By the time the Continental Congress set its mind to declare American independence in the summer of 1776, the American Revolution was well underway. Its political, economic, and cultural causes unfolded alongside rapid developments in the study of “natural philosophy"—the 18th century precursor to what we now think of as “science.” 

The American Philosophical Society emerged in 1743, in part, from a sense that American colonials had something to contribute to these investigations.  In the absence of more formal scientific institutions during the colonial and revolutionary periods, early membership organizations like the APS played a critical role in facilitating exchanges that cut across fields such as astronomy, botany, chemistry, zoology, and geology (to name only a few) both within North America and throughout the Atlantic world. In turn, these exchanges informed the rhetoric of the American Revolution, developments in medicine and disease control bolstered the American military effort, and research in experimental science helped shape public opinion about what the colonies could accomplish on their own. As observed by early American historian of science and former APS Librarian and Executive officer Whitfield Bell, Jr.: “Philosophers of the early republic…clearly understood the interrelation of science and the rest of their civilization. They believed that the fact of political independence called on them in a special way to study those sciences and aspects of science that were peculiarly American.” 

“America’s Scientific Revolutionaries” takes Bell’s point as its main premise and sets out to identify and profile individuals who participated in and contributed to this scientific network. While sometimes seen as provincials by their European counterparts, early American natural philosophers–gentlemen farmers, clergyman, and officeholders–pursued observation, built instruments, and published results—sharing work through the APS and the transatlantic print world. The archival record that work produced is extraordinary—and unwieldy. Members and their friends, wives, and sisters were polymaths who dabbled in this and that, whose very natures let alone many interests defy easy categorization. This project aspires to spur renewed interest in the vast archive of their lives preserved over centuries within the American Philosophical Society, and demonstrates how America’s earliest scientific thinkers helped shape a distinct national identity rooted in Enlightenment commitments to reason, empiricism, and innovation.

Reference:

Whitfield J. Bell, Jr. Early American Science: Needs and Opportunities for Study. Williamsburg, VA: Institute of Early American History and Culture, 1955.

The blog series, “Science at the Roots,” highlights the lives and work of lesser-known APS Members, as well as the networks surrounding APS Members to examine those who were forced to practice science at the margins, from botanist Jane Colden to astronomer and surveyor Benjamin Banneker. Revealing the diversity of all those who practiced, read, and witnessed science demonstrates that science in American life existed beyond the work of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and other familiar faces. Through these short biographies, the blog series explores an essential correlation: how the United States came into being in a supposed Age of Enlightenment. How did science give shape to a fledgling nation? How did it provide hope and opportunities for both the powerful and the weak? How did it participate in and perpetuate the violence and exclusion embedded in American society? Was any part of it particularly and peculiarly American? And, in the end, what can we learn from all of this?

“America’s Scientific Revolutionaries” explores the years 1763–1804 and examines the close connections between 18th century scientific innovation and America’s political independence through a series of programs, podcasts, blog posts, videos, and educational resources.

Phase One began by wrestling with a familiar problem: a surfeit of useful knowledge. Our initial efforts to identify potential individuals to profile surfaced more than 804 relevant APS Members. Using a combination of tools including Google NotebookLM, Visual Studio Code with GitHub Copilot, and Google Gemini, we built an answer-and-solutions engine to analyze 800-plus biographies against thematic areas. Combining Wikipedia pageviews with our own scoring surfaced promising, lesser-known figures whose scientific and medical achievements could be used to explore a series of evergreen themes.

Six “scientific revolutionaries” emerged to tell their stories in tight 3-minute animated videos geared to a middle school audience. With our production partners at Makematic, these videos will appear on multiple platforms teachers already use with students. 

The video production process followed a structured, multi-stage workflow.

Development and Research: The process began with the APS team developing "cheat sheets" for each figure. These documents, like the one for David Rittenhouse, foregrounded him as a self-taught clockmaker, instrument-maker, and astronomer whose precision instruments and leadership produced some of the most exact observations of the Transit of Venus of 1769. It tells an underdog story with global stakes, explaining why timing Venus across the Sun mattered for measuring the solar system, and sets the scene at observatories organized in Philadelphia under the APS’s guidance. 

Scripting and Narrative Evolution: The content creation process then evolved from these initial cheat sheets into more detailed storyboards and longer narrative drafts. Our work on James Madison’s video exemplified this progression: we outlined specific visual cues that pointed to daily records, instrument practice, and agricultural observations, showing how rain gauges, thermometers, field notes, and plantation books facilitated a collaborative knowledge network. Drought and the Hessian fly became case studies for considering how local observation, APS coordination, and early agricultural science meet.

Production and Review: Following content delivery, the project entered a formal production schedule with Makematic. It was fast paced by design, a pace quickened by a five-hour time difference. This involved a rapid and iterative review cycle, including 3-day and 2-day turnarounds of script drafts before a final version was locked. In parallel, a visual style guide was also developed and approved. The final animation and editing stages were managed through the review platform Frame.io, moving from a rough cut to narration to a fine cut and concluding with a final picture lock. Work on the production of the Makematic videos concluded in July 2025.

Since then, the team has commenced Phase Two, which extends the individuals profiles completed during phase one through the development of public programs and other modes of outreach. These include a series of reflective discussions to be hosted across the nation that will pair our six scientific revolutionaries with current APS Members to spark fresh, cross-century conversations about ongoing work and legacies within the sciences that recordings from these events will be edited and released as a podcast series and amplified across APS and partner networks so those who cannot attend in person can still engage. 

Through its focus on lesser-known individuals active during the Revolutionary period, America’s Scientific Revolutionaries also complements the Society’s slate of initiatives and events planned for the semiquincentennial anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in July 2026.  In 2019, APS launched The Revolutionary City: A Portal to the Nation’s Founding (Rev City), a public-facing digital archive that unites collections from Philadelphia-based institutions including the American Philosophical Society, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Library Company of Philadelphia, Museum of the American Revolution, and the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts of the University of Pennsylvania. Work on this initiative is ongoing and will support two museum exhibitions, “The Revolutionary City” in 2025 and “These Truths: Understanding the Declaration of Independence” in 2026. Additional discussions about “America’s Scientific Revolutionaries” will occur during several international conferences planned for the coming year, including “Science and Society in the Age of Revolutions,” “Global 1776: Imperial Worlds in Upheaval,” “America's 1776: Independence and its Enduring Legacies,” and “America 2026: Amérique, Europe, Révolutions, Indépendance et Commémorations dans l’espace Atlantique.”

"America's Scientific Revolutionaries" is a two-year initiative funded by the Richard Lounsbery Foundation. The project team consists of Jeffery Appelhans (Lounsbery Postdoctoral Fellow) (Phases 1 & 2), Vincent Femia (Lounsbery Research Assistant) (Phases 1 & 2), Christopher Roy (Lounsbery Research Assistant) (Phase 1), and Gina Pungello (History of Science Project Specialist) (Phase 1). The project is managed by Adrianna Link (Curator of History of Science). APS Staff including Brenna Holland (Assistant Director of Library & Museum Programs), Cathy Person (Head of Education Programs), and Bayard Miller (Associate Director of Digital Initiatives & Technology) have also made critical contributions to this project.