Hugh Richard Slotten – författare

Science, medicine, and technology have become increasingly important to the average individual in modern society. The importance of these three fields is in many ways one of the defining characteristics of modernity. Understanding their history is essential for educated individuals. Science, medicine, and technology are not static endeavors but processes, bodies of knowledge, tools, and techniques that are constantly growing and changing. The entries in this encyclopedia explore the changing character of science, medicine, and technology in the United States; the key individuals, institutions, and organizations responsible for major developments; and the concepts, practices, and processes underlying these changes. Especially since the early decades of the twentieth century, American science, medicine, and technology have played dominant roles internationally. Entries explore distinctive characteristics of American institutions and culture that help explain this development. At the same time, the encyclopedia situates specific events, theories, practices, and institutions in their proper historical context and explores their impact on American society and culture. Entries are written by the experts in the field. Students not only from the humanities and social sciences but also from the sciences and the medical sciences should be attracted to the broad-ranging and in-depth analysis in the encyclopedia.

Since the 1960s, the existence of a largely noncommercial public broadcasting system has become a familiar feature of American cultural and social life. Most histories of broadcasting, however, overlook public radio's early development during the 1920s and 1930s by focusing on the mainstream, hegemonic practices of large commercial stations connected to networks. This focus on the development of the "American System" of commercial broadcasting as a master narrative has obscured the historical importance of alternative means of radio broadcasting and their complex interaction with dominant trends.   Employing extensive research from archives across the United States, Hugh Richard Slotten examines the origins of alternative broadcasting models based especially on a commitment to providing noncommercial service for the public. These stations, operated largely by universities and colleges, offered diverse forms of programming meant not merely to entertain but also to educate, inform, enlighten, and uplift local citizens. Radio stations operated by institutions of higher education were especially significant because they helped pioneer the idea and practice of broadcasting in the United States. Faculty members in physics, electrical engineering, and other technical fields possessed the fundamental scientific knowledge and practical engineering innovation necessary for radio's propagation. Further, the established traditions of public service at universities, especially land-grant colleges in the Midwest, provided a robust framework for offering a publicly available, noncommercial alternative to the emerging commercial broadcast system.

In this text, Dr Slotten explores the institutional and cultural history of science in the United States. The main focus of the book is an analysis of the activities of Alexander Dallas Bache, great grandson of Benjamin Franklin and the acknowledged 'chief' of the American scientific community during the second third of the nineteenth century. Bache became the most important leader of the scientific community through his control of the United States Coast Survey, which he superintended from 1843 until his death in 1867. Under Bache's command the Coast Survey became the central scientific institution in antebellum America. Using richly detailed archival records, Slotten pursues an analysis of Bache and the Coast Survey that illuminates important themes in the history of science in the United States.