The Original Boatload of Knowledge Down the Ohio River: William Maclure's and Robert Owen's Transfer of Science and Education to the Midwest, 1825-1826

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1989-12

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... more learning than ever was before contained in a boat was Robert Owen's description of the Boatload of Knowledge that descended the Ohio River from Pittsburgh to his projected Utopia at New Harmony, Indiana, in the winter of 1825-26. Among the scientists and Pestalozzian educators aboard the keelboat christened Philanthropist were key figures from the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. William Maclure was its president and the father of American geology. Thomas Say was the Academy's librarian, a conchologist later called the father of American descriptive entomology. Charles Alexandre Lesueur was the Academy's curator known as a naturalist, zoologist, ichthyologist, artist and teacher who made 127 sketches during the voyage. The research, publications, schools, libraries and reforms of those on the Boatload of Knowledge impacted scientifically, culturally, socially and economically to benefit the Midwest and the nation.

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Author Institution: Department of History, University of Southern Indiana

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The Ohio Journal of Science. v89, n5 (December, 1989), 128-142