A. Hunter Dupree (1921–2019)

In Science in the Federal Government: A History of Policies and Activities to 1940, A. Hunter Dupree aims “to trace the development of the policies and activities of the United States government in science from the establishment of the federal Constitution to the year 1940” (pg. v). He admits that he lacks a scientific background, but hopes that his study will “serve as a guide and stimulus to those best qualified to preserve the history of their own achievements” (pg. v). As such, the work is largely synthetic. Writing under the tutelage of Arthur M. Schlesinger, Dupree belongs to the consensus school of historical scholarship.
Dupree writes, “One of the lasting contributions of Jefferson’s presidency was the establishment of the Military Academy at West Point in 1802. Although he had opposed a service school as unconstitutional when Washington had advocated the idea back in 1793, he now accomplished the same end by creating a Corps of Engineers which ‘shall be stationed at West Point, in the State of New York, and shall constitute a Military Academy.’ This small beginning mixed instruction with engineering duties of all sorts, making cadets more apprentices than students” (pg. 29). Describing balloons, Dupree writes, “Actually used by the French revolutionary armies of the 1790’s, the balloon had become familiar to Americans by exhibitions from the 1830’s on, and a new vocation of ‘aeronaut’ had developed by 1860” (pg. 127). He continues, “Although unfamiliarity with observation technique and the difficulty of operating in the field made the balloons only mildly useful instead of a spectacular success, Lowe’s main trouble came from administrative snarls. Neither he nor any of his aeronauts had military rank, and, as a civilian organization trying to cooperate tactically with the Army, the balloon corps could work efficiently only when an understanding officer such as General A. A. Humphreys gave it sufferance” (pg. 128).
Turning to the early twentieth century, the American empire, and the rise of industry, Dupree writes, “The four agencies most dramatically aroused by the stimulus of industry were the National Bureau of Standards, the Bureau of the Census, the Bureau of Mines, and the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics” (pg. 271). He continues, “Some of the impetus toward reorganization came from the sting of foreign superiority. Germany, so much admired in this period for scientific research, led in the field with the Normal-Aitchungs-Commission in 1868, and the later Physikalische-Technische Reichsanstalt provided the equivalent of a national physical laboratory, to which many American industries had to apply for service” (pg. 273). Though Congress largely legislated scientific bureaus through appropriation, the late nineteenth and early twentieth century led to a better system for oversight. Dupree writes, “The handling of scientific personnel in the government underwent great changes. The rise of the merit system in the civil service gradually took in most scientists in the government, working upward from the bottom. As political patronage in the scientific bureaus declined accordingly, the ideal of using trained people regardless of party affiliation came closer to realization” (pg. 292).
Turning to World War I, Dupree writes, “Two related but distinct trends reached their culmination with America’s entry into the war. The first was the tendency to large-scale mechanized industry which geared the whole economic and social life into a common effort of total war. The second was the application of scientific knowledge and methods to the technology both of weapons and of industry” (pg. 302). He continues, World War I had profound effects on every part of American science, whether supported by the government, by the universities, or by the foundations. The first major result was the infusion of research into the economy, especially into production, so thoroughly that industrial research as a branch of the country’s scientific establishment dates its rise to eminence almost entirely from the war period. The second major result was the use of cooperative research on a large scale” (pg. 323). Dupree concludes, “The government had pioneered in the problem approach from 1880 onward. Now it became the common experience of a whole generation of scientists – the ones who shaped institutions not only in the 1920’s and 1930’s but during the second World War as well” (pg. 323).
Dupree concludes, “The year 1940 marked the beginning of a new era in the relations of the federal government and science. So far as a line can be drawn across the continuous path of history, this date separates the first century and a half of American experience in the field from what has come after. As the scale of operations changed completely, science moved dramatically to the center of the stage. By the time the bombs fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the entire country was aware that science was a political, economic, and social force of the first magnitude” (pg. 369). Further, he writes, “No generation has been satisfied that pragmatic response to needs was the whole of the relation between the government and science. In the first place, the necessity always appeared of arranging the piecemeal responses of science into a coherent pattern. In the second place, the conviction persisted that the government had a responsibility for science independent of its practical usefulness” (pg. 377).… (mais)