Ben Franklin's world is a production of the

O'Mohandro Institute. Hello and welcome to episode 251 of Ben Franklin's world.

The podcast dedicated to helping you learn more about how the people and events of our early American past have shaped the present day world we live in.

And I'm your host, Liz Kovart.

What did early Americans think about science?

And how did they pursue and develop their knowledge of it?

Today, many view science is a practical intellectual pursuit,

the systematic study of how the physical and natural world work.

We mostly see science as a broad field of professional study where scientists and all sorts of different labs

conduct experiments and make observations that tell us something new.

Is this how early Americans viewed science as a field

practiced by professional scientists and all sorts of different labs conducting

experiments that could tell them something new? Cameron Strang, an assistant professor of history at the University of Nevada Reno,

joins us to investigate the world of early American science and natural knowledge making.

Using details from his book, Frontiers of Science, Imperialism and Natural Knowledge in the Gulf

South borderlands, 1500 to 1850, Cameron reveals how early Americans understood science and natural knowledge between 1500 and 1850,

information about the different types of people who undertook acts of scientific inquiry

and how they understood those acts.

In details about the ways in which imperialism,

both furthered and hindered scientific inquiry.

But first, thank you.

I really appreciate how you join me each week and consider our guest scholar's ideas about the

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