| Table of Contents | 8 |
| Acknowledgements | 12 |
| Introduction | 14 |
| The Curious Case of Alexander Dallas Bache | 14 |
| The Revised Theory of Professionalization | 17 |
| Science as a Profession and the American Nation-State | 21 |
| Approach and Methodology | 24 |
| Investigative Agenda | 28 |
| Family Background | 30 |
| The Franklin and Bache Families | 30 |
| The Dallas Family | 36 |
| Tertium Quid | 40 |
| Sophia Dallas Bache | 44 |
| Richard Bache’s Failure | 48 |
| A Career in Science? | 53 |
| West Point | 53 |
| The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers | 62 |
| National Purpose | 67 |
| Early Research and Institutional Development | 69 |
| Scientist or Administrator? | 69 |
| Bache at the University of Pennsylvania | 70 |
| The Urban Setting | 73 |
| The Franklin Institute’s Raison d’Être | 76 |
| The Report on Steam Boiler Explosions | 82 |
| Weights and Measures | 95 |
| The Debate on Meteor Showers | 108 |
| Research Interests and Institutional Development: Common Denominators | 120 |
| Girard College and Central High School, 1836–1842 | 129 |
| Girard College as a Political Symbol | 129 |
| The Design and Ambition of Greek Revivalism | 136 |
| Bache’s European Trip and the Bache-Biddle Correspondence | 140 |
| More on Bache’s European Tour | 153 |
| Central High School | 162 |
| Bache’s Program for National Consolidation I | 176 |
| Bache’s 1842 Address on “American Manufactures” | 176 |
| American Mythology | 177 |
| Prospects for Consolidating the American Nation | 186 |
| “This Most August Sovereign” | 192 |
| Elites in the American Republic | 197 |
| Bache’s Program for National Consolidation II | 200 |
| The United States Coast Survey | 200 |
| The National Institute | 208 |
| Bache’s Speech at the 1844 Meeting of the National Institute | 212 |
| European Conditions | 218 |
| Guarding the Palladium | 225 |
| American Science by an American Union | 234 |
| Bache’s Program for National Consolidation III | 239 |
| The American Association for the Advancement of Science | 239 |
| Bache’s 1851 Speech as Outgoing AAAS President | 241 |
| Bache, Benjamin Peirce, and the Lazzaroni in 1854 | 251 |
| A National Club | 251 |
| “The Dark Prospect Appalls Me” | 254 |
| “A Victory for the Evil One” | 278 |
| President of an Invisible National Academy | 284 |
| The 1863 Founding of the National Academy of Sciences | 288 |
| The Timing | 288 |
| The Bache-Lieber Correspondence | 290 |
| “Ignorant of Scriptural Injunctions” | 297 |
| More on the Bache-Lieber Correspondence | 309 |
| The Founding of the National Academy of Sciences | 311 |
| Conclusion | 318 |
| A New Paradigm for Writing the History of Nineteenth-Century American Science as a Profession | 318 |
| Coordinates of Alexander Dallas Bache’s Career | 323 |
| Figures | 330 |
| Selected Bibliography | 331 |
| 1. Manuscripts and Archival Material | 331 |
| 2. Printed Primary Sources | 332 |
| 3. Books and Articles | 336 |
| Index | 348 |
