Science and Technology in Colonial America (The Greenwood Press Daily Life Through History Series: Science and Technology in Everyday Life)

224 Pages·2005·11.1 MB·English

by  William E. Burns

SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY IN
COLONIAL
AMERICA
The Greenwood Press "Daily Life Through History" Series
The Age of Charlemagne Maya Civilization
John ]. Butt Robert J. Sharer
The Age of Sail Medieval Europe
Dorothy Denneen Volo and James M. Volo Jeffrey L. Singman
The American Revolution The Medieval Islamic World
Dorothy Denneen Volo and James M. Volo James E. Lindsay
The Ancient Egyptians The Nineteenth Century American
Bob Brier and Hoyt Hobbs Frontier
Mary Ellen Jones
The Ancient Greeks
Robert Garland The Nubians
Robert S. Bianchi
Ancient Mesopotamia
Karen Rhea Nemet-Nejat The Old Colonial Frontier
James M. Volo and Dorothy Denneen Volo
The Ancient Romans
David Matz Renaissance Italy
Elizabeth S. Cohen and Thomas V Cohen
The Aztecs: People of the Sun and Earth
David Carrasco with Scott Sessions The Roman City: Rome, Pompeii, and Ostia
Gregory S. Aldrete
Chaucer's England
Jeffrey L. Singman and Will McLean Science and Technology in
Nineteenth-Century America
Civil War America Todd Timmons
Dorothy Denneen Volo and James M. Volo
The Soviet Union
Colonial New England Katherine B. Eaton
Claudia Durst Johnson
The Spanish Inquisition
Early Modern Japan James M. Anderson
Louis G. Perez
Traditional China: The Tang Dynasty
The Early American Republic, 1790-1820: Charles Benn
Creating a New Nation
The United States, 1920-1939: Decades of
David S. Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler
Promise and Pain
18th-Century England David E. Kyvig
Kirstin Olsen
The United States, 1940-1959: Shifting
Elizabethan England Worlds
Jeffrey L. Singman Eugenia Kaledin
The Holocaust The United States, 1960-1990: Decades of
Eve Nussbaum Soumerai and Discord
Carol D. Schulz Myron A. Marty
The Inca Empire Victorian England
Michael A. Malpass Sally Mitchell
The Industrial United States, 1870-1900 The Vikings
Julie Husband and Jim O' Loughlin Kirsten Wolf
Jews in the Middle Ages World War I
Norman Roth Neil M. Heyman
SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY IN
COLONIAL
AMERICA
WILLIAM E. BURNS
The Greenwood Press "Daily Life Through History" Series
©
GREENWOOD PRESS
Westport, Connecticut • London
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Burns, William E.
Science and technology in colonial America / William E. Burns,
p. cm. — (The Greenwood Press "Daily life through history" series, ISSN 1080-4749)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-313-33160-X (alk. paper)
1. Technology—United States—History—18th century. 2. Technology—United States—
History—17th century. 3. Science—United States—History—18th century. 4. Science—
United States—History—17th century. 5. United States—History—Colonial period,
ca. 1600-1775.1. Title. II. Series.
T21.B85 2005
509.73'09'033—dc22 2005020458
British Library Cataloging in Publication Data is available.
Copyright © 2005 by William E. Burns
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be
reproduced, by any process or technique, without the
express written consent of the publisher.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2005020458
ISBN: 0-313-33160-X
ISSN: 1080-4749
First published in 2005
Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881
An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
www. greenwood .com
Printed in the United States of America
The paper used in this book complies with the
Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National
Information Standards Organization (Z39.48-1984).
109 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 211
Every reasonable effort has been made to trace the owners of copyright materials in this book,
but in some instances this has proven impossible. The author and publisher will be glad to
receive information leading to more complete acknowledgments in subsequent printings of
the book and in the meantime extend their apologies for any omissions.
Dedicated to Paula Findlen, Margaret Jacob, and the memory of
Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs, mothers in learning
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction xi
Chronology xix
1. Making a Living: Agriculture 1
2. Wood, Fruit Crops, and Other Tree Products 17
3. Making a Living: Manufacturing and Industry 27
4. The World of the Sea 41
5. Technology in Domestic Life 51
6. Architecture and Housing 65
7. Transportation 79
8. Reading and Seeing: The Technology of
Words and Images 89
9. Science and Technology on the Land:
Surveying and Cartography 97
10. Technology and War 107
11. Natural Knowledge in American Colonial Societies 121
viii Contents
12. The Scientific Revolution in Colonial America 133
13. The Age of Benjamin Franklin 145
Bibliography 165
Index 175
Acknowledgments
I thank the Folger Library, the Library of Congress, Founders Library of
Howard University, and the Soper Library of Morgan State University for
providing research materials. I also thank American Memory at the Library
of Congress, the Schomburg Center for Electronic Texts and Images, and
the Flowerdew Hundred Foundation for their generous permission to use
their images for the illustrations. Finally, I thank my editors, particularly
Kevin Downing at Greenwood, for their help.