The Other Presidency: Thomas Jefferson and the American Philosophical Society

Biographies of Thomas Jefferson provide a cursory overview of his involvement with the American Philosophical Society (APS): elected to membership in 1780 and president of the organization from 1797 to 1814, holding that position even while he served as Vice President and President of the United States. This small volume, originally distributed as a pamphlet at the November 2018 APS meeting and later published in the Society’s Proceedings, aims to fill in the details of Jefferson’s association with the American Philosophical Society and to place his stewardship of the APS in the political context of the Federalist/Republican dispute over their competing paradigms of how to achieve an independent, prosperous United States and the proper role of the federal government in attaining this objective.The American Philosophical Society was founded in 1743 by Benjamin Franklin and others to promote useful knowledge. By the time Jefferson arrived in Philadelphia in 1790 as US Secretary of State, the APS had secured a reputation as the country’s leading scientific organization. Jefferson became one of the group’s most active members, attending thirty-two meetings during his years in Philadelphia. He had a long-standing interest in natural history, keeping a meteorological diary during the 1770s, conducting seed experiments, and compiling Native American languages in the 1780s. As APS vice president and president, Jefferson played an active role in setting meeting agendas and, thereby, influencing the society’s priorities. He made at least a dozen presentations at these meetings on a variety of subjects such as a new standard of weights and measures and his own design for a moldboard plough. Best known is his 1797 paper on the bones of a large animal found in western Virginia called the Megalonyx, which he eventually concluded were those of a giant, plant-eating sloth.Patrick Spero, chief executive officer of the American Philosophical Society and previous director of the APS Library and Museum makes use of the APS archives and Jefferson’s papers to argue that the APS became Jefferson’s vehicle for using science to advance his vision of a government and society in which “local bodies, not the federal one, and civic institutions, like the APS that were controlled and supported by American citizens devoted to improving the nation . . . were the proper means of supporting innovation, experimentation, and industry” (16–17). The operations of the APS, an independent civil organization advancing national interests, represented an alternative to the Federalist idea of a vigorous federal government.Two APS initiatives, energetically supported by Jefferson, serve as examples of his preference for private actions in support of national objectives. In 1791, the Society created a committee, chaired by Jefferson, to investigate the Hessian fly infestation in New York and parts of New England with the goal of preventing its spread. Jefferson later organized APS support for the Michaux Expedition to the American West, raising funds and providing instructions.Spero contends that Jefferson used his influence with the APS to promote research into natural history as a counterweight to the Federalist research agenda on mathematics, astronomy, and manufacturing technology, which was intended to advance the Federalist view of American independence based on trade and industrialization. Jefferson’s dream of an expanding, agrarian republic of small farmers required scientific discoveries in the natural world so that American farmers would be successful in maximizing the potential of the distinctive American landscape. The American Philosophical Society, “with its inclination toward natural history, was the natural outlet for Jefferson to pursue that field of science in support of his vision for an agrarian republic that relied on the control of the environment for its success” (19).The activities of the APS during this period showed a distinct bias in favor of natural history. Analysis of topics published in the Society’s Transactions between 1786 and 1825 shows that 41 percent of all articles were in the field of natural history and only 20 percent discussed mechanical improvements. The Society’s interest in natural history topics accelerated in the 1790s, the period of Jefferson’s most personal and direct influence, growing from 38 percent of publications in 1786 to 51 percent in 1799. Spero argues that Jefferson’s and the APS’s interest in natural history may have been conceived with no political agenda. But, by the end of Jefferson’s time in Philadelphia, the APS was so closely entwined with Jefferson’s scientific and political preferences that natural history and the APS had become proxies for political attacks by Jefferson’s opponents.The Federalist/Republican political divide was reflected in the partisan composition of the American Philosophical Society during the 1790s. Although the APS elected members independent of their political leanings, Spero reports that based on a sampling of meeting minutes from the 1790s, attendees with Republican sentiments outnumbered Federalists by a factor of three to one and outnumbered those with no discernible political affiliation by three to two. The partisan bent of the APS was also reflected in its international membership. While Federalists wanted to strengthen ties with Great Britain, Jefferson and his allies supported closer connections with France. Between 1775 and 1800, the APS elected 55 French members compared to 33 British members despite the enormous scientific output produced in Great Britain during this time. The partisan slant of the APS carried over into the selection of its officers. During the 1790s, again the period of Jefferson’s most direct participation in the affairs of the APS, the Society elected over twice as many Republicans as Federalists to leadership positions.This book contributes to our understanding of the influence of the American Philosophical Society on Thomas Jefferson’s intellectual life and the influence of Jefferson on the APS as an institution. It also makes a case for the importance of the competing social and economics visions of the Federalists and Republicans in determining scientific research agendas in the Early Republic.