Science in New York City, 1867-1907.

Abstract

T HE DIVERSITY of American higher especially during the nineteenth century, has recently been recognized: Daniel Boorstin has spoken of a variety of habitats of knowledge, while Lawrence A. Cremin has discussed the configurational nature of all education. I Although they did not use the term configurations of education, many late-nineteenth-century cultural leaders were well aware of the reality that many different institutions and agencies educate. Museums, libraries, churches, parks, art institutes, and universities were all commonly described as agencies of education.2 Many cultural leaders also realized that certain institutional relationships could be fostered for the promotion of specific cultural and educational goals. Thus some of them worked during the 1860s to establish Central Park, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the American Museum of Natural History in order to elevate the cultural life of the city.3 Some leaders were even aware that the special characteristics of great American cities gave an individual quality to their educational and cultural institutions. In 1895 President Seth Low of Columbia College articulated that awareness: if a university strives to absorb that which is characteristic of the city in which it does its work, I am persuaded that every city university will have a flavor of its own that will draw to it persistently the men who want that thing.4 Low himself worked to place his university in the center of a larger configuration of urban educational institutions that represented the opportunities available and the limitations inherent in New York City as a cultural entity. As we shall see, the recognition by its leaders of the potential benefits of a managed configuration of science played an important part in the history of New York City science. This paper analyzes the changing relationships among the institutions engaged in natural history, a group that eventually comprised Columbia University, the New York Academy of Sciences, the American Museum of Natural History, the New York Botanical Gardens, and a host of diverse scientific societies. Close study of these scientific institutions supports recent work on the development and organization of the American scientific community during the nineteenth and