ABSTRACT
The first half of the nineteenth century was not only the time when the American periodical press came into its own; it was also, according to George Daniel’s American Science in the Age of Jackson, “the time when American science got its start” (7). Prior to this, there was a general indifference towards scientific research among Americans, which Daniels attributes to the lack of a traditional patronage system and the absence of effective communications media to overcome the considerable distances between American cities and scientists. With no monarch to provide financial support, the question of how American science could survive was a pressing one for the still-young republic, and would be debated for most of Poe’s lifetime. But at the heart of this debate were questions regarding the nature of science itself, who could (and should) participate in science, and how. These issues were especially problematic given two opposing trends: a prevailing democratic sensibility in which the average citizen felt competent to assess the relative merits of systems of knowledge, and the increasingly complex and specialized nature of scientific information, fueled by an extraordinary infusion of data from around the globe. The newly expanding magazine industry would play an important role in the evolution of American science, providing both an arena in which discussion could take place, and a vehicle by which scientific intelligence could be transmitted to the general public.
