The Oxford Encyclopedia of the History of American Science, Medicine, and Technology covers these topics from the early colonial era to present-day.

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,