The Scientific Lazzaroni is a self-mocking name adopted by Alexander Dallas Bache and his group of scientists[1] who flourished before and up to the American Civil War. ("Lazzaroni" was slang for the homeless idlers of Naples who live by chance work or begging - so called from the Hospital of St Lazarus, which served as their refuge.) These scientists then gained greater support and laid the foundation for the National Academy of Sciences. However, the National Academy did not solve the problems facing a nation plunged in Civil War – as the Lazzaroni had hoped, nor did it centralize American scientific efforts.
Alexander Dallas Bache was an American physicist, scientist, and surveyor who erected coastal fortifications and conducted a detailed survey to map the mideastern United States coastline. Originally an army engineer, he later became Superintendent of the U.S. Coast Survey, and built it into the foremost scientific institution in the country before the Civil War.
The American Civil War was a war fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865, between the North and the South. The Civil War is the most studied and written about episode in U.S. history. Primarily as a result of the long-standing controversy over the enslavement of black people, war broke out in April 1861 when secessionist forces attacked Fort Sumter in South Carolina shortly after Abraham Lincoln had been inaugurated as the President of the United States. The loyalists of the Union in the North proclaimed support for the Constitution. They faced secessionists of the Confederate States in the South, who advocated for states' rights to uphold slavery.
In the Age of Revolution, the Lazzaroni of Naples were the poorest of the lower class in the city and kingdom of Naples, Italy. Described as "street people under a chief", they were often depicted as "beggars"—which some actually were, while others subsisted partly by service as messengers, porters, etc. No precise census of them was ever conducted, but contemporaries estimated their total number at around 50,000, and they had a significant role in the social and political life of the city. They were prone to act collectively as crowds and mobs and follow the lead of demagogues, and proved formidable in periods of civil unrest and revolution.
These Lazzaroni were mostly professional physical scientists, interested in geophysical problems, who admitted a few kindred souls from other fields to their ranks. Their interests and range of influence extended to all of the sciences and included much of the research performed in universities and the government. They were consciously promoting the development of a professional scientific community in America.
The Lazzaroni in the United States actually existed in the 1850s and a little before, though the name was not always the same as the group changed and grew.
The Lazzaroni wanted to mimic the autocratic academic structures of European universities.[2] The members of the Lazzaroni wanted only university-educated scientists, at one point, so as to create a "pure science" for America. Therefore, the scientists who did not match the code and "oath" of the initial members would be forced, if possible, out of their vocation and not allowed to advance unless they met the qualifications of the Lazzaroni, who often kept scientists out of any professional scientific position. They used their influence together, a group of top scientists against any one individual.
The following is a partial list of Lazzaroni and their opponents.
Benjamin Peirce (;) FRSFor HFRSE April 4, 1809 – October 6, 1880) was an American mathematician who taught at Harvard University for approximately 50 years. He made contributions to celestial mechanics, statistics, number theory, algebra, and the philosophy of mathematics.
Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz was a Swiss-American biologist and geologist recognized as an innovative and prodigious scholar of Earth's natural history. Agassiz grew up in Switzerland, and he received Doctor of Philosophy and medical degrees at Erlangen and Munich, respectively. After studying with Cuvier and Humboldt in Paris, Agassiz was appointed professor of natural history at the University of Neuchâtel. After visiting Harvard University mid-career, he emigrated to the United States in 1847. He went on to become professor of zoology and geology at Harvard, to head its Lawrence Scientific School, and to found its Museum of Comparative Zoology.
Joseph Henry was an American scientist who served as the first Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. He was the secretary for the National Institute for the Promotion of Science, a precursor of the Smithsonian Institution. He was highly regarded during his lifetime. While building electromagnets, Henry discovered the electromagnetic phenomenon of self-inductance. He also discovered mutual inductance independently of Michael Faraday, though Faraday was the first to make the discovery and publish his results. Henry developed the electromagnet into a practical device. He invented a precursor to the electric doorbell and electric relay (1835). The SI unit of inductance, the henry, is named in his honor. Henry's work on the electromagnetic relay was the basis of the practical electrical telegraph, invented by Samuel F. B. Morse and Sir Charles Wheatstone, separately.
Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) — close friend of Bache (since West Point) and Joseph Henry (of the Smithsonian). Bache did not like Maury working near the area which Bache regarded as his own, the Coast Survey. However, due to persistent shipwrecks along the coast, Maury was ordered to create charts. After his charts were widely available, the losses were greatly reduced. Bache became jealous and was determined to get revenge. Davis was a Regent of the Smithsonian for several years (1847, 1851; 1853-57 as Secretary of War); the Institution clashed with the Naval Observatory over using its endowment funds for professional scientific advancements. In 1857 Davis re-entered the Senate; his great abilities were admired both by Bache and by Smithsonian Secretary Henry. These three powerful men, Henry, Davis and Bache were pitted against Maury – including during the Civil War. Davis became CSA President and Maury was under his command.
James Hall was an American geologist and paleontologist. He was a noted authority on stratigraphy and had an influential role in the development of paleontology in the United States of America.
Henry Wilson was the 18th vice president of the United States (1873–75) and a senator from Massachusetts (1855–73). Before and during the American Civil War, he was a leading Republican, and a strong opponent of slavery. He devoted his energies to the destruction of the "Slave Power" – the faction of slave owners and their political allies which anti-slavery Americans saw as dominating the country.
Jefferson Finis Davis was an American politician who served as the only President of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865. As a member of the Democratic Party, he represented Mississippi in the United States Senate and the House of Representatives prior to switching allegiance to the Confederacy. He was appointed as the United States Secretary of War, serving from 1853 to 1857, under President Franklin Pierce.
Asa Gray is considered the most important American botanist of the 19th century. His Darwiniana was considered an important explanation of how religion and science were not necessarily mutually exclusive. Gray was adamant that a genetic connection must exist between all members of a species. He was also strongly opposed to the ideas of hybridization within one generation and special creation in the sense of its not allowing for evolution, as he felt evolution was guided by a Creator.
William Barton Rogers was an American geologist, physicist, and educator at the University of Virginia from 1835 to 1853. In 1861, Rogers founded the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The university opened in 1865 after the American Civil War. Because of his affiliation with Virginia, Mount Rogers, the highest peak in the state, is named after him.
Charles William Eliot was an American academic who was selected as Harvard's president in 1869. A member of the prominent Eliot family of Boston, he transformed the provincial college into the pre-eminent American research university. Eliot served until 1909, having the longest term as president in the university's history.
Joseph Mellick Leidy was an American paleontologist, parasitologist, and anatomist.
John William Draper was an English-born American scientist, philosopher, physician, chemist, historian and photographer. He is credited with producing the first clear photograph of a female face (1839–40) and the first detailed photograph of the moon in 1840. He was also the first president of the American Chemical Society (1876–77) and a founder of the New York University School of Medicine. One of Draper's books, the History of the Conflict between Religion and Science, popularised the conflict thesis proposing intrinsic hostility in the relationship between religion and science. It was widely read and was translated into several languages. His son, Henry Draper, and his granddaughter, Antonia Maury, were astronomers, her younger sister, Carlotta Maury, was a paleontologist, his eldest son, John Christopher Draper, was a chemist, and son Daniel Draper, was a meteorologist.
Spencer Fullerton Baird was an American naturalist, ornithologist, ichthyologist, herpetologist, and museum curator. Baird was the first curator to be named at the Smithsonian Institution. He would eventually serve as assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian from 1850 to 1878, and as Secretary from 1878 until 1887. He was dedicated to expanding the natural history collections of the Smithsonian which he increased from 6,000 specimens in 1850 to over 2 million by the time of his death. He published over 1,000 works during his lifetime.
Sources
Nathan Reingold, Science in Nineteenth-Century America (1964)
Frances Leigh Williams Mathew Fontaine Maury; Scientist of the Sea (1963) by Rutgers, The State University Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: 63-10564
The Lazzaroni: science and scientists in mid-nineteenth-century America. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Miller, Lillian B.
Axel Jansen, Alexander Dallas Bache: Building the American Nation through Science and Education in the Nineteenth Century (2011).
↑ …a tiny leadership body of American scientists, jovially called the Lazzaroni – Italian for beggars. Bache was the "chief" of this science and intelligence grouping. American Prometheus – The American System
↑ Dupree, A. Hunter (1988). Asa Gray, American Botanist, Friend of Darwin. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. pp.ix–xv. ISBN978-0-801-83741-8.
Related Research Articles
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the National Academy of Medicine (NAM).
The Napoleonic era is a period in the history of France and Europe. It is generally classified as including the fourth and final stage of the French Revolution, the first being the National Assembly, the second being the Legislative Assembly, and the third being the Directory. The Napoleonic era begins roughly with Napoleon Bonaparte's coup d'état, overthrowing the Directory, establishing the French Consulate, and ends during the Hundred Days and his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo. The Congress of Vienna soon set out to restore Europe to pre-French Revolution days. Napoleon brought political stability to a land torn by revolution and war. He made peace with the Roman Catholic Church and reversed the most radical religious policies of the Convention. In 1804 Napoleon promulgated the Civil Code, a revised body of civil law, which also helped stabilize French society. The Civil Code affirmed the political and legal equality of all adult men and established a merit-based society in which individuals advanced in education and employment because of talent rather than birth or social standing. The Civil Code confirmed many of the moderate revolutionary policies of the National Assembly but retracted measures passed by the more radical Convention. The code restored patriarchal authority in the family, for example, by making women and children subservient to male heads of households.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsibility, and supporting scientific education and science outreach for the betterment of all humanity. It is the world's largest general scientific society, with over 120,000 members, and is the publisher of the well-known scientific journal Science, which had a weekly circulation of 138,549 in 2008.
Matthew Fontaine Maury was an American astronomer, United States Navy officer, historian, oceanographer, meteorologist, cartographer, author, geologist, and educator.
Richard Bache, born in Settle, Yorkshire, England, immigrated to Philadelphia, in the colony of Pennsylvania, where he was a businessman, a marine insurance underwriter, and later served as head of the American Post Office. He also was the son-in-law of Benjamin Franklin.
Bache can refer to:
Sarah "Sally" Franklin Bache was the daughter of Benjamin Franklin and Deborah Read. She was a leader in relief work during the American Revolutionary War and frequently served as her father's political hostess, as her mother had done before her death in 1774.
The National Institution for the Promotion of Science organization was established in Washington, D.C. in May, 1840, and was heir to the mantle of the earlier Columbian Institute for the Promotion of Arts and Sciences. The National Institution for the Promotion of Science was later renamed the National Institute and eventually became a part of the Smithsonian Institution.
James Maury (1717–1769) was a prominent Virginia educator and Anglican cleric during the American Colonial period and the progenitor of the prominent Maury political family. The Reverend James Maury was a figure in the notable lawsuit that became known as "The Parson's Cause" in 1763, in which the young attorney Patrick Henry argued that the colony had the right to establish its own method of payment to clergy.
Military leadership in the American Civil War was influenced by professional military education and the hard-earned pragmatism of command experience. While not all leaders had formal military training, the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York and the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis created dedicated cadres of professional officers whose understanding of military science had profound effect on the conduct of the American Civil War and whose lasting legacy helped forge the traditions of the modern U.S. officer corps of all service branches.
Jacob Whitman Bailey (1811–1857) was an American naturalist, known as the pioneer in microscopic research in America.
Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley (1848) by the Americans Ephraim George Squier and Edwin Hamilton Davis is a landmark in American scientific research, the study of the prehistoric indigenous mound builders of North America, and the early development of archaeology as a scientific discipline. Published in 1848, it was the Smithsonian Institution's first publication and the first volume in its Contributions to Knowledge series. The book had 306 pages, 48 lithographed maps and plates, and 207 wood engravings.
The Office of Coast Survey is the official chartmaker of the United States. Set up in 1807, it is one of the U.S. government's oldest scientific organizations. In 1878 it was given the name of Coast and Geodetic Survey (C&GS). In 1970 it became part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Merle Middleton Odgers was president of Bucknell University from 1954 until his retirement in 1964, when he was named president emeritus.
Richard Franklin Bache, also known as Richard Bache Jr. (1784–1848), was a military and political official in the Republic and state of Texas. He assisted in drafting the Texas Constitution of 1845, the first of its five state constitutions.
Bache-Martin Elementary School is a preK–8 school located in the Fairmount neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is part of the School District of Philadelphia. The school campus comprises two distinct buildings along 22nd Street, both of which were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
