Early American Science, Medicine, and Ways of Knowing

This capstone seminar explores science, medicine, and ways of knowing in early America. Science and medicine in American history have largely been approached as a modern history, focusing on a few famous figures of European descent. Nineteenth and twentieth-century scientists and physicians such as Thomas Edison and Jonah Salk have embodied American values of entrepreneurship and innovation. This course argues that American science and medicine have a longer history that begins with its first colonies. Starting with English science in the era of Jamestown and Plymouth Colony and Indigenous epistemologies of the body and environment and ending in the era of America’s founding, this course traces key ways of knowing while also centering important historical themes such as imperialism, slavery, and appropriation.