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Published October 30, 2017 | Submitted
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The Physics, Mathematics, and Chemical Communities in the United States 1870 to 1915: A Preliminary Statistical Report

Abstract

How many people published research in physics, mathematics, and chemistry in the United States between the Civil War and World War I? What fraction of the publishers' earned Ph.D.'s and what fraction did not? Where did they take their doctorates? Where were they employed? What were their rates of publication? Who were the more productive members of each community? How did they differ from the larger body of publishers in the discipline at large? Who led the professional societies founded in each discipline? How did these organizational leaders compare with the productive people in the field? Scholars of American physics and chemistry have estimated some of these data, but none has provided a comprehensive, statistical portrait of the two disciplines for the period between the Civil War and World War I. American mathematicians remain completely unstudied. Of course, statistical information scarcely tells the whole story in the history of science, and it reveals very little about intellectual progress. But such data seem essential for a comparative study of the American physics, mathematics, and chemistry communities. This data has thus been compiled as a first step in a broader study of the American physics, chemical, and mathematical communities. I have summarized the raw data in the attached Appendices I through XVI and presented the data for analysis in Tables 1 through 15. The discussion and analysis which follows is preliminary. The final version will seek to analyze and interpret the statistical results and, to this end, will incorporate material drawn from such other important sources as professional addresses, articles, biographies, and secondary studies.

Additional Information

With assistance from Carolyn Harding.

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Created:
August 19, 2023
Modified:
March 5, 2024