"Scientists: The Unsung Heroes of the American West" Topic

"The American West of popular memory has a familiar cast of characters—cowpunchers, homesteaders, gold-seekers, heroic Native warriors and prancing cavalrymen. All did have their roles, but another figure is rarely seen: the scientist.

That's unfortunate. The West was acquired and came into focus as a distinctive part of the nation during the second half of the 19th century. Globally, those same years were ones of extraordinary advances in a variety of scientific fields. The two overlapped in fact as well as time. The West of cattle drives and Indian wars was also one of the most active and productive scientific laboratories on earth. From it came two of the weightiest developments of the era.

The range of work was remarkable. In the 1850s scientists on surveys of possible rail routes to the Pacific documented hundreds of new species of animals and gathered information on dozens of Native peoples. The cost of the lavishly published results accounted for more than a fourth of the nation's budget. After the Civil War federal surveys mapping the new country and exploring its resources collected vast materials on zoology (from birds and snakes to butterflies and prairie dogs), botany (including paleobotany), and meteorology. In the relatively new fields of anthropology and archeology, field agents documented lifeways, houses, family systems, and glossaries of cultures from the Dakotas to California and revealed remains of earlier civilizations, including the ruins of Colorado's Mesa Verde. Especially vigorous work in geology brought new understandings of the earth's history and the mechanics of its endless shaping…"

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Armand

Artemis Gordon!

(smile)

Armand