American Enlightenment | Wikipedia audio article
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Date: 2018-12-02

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American Enlightenment

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SUMMARY
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The American Enlightenment was a period of intellectual ferment in the thirteen American colonies in the 17th to 18th century, which led to the American Revolution, and the creation of the American Republic.  The American Enlightenment was influenced by the 17th-century European Enlightenment and its own native American philosophy.  According to James MacGregor Burns, the spirit of the American Enlightenment was to give Enlightenment ideals a practical, useful form in the life of the nation and its people.The Enlightenment applied scientific reasoning to politics, science, and religion.  It promoted religious tolerance and restored literature, arts, and music as important disciplines worthy of study in colleges.  "New-model" American style colleges were founded such as King's College New York (now Columbia University), and the College of Philadelphia (now University of Pennsylvania).  Yale College and the College of William & Mary were reformed.  A non-denominational moral philosophy replaced theology in many college curricula.  Even Puritan colleges such as the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) and Harvard University reformed their curricula to include natural philosophy (science), modern astronomy, and mathematics.
Among the foremost representatives  of the American Enlightenment were presidents of colleges, including Puritan religious leaders Jonathan Edwards, Thomas Clap, and Ezra Stiles, and Anglican moral philosophers Samuel Johnson and William Smith.  The leading political thinkers were John Adams, James Madison, Thomas Paine, George Mason, James Wilson, Ethan Allen, and Alexander Hamilton, and polymaths Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. Leading scientists included Benjamin Franklin for his work on electricity, William Smith for his organization and observations of the Transit of Venus, Jared Eliot for his work in metallurgy and agriculture, the astronomer David Rittenhouse in astronomy, math, and instruments, Benjamin Rush in medical science,  Charles Willson Peale in natural history, and Cadwallader Colden for his work in botany and town sanitation. Colden's daughter, Jane Colden, was the first female botanist working in America.  Count Rumford was a leading scientist, especially in the field of heat.