey
- Brooklyn Bridge
- Building Technology
- Bureau of Standards, U.S.
- Bush, Vannevar (1890–1974), inventor, engineer, wartime administrator.
- C
- Canals and Waterways
- Cancer
- Cannon, Walter Bradford (1871–1945), physiologist.
- Cardiology
- Carothers, Wallace Hume (1896–1937), chemist, inventor.
- Carson, Rachel (1907–1964), nature writer, environmentalist.
- Cartography
- Carver, George Washington (1864 [?]–1943), botanist, agricultural chemist, was born in the southwestern Missouri farm community of Diamond Grove (now Diamond), near Joplin.
- Cattell, James Mckeen (1860–1944), psychologist and editor.
- Cellular Phones
- Centers For Disease Control And Prevention
- CGI (Computer-Generated Images)
- Challenger Disaster
- Chemistry
- Childbirth
- Cholera
- Christian Science
- Clocks and Clockmaking
- Cloning
- Colden, Cadwallader and Jane (1688–1776) and (1724–1760), respectively.
- Colt, Samuel (1814–1862), firearms manufacturer.
- Columbian Exchange
- Compton, Arthur H. (1892–1962), physicist and Nobel laureate.
- Compton, Karl Taylor (1887–1954), American scientist administrator and statesman.
- Computer Science
- Computerized Axial Tomography
- Computers, Mainframe, Mini, and Micro
- Conant, James B. (1893–1978), president of Harvard University, science administrator, diplomat.
- Condon, Edward (1902–1974), theoretical physicist and research director.
- Conservation Movement
- Contraceptives
- Cope, Edward Drinker (1840–1897), paleontologist, zoologist, and neo-Lamarckian evolutionary theorist.
- Cori, Gerty and Carl (1896–1957) and (1896–1984),
- Cotton Gin
- Creationism
- D
- Dalton, John Call Jr. (1825–1889), pioneer physiologist, was born in Chelmsford, Massachusetts.
- Dams and Hydraulic Engineering
- Dana, James Dwight (1813–1895), geologist, mineralogist, zoologist.
- Davenport, Charles Benedict (1866–1944), zoologist, geneticist, eugenicist, and science administrator.
- DDT
- Deafness
- Death and Dying
- Debakey, Michael (1908–2008), pioneer cardiovascular surgeon,
- Deepwater Horizon Explosion and Oil Spill
- Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
- De Forest, Lee (1873–1961), engineer and inventor,
- Delbrück, Max (1906–1981),
- Demography
- Dentistry
- Diabetes
- Dinosaurs
- Diphtheria
- Diplomacy (Post-1945), Science and Technology AND
- Disabilities, Intellectual and Developmental
- Disease
- Disney, Walt
- DNA Sequencing
- Dobzhansky, Theodosius (1900–1975), geneticist and evolutionary biologist,
- Drew, Charles Richard (1904–1950), pioneering blood plasma scientist, surgeon, teacher.
- Dubos, René Jules (1901–1982), French-born American microbiologist, medical scientist, and environmentalist.
- Du Pont, Pierre S. (1870–1954), chemist, business executive.
- Dust Bowl
- E
- Eastman, George (1854–1932), inventor.
- Ecology
- Edison, Thomas (1847–1931), best known today as America’s greatest inventor.
- Einstein, Albert (1879–1955), physicist and Nobel Prize laureate,
- Electricity and Electrification
- Electronic Communication Devices, Mobile
- Elevator
- Empire State Building
- Engineering
- ENIAC
- Entomology
- Environmentalism
- Environmental Protection Agency
- Epidemiology and Population Health
- Epilepsy
- Erie Canal
- Ethics and Medicine
- Ethics and Professionalism In Engineering
- Eugenics
- Evolution, Theory Of
- Exxon Valdez Oil Spill
- F
- Farnsworth, Philo Taylor (1906–1971),
- Fermi, Enrico (1901–1954), nuclear physicist, Nobel laureate, and inventor of nuclear power.
- Feynman, Richard (1918–1988), theoretical physicist, Nobel laureate.
- Film Technology
- Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S.
- Fisheries and Fishing
- Flexner Report
- Food and Diet
- Food Processing
- Ford, Henry (1863–1947)
- Foreign Relations
- Forensic Pathology and Death Investigation
- Forestry Technology and Lumbering
- Forest Service, U.S.
- Foundations and Health
- 4-H Club Movement
- Franklin, Benjamin
- Fulton, Robert (1765–1815), builder of America’s first commercially successful steamboat, was born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
- G
- Gates, William H. III
- Gell-Mann, Murray (1929– ), physicist.
- Gender and Science
- Gender and Technology
- Genetics and Genetic Engineering
- Geography
- Geological Surveys
- Geology
- Geophysics
- Germ Theory of Disease
- Gerontology
- Gibbs, Josiah Willard (1839–1903), foremost mathematical physicist in nineteenth-century America.
- Global Warming
- Goddard, Robert H. (1926–1945), physicist and rocket enthusiast.
- Goodyear, Charles (1800–1860), the American inventor of vulcanization,
- Gould, Stephen Jay (1941–2002), evolutionary biologist, historian of science, and science popularizer.
- Graham, Sylvester (1794–1851), health reformer.
- Gray, Asa (1810–1888), botanist.
- Group Practice
- Guyot, Arnold Henry (1807–1884), physical geographer and geologist.
- H
- Hale, George Ellery (1868–1938), astronomer and creator of scientific institutions.
- Hall, G. Stanley (1844–1924), psychologist and educator.
- Halsted, William (1852–1922), surgeon.
- Health and Fitness
- Health Insurance
- Health Maintenance Organizations
- Heating Technology
- Henry, Joseph (1797–1878), physicist and first director of the Smithsonian Institution.
- Hewlett, William
- Higher Education and Science
- High Schools, Science Education In
- Highway System
- History of Science Society
- Hitchcock, Edward (1793–1864), geologist, pastor, educator, author, college president, was born in Deerfield, Massachusetts, and died in Amherst, Massachusetts.
- HIV/AIDS
- HMOs
- Home Economics Movement
- Hoover Dam
- Hospitals
- Household Technology
- Hubble, Edwin Powell (1889–1953),
- Hubble Space Telescope
- Human Genome Project
- Hutchinson, G. Evelyn (1903–1991), ecologist.
- Hybrid Seeds
- Hydroelectric Power
- Hygiene, Personal
- I
- Illumination
- Indian Health Service
- Influenza
- Instruments of Science
- Integrated Circuit
- Intelligence, Concepts of
- Internal Combustion Engine
- International Geophysical Year
- Internet and World Wide Web
- Iron and Steel Production and Products
- J
- Jacobi, Mary Putnam (1842–1906), physician, feminist.
- Jefferson, Thomas (1743–1826), lawyer, politician, and naturalist.
- Jobs, Steve
- Jordan, David Starr (1851–1931), educator, naturalist, peace activist, and eugenicist.
- Journals In Science, Medicine, and Engineering
- Just, Ernest Everett (1883–1941) cell biologist and early African American pioneer in science.
- K
- Kármán, Theodore Von (1881–1963), aeronautical engineer and applied mathematician.
- Keller, Helen (1880–1968) was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama.
- Kilby, Jack
- Killian, James Rhyne Jr. (1904–1988), science and education administrator,
- King, Clarence Rivers (1842–1901), geologist, explorer, writer, and the first director of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).
- Kinsey, Alfred (1894–1956), zoologist, sex researcher, reformer.
- L
- Ladd-Franklin, Christine (1847–1930), mathematician, psychologist, and logician.
- Langmuir, Irving (1881–1957), industrial chemist, atmospheric scientist, Nobel laureate.
- Latrobe, Benjamin (1764–1820), one of the earliest professional architects and engineers in the United States.
- Law and Medicine
- Law and Science
- Lawrence, Ernest O. (1901–1958), physicist, Nobel laureate.
- Lederberg, Joshua (1925–2008), Nobel laureate geneticist and microbiologist.
- Lee, Tsung-Dao (Li Zhengdao in pinyin, 1926–), a leading theoretical physicist,
- Leidy, Joseph (1823–1891), naturalist and polymath.
- Leopold, Aldo (1887–1948), conservation scientist, writer, and philosopher.
- Lewis and Clark Expedition
- Life Expectancy
- Lindbergh, Charles (1902–1974), aviator.
- Linguistics
- Literature and Science
- Lowell Textile Mills
- Lumbering
- MACHINERY AND MANUFACTURING—ZWORYKIN, VLADIMIR KOSMA
- M
- Machinery and Manufacturing
- Malaria
- Manhattan Project
- Margulis, Lynn (1938–2011), theoretical and experimental biologist
- Maritime Transport
- Marsh, Othniel Charles (1831–1899),
- Mathematics and Statistics
- Maury, Matthew Fontaine (1806–1873), naval oceanographer.
- Mayer, Maria Goeppert (1906–1972), theoretical physicist, Nobel laureate.
- Mayo Clinic
- Mayr, Ernst (1905–2005), ornithologist and evolutionary biologist.
- Mc Clintock, Barbara (1902–1992), biologist and Nobel laureate.
- Mc Cormick, Cyrus Hall (1809–1884), inventor and manufacturer.
- Mead, Margaret (1901–1978), anthropologist and social reformer.
- Medical Education
- Medical Malpractice
- Medical Specialization
- Medicare and Medicaid
- Medicine
- Medicine and Technology
- Menard, Henry William (1920–1986),
- Menninger, Karl and William (1893–1990) and (1899–1966), respectively, psychiatrists, founders of the Menninger Foundation.
- Mental Health Institutions
- Mental Illness
- Mental Retardation
- Meteorology and Climatology
- Michelson, Albert Abraham (1852–1931), physicist and a master of precision optical measurement, was the first American to be awarded a Nobel Prize in the sciences (1907).
- Microprocessor
- Midwifery
- Military, Science and Technology and The
- Millikan, Robert A. (1868–1953), physicist and Nobel laureate.
- Mining Technology
- Missiles and Rockets
- Missionaries and Science and Medicine
- Mitchell, Maria (1818–1889), astronomer.
- Molecular Biology
- Morgan, Lewis Henry (1818–1881), anthropologist.
- Morgan, Thomas Hunt (1866–1945), zoologist, embryologist, geneticist, and Nobel laureate; received the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology in 1933.
- Morrill Land Grant Act
- Morse, Samuel F. B. (1791–1872), artist and inventor.
- Motor Vehicles
- Muir, John (1838–1914), naturalist and a founder of the environmental movement.
- Muller, Hermann J. (1890–1967), geneticist and Nobel laureate.
- Mulliken, Robert S. (1896–1986), chemist and Nobel laureate.
- Mumford, Lewis (1895–1990), social philosopher, architectural critic, and moral reformer.
- Museums of Science and Natural History
- N
- Nanotechnology
- NASA
- National Academy of Sciences
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- National Bureau of Standards
- National Institute of Standards and Technology
- National Institutes of Health
- National Laboratories
- National Medical Association
- National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
- National Park System
- National Science Advisor Office
- National Science Foundation
- National Weather Service
- Native American Healers
- Newcomb, Simon (1835–1909), mathematical astronomer, political economist, science commentator.
- Nobel Prize in Biomedical Research
- Noyce, Robert
- Noyes, Arthur Amos (1866–1936), physical chemist, educational reformer, textbook writer, academic administrator, institution builder.
- Nuclear Power
- Nuclear Regulatory Commission
- Nuclear Weapons
- Nursing
- Nylon
- O
- Obesity
- Occupational Diseases
- Oceanography
- Odum, Eugene and Howard (1913–2002) and (1924–2002), respectively, ecologists.
- Office of Science and Technology Policy
- Office of Scientific Research and Development
- Office of Technology Assessment, Congressional
- Office Technology
- Ophthalmology
- Oppenheimer, J. Robert (1904–1967), physicist.
- Optometry
- Organ Transplantation
- Osler, William (1849–1919), physician and medical educator.
- Owen, David Dale (1807–1860), geologist and surveyor.
- P
- Packard, David
- Page, Larry
- Paleontology
- Panama Canal
- Parapsychology
- Park, Robert (1864–1944), sociologist.
- Parsons, Talcott (1902–1979), sociologist.
- Pauling, Linus (1901–1994), chemist, peace activist, and Nobel laureate.
- Peale, Charles Willson (1741–1827), museologist, artist, artisan, and inventor.
- Pearl, Raymond (1879–1940), biologist and statistician, influential also in agriculture.
- Pediatrics
- Penicillin
- Pesticides
- Petroleum and Petrochemicals
- Pharmacology and Drug Therapy
- Photocopying
- Photography
- Phrenology
- Physics
- Physiology
- Pickering, Edward Charles (1846–1919), American physicist and astronomer.
- Pincus, Gregory Goodwin (1903–1967), pioneer of the oral contraceptive.
- Plastics
- Plate Tectonics, Theory Of
- Poliomyelitis
- Popular Science Magazine
- Popularization of Science
- Postal Service, U.S.
- Powell, John Wesley (1834–1902), geologist, anthropologist, director of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).
- President’s Science Advisory Committee
- Priestley, Joseph (1733–1804), natural philosopher, chemist.
- Printing and Publishing
- Pseudoscience and Quackery
- Psychiatry
- Psychological and Intelligence Testing
- Psychology
- Psychopharmaceutical Drugs
- Psychotherapy
- Public Health
- Public Health Service, U.S.
- Pure Food And Drug Act
- Q
- Quantum Theory
- R
- Rabies
- Rabi, Isidor I. (1898–1988), physicist and Nobel laureate.
- Race And Medicine
- Race Theories, Scientific
- Radio
- Radiology
- Rafinesque, Constantine Samuel (1783–1840), naturalist, ethnologist, and archaeologist, was born in Constantinople (Istanbul) and died in Philadelphia.
- Railroads
- Rand Corporation
- Red Cross, American
- Reed, Walter (1851–1902), physician and microbiologist, leader of the U.S. Army Yellow Fever Board that established the mosquito vector of yellow fever.
- Refrigeration And Air Conditioning
- Religion And Science
- Remsen, Ira (1846–1927), chemist.
- Research And Development (R&D)
- Research Laboratories, Industrial
- Richards, Ellen Swallow (1842–1911), a prominent woman chemist of the nineteenth century, founder of home economics.
- Rittenhouse, David (1732–1796), astronomer, mathematician, and instrument maker.
- Rivers As Technological Systems
- Roads And Turnpikes, Early
- Robots
- Rockefeller Institute, The
- Roebling, Washington
- Rogers, William Barton (1804–1882), nineteenth-century geologist, natural philosopher, and educational reformer, was best known as the conceptual founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
- Rowland, Henry A. (1848–1901),
- Rural Electrification Administration
- Rush, Benjamin (1746–1813), physician, medical educator, signer of the Declaration of Independence.
- S
- Sabin, Florence Rena (1871–1953), American histologist, public servant, and woman pioneer in scientific teaching and research.
- Sagan, Carl (1934–1996), astronomer, science popularizer.
- Salk, Jonas (1914–1995), virologist and developer of the first successful polio vaccine.
- Sanger, Margaret (1879–1966), birth control pioneer and sex reformer, founder of the international family-planning movement.
- Satellites, Communications
- Satellites, Global Positioning
- Satellites, Reconnaissance
- Say, Thomas (1787–1834), early naturalist, was born in Philadelphia and died in New Harmony, Indiana.
- Science
- Science Fiction
- Science Journalism
- Scientific Management
- Scopes Trial
- Scripps Institution of Oceanography
- Seaborg, Glenn T. (1912–1999), nuclear chemist, discoverer of atomic elements, university administrator, and long-time government advisor.
- Sewage Treatment and System
- Sex and Sexuality
- Sex Education
- Sexually Transmitted Diseases
- Shipbuilding
- Shockley, William (1910–1989), inventor of the transistor.
- Sickle-Cell Disease
- Sierra Club
- Silicon Valley
- Silliman, Benjamin Sr. (1779–1864), educator, editor, scientist.
- Simpson, George Gaylord (1902–1984), paleontologist.
- Skinner, B. F. (1904–1990), behavioral psychologist.
- Skyscrapers
- Slater, Samuel (1768–1835),
- Smallpox
- Smithsonian Institution
- Social Science Research Council
- Social Sciences
- Societies and Associations, Science
- Society for the History of Technology
- Sociobiology and Evolutionary Psychology
- Software
- Solar Electricity
- Solid-State Electronics
- Sound Technology, Recorded
- Space Program
- Space Science
- Spock, Benjamin
- Springfield Armory
- Stanley, Wendell Meredith (1904–1971), biochemist, virologist, science administrator, and Nobel laureate.
- Steam Power
- Steinmetz, Charles (1865–1923), electrical engineer.
- Stem-Cell Research
- Stevens, Nettie Maria (1861–1912), pioneer cytogeneticist,
- Strategic Defense Initiative
- Subways
- Surgery
- T
- Tatum, Edward Lawrie
- Taylor, Frederick W.
- Technological Enthusiasm
- Technology
- Telegraph
- Telephone
- Television
- Teller, Edward (1908–2003), theoretical physicist, coinventor of the U.S. hydrogen bomb.
- Tennessee Valley Authority
- Terman, Frederick E. (1900–1982), electrical engineer,
- Tesla, Nikola (1856–1943), electrical engineer and inventor.
- Three Mile Island Accident
- Townes, Charles H. (1915– ),
- Transistor
- Trolley and Trams
- Tuberculosis
- Tuskegee Syphilis Study
- Typhoid Fever
- Typhus
- U
- Urban Mass Transit
- Urey, Harold C. (1893–1981), chemist, Nobel laureate.
- V
- Van Allen, James A. (1914–2006), physicist and space and planetary scientist.
- Venereal Disease
- Venter, J. Craig (1946– ), pioneer of DNA sequencing strategies.
- Veterinary Medicine
- Von Braun, Wernher (1912–1977), rocket engineer.
- Von Neumann, John (1903–1957), computer pioneer, mathematician, government consultant.
- W
- War and Medicine
- Watson, James D. (1928– ), molecular biologist, geneticist, and zoologist.
- Watson, Thomas Sr.
- Welch, William H. (1850–1934), pathologist, bacteriologist,
- Westinghouse, George (1846–1914), inventor, industrialist.
- Whitney, Eli (1765–1825), inventor and arms manufacturer.
- Wiener, Norbert (1894–1964), mathematician and computer theorist.
- Wigner, Eugene (1902–1995), theoretical physicist, mathematician, engineer, and Nobel laureate.
- Wilkes Expedition
- Williams, Daniel Hale (1856–1931), surgical pioneer, medical educator, and hospital founder.
- Wilson, Edmund Beecher (1856–1939), cell biologist
- Wilson, Edward O. (1929– ), naturalist, evolutionary biologist, writer, and conservationist.
- Wind Power
- Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
- World Health Organization
- Wozniak, Stephen
- Wright, Sewall (1889–1988), geneticist, evolutionary theorist.
- Wright, Wilbur and Orville (1867–1912) and (1871–1948), respectively, inventors of the airplane.
- Wu, Chien-Shiung (Wu Jianxiong in pinyin, 1912–1997), a prominent Chinese American physicist
- X
- Xerography
- X-Ray Imaging
- Y
- Yang, Chen Ning (Yang Zhenning in pinyin, 1922– ), a prominent Chinese American physicist and one of the most influential theoretical physicists
- Yellow Fever
- Z
- Zakrzewska, Marie (1829–1902), midwife, physician, founder of the New England Hospital for Women and Children.
- Zoology
- Zoos
- Zuckerberg, Mark
- Zworykin, Vladimir Kosma (1888–1982), one of the most important American inventors of electronic television, was born in Mourom, Russia.
- Topical Outline of Entries, Vol. 2,
- Directory of Contributors, Vol. 2,