The Society for Useful Knowledge (37 page)

Pendergrast, Mark.
Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Changed Our World
. New York: Basic Books, 1999.

Penn, William.
Fruits of Solitude
[1695]. Philadelphia: Longstreth, 1877.

——.
No Cross No Crown: A Discourse Shewing the Nature and Discipline of the Holy Cross of Christ
. London: Mary Hinde, 1771.

——.
The Papers of William Penn
, ed. Richard S. Dunn and Mary Maples Dunn. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981–1987.

——.
Passages from the Life and Writings of William Penn
, ed. Thomas Pym Cope. Philadelphia: Friends' Bookstore, 1882.

——.
The Witness of William Penn
, ed. Frederick B. Tolles and E. Gordon Alderfer. New York: Macmillan, 1957.

Peskin, Lawrence A.
Manufacturing Revolution: The Intellectual Origins of Early American Industry
. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 2003.

Petty, William. “The Advice of W. P. to Mr. Samuel Hartlib, for the Advancement of Some Particular Parts of Learning [1648].” In
Harleian Miscellany
6: 141–57. London: Robert Dutton, 1810.

Picciotto, Joanna.
Labors of Innocence in Modern England
. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010.

Potts, William John. “British Views of American Manufacturing and Trade during the Revolution.”
PMHB
7: 194–99.

Porter, Roy.
The Creation of the Modern World: The Untold Story of the British Enlightenment
. New York: W. W. Norton, 2000.

Primer, Irwin.
Bernard Mandeville's ‘A Modest Defence of Public Stews': Prostitution and Its Discontent in Early Georgian England
. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.

Purver, Margery.
The Royal Society: Concept and Creation
. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1967.

Ragsdale, Bruce A. “George Washington, the British Tobacco Trade, and Economic Opportunity in Prerevolutionary Virginia.”
Virginia Magazine of History and Biography
97 (2): 132–62.

——.
A Planters' Republic: The Search for Economic Independence in Revolutionary Virginia
. Madison: Madison House, 1996.

Ramsay, David.
The History of the American Revolution
, 2 vols. Philadelphia: R. Aitken, 1789.

Ray, John.
The Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of the Creation
[1691]. London: William & John Innys, 1722.

Rede, Leman Thomas.
Biblotheca Americana
. London: J. Debbett, 1789.

Reinhold, Meyer. “Opponents of Classical Learning in America during the Revolutionary Period.”
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society
112 (4): 221–34.

——. “The Quest for ‘Useful Knowledge' in Eighteenth-Century America.”
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society
119 (2): 108–32.

Riskin, Jessica.
Science in the Age of Sensibility: The Sentimental Empiricists of the French Enlightenment
. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002.

Robson, David W.
Educating Republicans: The College in the Era of the American Revolution, 1750–1800
. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1985.

Rossiter, Clinton. “The Political Theory of Benjamin Franklin.”
PMHB
76 (3): 259–93.

——.
Seedtime of the Republic: The Origin of the American Tradition of Political Liberty
. New York: Harcourt, 1953.

Rush, Benjamin.
The Autobiography of Benjamin Rush
. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1948.

——.
Essays, Literary, Moral and Philosophical
, 2nd edition. Philadelphia: Bradford, 1806.

——.
An Eulogium Intended to Perpetuate the Memory of David Rittenhouse, Late President of the American Philosophical Society
. Philadelphia: Ormond & Conrad, 1796.

——.
A Memorial Containing Travels Through Life or Sundry Incidents in the Life of Dr. Benjamin Rush, Written by Himself
. Lanoraie, PA: Louis Alexander Biddle, 1905.

Ryerson, Richard Alan.
The Revolution Is Now Begun: The Radical Committees of Philadelphia, 1765–1776
. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1978.

Schiffer, Michael Brian.
Draw the Lightning Down: Benjamin Franklin and Electrical Technology in the Age of Enlightenment
. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.

Schlenther, Boyd Stanley. “Colonial America's ‘Un-Royal Society': Organized Enlightenment as a Handmaid to Revolution.”
Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies
11 (1): 19–26.

Schoepf, Johann David.
Travels in the Confederation, 1783–1784
, trans. and ed. Alfred J. Morrison. Philadelphia: William J. Campbell, 1911.

Schultz, Ronald.
The Republic of Labor: Philadelphia Artisans and the Politics of Class, 1720–1830
. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Shaw, Peter.
The Tablet, or Picture of Real Life
. London: Longman, 1762.

Shelley, Henry C.
Inns and Taverns of Old London
. Boston: L. C. Page, 1909.

Sibum, Heinz Otto. “The Bookkeeper of Nature: Benjamin Franklin's Electrical Research and the Development of Experimental Natural Philosophy in the Eighteenth Century.” In
Reappraising Benjamin Franklin
, ed. J. A. Leo Lemay, 221–42. Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press, 1993.

Simpson, James.
Burning to Read: English Fundamentalism and Its Reformation Opponents
. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2007.

Smith, William.
A General Idea of the College of Mirania
[1753]. New York: Johnson Reprint, 1969.

——.
The Works of William Smith
, 2 vols. Philadelphia: Hugh Maxwell and William Fry, 1803.

Smith, William and others. “Account of the Transit of Venus Over the Sun's Disk, as Observed at Norriton, in the County of Philadelphia, and Province of Pennsylvania, June 3, 1769.”
Philosophical Transactions
(59): 289–326.

Society for Political Enquiries.
Rules and Regulations of the Society for Political Enquiries: Established at Philadelphia, 9th February, 1787
. Philadelphia: Robert Aitken, 1787.

Speck. W. A. “Bernard Mandeville and the Middlesex Grand Jury.”
Eighteenth-Century Studies
11 (3): 362–74.

Spiller, Robert E.
The Oblique Light: Studies in Literary History and Biography
. New York: Macmillan, 1968.

Sprat, Thomas.
History of the Royal Society
[1667], ed. Jackson I. Cope and Harold Whitmore Jones. St. Louis: Washington University Press, 1958.

Stearns, Raymond Phineas.
Science in the British Colonies of America
. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1970.

Steiner, Bernard C.
The Life and Correspondence of James McHenry
. Cleveland: Burrows Brothers, 1907.

Stephenson, Orlando W. “The Supply of Gunpowder in 1776.”
American Historical Review
30 (2): 271–81.

Stiles, Ezra.
The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles
. New York: Charles Scribner's, 1901.

Tolles, Frederick B.
Meeting House and Counting House: The Quaker Merchants of Colonial Philadelphia, 1682–1763
. New York: W. W. Norton, 1963.

Twain, Mark. “The Late Benjamin Franklin.” In
Sketches New and Old
, 211–15. Hartford: American Publishing, 1901.

Van Doren, Carl. “The Beginnings of the American Philosophical Society.”
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society
87 (3): 277–89.

——.
Benjamin Franklin
. New York: Viking Press, 1938.

Van Wesep, H. B.
Seven Sages: The Story of American Philosophy
. New York: Longmans, Green, 1960.

Van Zandt, Roland.
The Metaphysical Foundations of American History
. The Hague: Mouton, 1959.

Vinson, Michael. “The Society for Political Inquiries: The Limits of Republican Discourse in Philadelphia on the Eve of the Constitutional Convention.”
PMHB
113 (2): 185–205.

Victory, Beatrice M.
Benjamin Franklin and Germany
. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1915.

Walker, Timothy. “Defense of Mechanical Philosophy.”
North American Review
33 (72): 122–36.

Wallace, Anthony F. C. and David J. Jeremy. “William Pollard and the Arkwright Patents.”
William and Mary Quarterly
, Third Series, 34 (3): 404–25.

Walwyn, William.
The Compassionate Samaritane
. London: NP, 1644.

Waring, Joseph I.
A History of Medicine in South Carolina, 1670–1825
. Charleston [?]: South Carolina Medical Association, 1964.

Watkinson, James D. “Useful Knowledge? Concepts, Values, and Access in American Education, 1776–1840.”
History of Education Quarterly
30 (3): 351–70.

Weber, Max.
The Protestant Ethic and the “Spirit” of Capitalism
. Ed. and trans. by Peter Baehr and Gordon C. Wells. New York: Penguin, 2002.

Webster, Charles, ed.
Samuel Hartlib and the Advancement of Learning
. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970.

Weld, Charles Richard.
A History of the Royal Society
, 2 vols. [1848]. New York: Arno Press, 1975.

Wendel, Thomas. “The Keith-Lloyd Alliance: Factional and Coalition Politics in Colonial Pennsylvania.”
PMHB
92 (3): 289–305.

West, Benjamin.
An Account of the Observation of Venus upon the Sun, the Third Day of June, 1769, at Providence, in New-England. With Some Account of the Use of those Observations
. Providence: J. Carter; 1769.

Wickersham, James Pyle.
A History of Education in Pennsylvania
. Lancaster, PA: Inquirer Publishing, 1866.

Wills, Garry.
Inventing America: Jefferson's Declaration of Independence
. New York: Doubleday, 1978.

Winthrop, John [the Younger].
Life and Letters of John Winthrop
, ed. Robert C. Winthrop. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867.

Winthrop, John.
Relation of a Voyage from Boston to Newfoundland, for Observation of the Transit of Venus, June 6, 1761
. Boston: Edes and Gill, 1761.

Winthrop, Robert C., ed.
Correspondence of Hartlib, Haak, Oldenburg and Others of the Royal Society with Governor Winthrop of Connecticut, 1661–1672
. Boston: John Wilson, 1878.

Wolf, Edwin. “Franklin and His Friends Choose Their Books.”
PMHB
80 (1): 11–36.

Wolf, Edwin and Kevin J. Hayes.
The Library of Benjamin Franklin
. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 2006.

Wood, Gordon S.
The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin
. New York: Penguin Press, 2004.

——.
The Radicalism of the American Revolution
. New York: Knopf, 1992.

Woolf, Harry.
The Transits of Venus: A Study of Eighteenth-Century Science
. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1959.

Wright, Esmond.
Franklin of Philadelphia
. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1986.

Zinn, Howard.
A People's History of the United States
. New York: HarperCollins, 1980.

Benjamin Franklin Drawing Electricity from the Sky
by Benjamin West, ca. 1816. Franklin's kite experiment demonstrated that electricity in the laboratory and lightning in the sky were one and the same, establishing a place in the world for American science. His subsequent invention of the lightning rod, with its promise of protection from often deadly strikes, made him a larger-than-life figure for many and helped further his personal, political, and diplomatic ambitions.
© PHILADELPHIA MUSEUM OF ART/CORBIS

Interior of a London Coffee-house
, ca. 1650–1750. London's coffeehouses captured the imagination of Franklin during his first visit to the imperial capital. These institutions provided the young printer with access to pamphlets and gazettes, the latest news, and seemingly endless discussion of the day's affairs, developments in science, and other intellectual pursuits. Years later, Franklin still recalled fondly the “very ingenious Acquaintance” he made in the city's cafes and taverns.
© THE TRUSTEES OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM/ART RESOURCE, NY