Science With Practice: Charles E. Bessey and the Maturing of American Botany (Iowa State University Press Series in the History of Technology and science)

Charles E. Bessey was a pioneer in American science during the period between the Civil War and World War I, a period historians often label as the Progressive Era or the Emergence of Modern America. Indeed, a chief ambition of Bessey and other scientists of his day was to convince Americans that science - if properly developed - would be a pillar upon which to build a modern, progressive society. Likewise, Bessey worked to make American science respectable in the eyes of Europeans, who had long been dominant in the field. It was during this time that evolutionary theory emerged to stimulate a reevaluation of the natural sciences, affecting not only the content but also the teaching methods of science courses.
Bessey strove throughout his career to elevate botany to the level of the other natural sciences. As a teacher, first at Iowa State University and then at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, he shifted study away from the traditional concentration on basic plant collection and description, moving instead toward the "new botany" that emphasized evolutionary classification, structural physiology, pathology, and ecology.
Professor Bessey was a leading proponent of basic research for practical ends. Many of his students later found jobs with the growing U.S. Department of Agriculture, where they continued to follow their teacher's methods of using the laboratory to supplement textual research and field work.
This volume adds an important dimension to the historical understanding of American science by offering a fresh perspective - that of a botanist at a land-grant college in the Midwest. It addresses, within a chronological framework, the foundations of Bessey's career and the areas in which he made his greatest contributions, including professionalization of botany, study of American prairies and the Great Plains, forestry and conservation, Progressive reform, and evolutionary classification.