IN 1797, AMOS WHITTEMORE PATENTED A MACHINE FOR USE IN TEXTILE MANUfacture. John Randolph could only comment: All but the immortal soul. I In postRevolutionary America, the idea of captured the imagination of the newly liberated citizens, embodying advances in knowledge and the awakening of human potential. The possibilities of science and were thought to be limitless, leading to material independence, intellectual understanding, wealth, control over the forces of nature and the reanimation of agriculture. Perhaps this was partly the myopic vision of the naive, but it was also the optimism of the patriot who linked the potential of to the potential of America. With the English example before him, the American apologist for recognized the misery of industrialization, but thanks to American republicanism, the feasibility of decentralization, initiative and the belief in self-determination, mechanical could exist in purity in America, serving to strengthen values and fortify the nation. The early American perception of prompted an aesthetic response, raised economic questions and involved political issues, but all of these elements, in the final analysis, formed part of a concern for national direction and purpose. The image of was concomitant with the image of America, and in the early years of the new nation both were positive. For intellectuals influenced by the promises of the Enlightenment, science had been accepted as the way to knowledge and an intimate, if not absolute, understanding of the universe. As scientific principles were applied to practical problems, machinery appeared to revolutionize the visible world and the way men, women and children functioned within it. More specifically, machinery greatly affected the production of manufactured goods and the practice of the useful arts. This brought about such change that Jacob Bigelow, holder of the first Chair of the Application of the Sciences to the Useful Arts established at Harvard in 1812, resurrected the term technology from old dictionaries in his efforts to provide a more suitable vocabulary for the new developments. Indeed, in 1829, Bigelow published his lectures as Elements of Technology in an attempt to facilitate public education about those new inventions and discoveries which he believed were promoting the benefit of society together with the emolument of those who pursue them.2 The term embraces diverse processes and objects and, according to David