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The Socialist Popularization of Science in America, 1901 to The The Socialist Popularizationof Science in America, 1901 to the First World War GEORGE COTKIN THROUGHOUT MUCH OF THE nineteenth century the ascendent star of science was closely tied to the rise of the middle class. Science reflected their optimism and aided them in understanding a world and society in constant motion. The middle class embraced science in a hearty manner and as a labor of love they sought to popularize it in America. By the turn of the century, the middle class enthusiasm for popularization had abated somewhat, but science was still being pursued and popularized with great ardor by others. Only now the group most enamored of science, and certain that its rise was tied to the prestige and power of science, was the socialist movement, the self-appointed sentinel of the working class. No less than the middle class, the socialist intellectuals sought to ground their discourse in scientific language and to make the fruits of science readily available to a wide audience. The great revolutions in science-the Copernican, Newtonian, and Darwinian- became the subject matter for socialist popularizers of science. Their tale was simple: Marxism was a science, a scientific revolution in social thought, that would usher in not only a new world-view, but a new society, a new age. Science served as a powerful symbol and "attitude of mind" for nineteenth- century Americans. As the handmaiden of technology, science was changing the physical landscape of America in the era of the railroad, telegraph, steam, and electricity. For most Americans, science was a symbol easily reconciled with the prevalent assumptions of societal progress.1 A scientific knowledge, according to geologist Clarence King in his Catastrophism and the Evolution of Environment (1877), would be "a means of clearing away the endless rubbish of false ideas from the human intellect, for the lifting of man out of the dominion of ignorance."2 Yet science was more than an object of veneration or a description for new technologies; it was a explanatory and normative concept as well. While science could be blamed for inaugurating an era of bewildering change and chaos, it could at the same time organize apparent chaos into a Mr. Cotkin is a member of the Department of History, California Polytechnic State University comprehensible and progressive doctrine. Faced with a confusing reality, Americans hoped that the synthesis offered by science might lead them out of the morass. The powerful appeal of Herbert Spencer to a generation of Americans was precisely in his promise of a method and synthesis that would calm the seemingly turbulent waters of change.3change.3 Either through Spencer or other apostles of science, Americans hoped that the method of science would allow them "to put the universe into [their] pockets," a metaphor at once both reassuring and possessive.possessive.4 4 Science served as a normative concept for nineteenth-century Americans; it became the intellectual coin of the realm.5realm.5 Whereas Henry James, Sr. as a young man in 1842 could ask Emerson whether he should "learnHlearn science and bring myself into men's respect", by the second half of the century-and for at least one of James' sons-the domination of science had rendered the question obsolete.6obsolete. 6 No educated man could afford, both professionally and personally, to be without the scientific "attitudeHattitude of mind." As John M. Coulter told the graduates of the University of Michigan in 1900, scientific training "isHis essential in every well-balanced education."7 In addition, science had come to define the norms of society: a scientific way of viewing the world, of regulating one's personal habits, of deciding truth and value, these were the common themes in the style and thought patterns of middle-class, educated Americans in the late nineteenth century.8 The confident strut of science was in perfect stride with the optimism and power of middle-class America. The equation was simple: science equalled power. This perspective was grasped by the ambitious university presidents of the nineteenth century who incorporated it into their college curricula. Science became a fitting subject for the academies and was, in turn, professionalized. The university curriculum opened up and developed the social sciences along a scientific model. Professionally trained social scientists employing the scientific methods of research, it was imagined, would dominate the nation's intellectual and social life. Science came "toHto epitomize," in Thomas Haskell's precise formulation, "theHthe very essence of the professional idea-expert authority, institutionally cultivated and certified." In short, the university would, through scientific expertise, engage in the construction of normative values for the American public.9public.9 The entry of science into the domain of the professional academy came only after it has already achieved an exalted place in the public sphere. Throughout the nineteenth century, the American public had flocked to lyceums to hear lecturers explicate the wonders of modern science. As demanded by their public,public, lyceum lecturers transformed science into entertainment. '1010 In lyceums and lecture halls around the country, serious scientists and pretenders demonstrated the practical, and most appealingly, the curious effects of science. The lyceum lecturer who offered the public a brief scientific education appealed to what historian Margaret Rossiter has called the "cult of self-improvement." In the Jacksonian days of the common man, science was a leveling tool of the democratic spirit; it promised equality and progress. The popular lecture, then, was entertainment, education, and ideology com-com­ bined.1'bined. II While the lecture remained a compelling method for the diffusion of science, its efficacy was undermined by the rise of Darwinian science. Unlike a discussion of electricity which might include numerous mechanical devices to entertain the crowd, the explication of evolutionary science was more conducive to the printed word. After the Civil War, a veritable "obsession with disseminating the printed page," as Barton Bledstein phrases it, through a plethora of new publications, afforded a new means to communicate science to a burgeoning American reading public.'2public.I2 The crucial chapter in the popularization of science and its concomitant development as a normative symbol for middle-class America was written in 1872 when Edward Livingston Youmans published the first issue of his Popular Science Monthly (PSM). Originally conceived as a platform for Youmans to bring Herbert Spencer's The Study of Sociology before the American public-"what we want," he wrote Spencer, are your "large, organizing ideas"ideas"-the-the journal soon came to speak for the autonomy and cultural credibility of science.science.'313 Youmans set no limits for science: its scope was all inclusive and breathtaking. The goal of diffusing scientific knowledge was "the next great task of civilization." In keeping with the republican tradition of self-improvement through education, the PSM appealed "not to the illiterate, but to the generally educated classes" who wished to achieve "self-instruction in science."14science." '14 The success of Youman's effort and the middle-class' hunger for scientific knowledge was reflected in the magazine's circulation figures. In 1886, Youmans could boast of 18,000 copies in circulation, high figures for an expensive and, at times, sophisticated journal.15journal.15 By 1900, now under the editorial direction of the distinguished psychologist J. McKeen Cattell, the subscription list of the PSM had dwindled, until in 1915 the magazine was reporting yearly losses of $10,000. The format of the PSM changed and now featured articles on how-to-build-it-yourself gadgets and eschewed discussions of theoretical science.Iscience.'66 Numerous historians have connected the decline of the PSM with a diminution of middle-class enthusiasm for scientific information. The explanations for this presumed decline are legion: professional disdain for scientic popularizing; the ever­ever- increasing specialization and sophistication of the sciences; the decline of cosmic syntheses such as Spencer's; a waning interest in nature study as urbanization increased; and, finally, the increasing tempo of religious doubts concerning the direction of science.science.'7I7 Despite all of these explanations, science was not a dead issue in the American mind. Noting this apparent paradox, Ronald Tobey finds that while popular science was supposed to be in decline, the best known theorists of the progressive era were basing their exegeses on scientistic premises, as revealed by a cursory glance at Herbert Croly's The Promise of American Life (1909) and Walter Lippmann's Drift and Mastery (1914).18 The paradox dissolves once one accepts the view that science remained a powerful rhetorical and explanatory device for intellectuals. However, no longer would the accolades paid to science come only from the middle class: the prestige of science would now be appropriated by the working class. As the socialist movement adopted science, they also established an institutional and literary framework for the propagation of scientific ideas. The continued dissemination of a "culture of science" after 1900 was made possible by the meteoric rise of an American socialist movement. Dominated by intellectuals conversant with science and convinced of its value for their comrades, the Socialist Party of America (SPA) offered an institutional framework through which science could be communicated to American workers.19workers. 19 After more than thirty years of isolation and sectarian squabbles, American radicals found some common ground and formed the Socialist party in 1901. By 1912, party membership was over 118,000 strong. In that same year, party presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs polled nearly 900,000 votes and over 1,200 socialists were voted into offices around the country. The party's electoral successes were mirrored by their propaganda victories. Socialism was communicated to the faithful through over 300 party-party.
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