A most amazing scene of wonders : electricity and enlightenment in early America / James Delbourgo.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Delbourgo, James, 1972- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Enlightenment--United States.

Enlightenment.

Electricity--Experiments--History--18th century.

Electricity.

Science--United States--History--18th century.

Science.

Science--Social aspects--United States--History--18th century.

United States--Intellectual life--18th century.

United States.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (380 pages)

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, [2006]

Summary:

Benjamin Franklin's invention of the lightning rod is the founding fable of American science, but Franklin was only one of many early Americans fascinated by electricity. As a dramatically new physical experience, electricity amazed those who dared to tame the lightning and set it coursing through their own bodies. Thanks to its technological and medical utility, but also its surprising ability to defy rational experimental mastery, electricity was a powerful experience of enlightenment, at once social, intellectual, and spiritual. In this compelling book, James Delbourgo moves beyond Franklin to trace the path of electricity through early American culture, exploring how the relationship between human, natural, and divine powers was understood in the eighteenth century. By examining the lives and visions of natural philosophers, spectacular showmen, religious preachers, and medical therapists, he shows how electrical experiences of wonder, terror, and awe were connected to a broad array of cultural concerns that defined the American Enlightenment. The history of lightning rods, electrical demonstrations, electric eels, and medical electricity reveals how early American science, medicine, and technology were shaped by a culture of commercial performance, evangelical religion, and republican politics from mid-century to the early republic. The first book to situate early American experimental science in the context of a transatlantic public sphere, A Most Amazing Scene of Wonders offers a captivating view of the origins of American science and the cultural meaning of the American Enlightenment. In a story of shocks and sparks from New England to the Caribbean, Delbourgo brilliantly illuminates a revolutionary New World of wonder.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

List of Illustrations

Introduction: Seizing the Lightning

1 Atlantic Circuits

2 Lightning Rods and the Direction of Nature

3 Wonderful Recreations

4 Electrical Politics and Political Electricity

5 How to Handle an Electric Eel

6 Electrical Humanitarianism

7 Electricity as Common Sense

Conclusion: What Is American Enlightenment?

Notes

Illustration Sources

Acknowledgments

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [285]-354) and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780674271999

0674271998

OCLC:

1282600147