Founding of the National Academy of Sciences

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) was signed into being by President Abraham Lincoln on March 3, 1863. As mandated in its Act of Incorporation, the Academy has, since 1863, served to "investigate, examine, experiment, and report upon any subject of science or art" whenever called upon to do so by any department of the government.

The idea that the United States should have a national organization devoted to the promotion of the sciences and technology was not new. As early as 1743, Benjamin Franklin had founded the American Philosophical Society (APS). Thirty-seven years later the American Academy of Arts and Sciences was founded, and sixty years after that, the National Institute for the Promotion of Science was organized. By the mid-nineteenth century, these organizations were joined by the Smithsonian Institution and the American Academy for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

But the immediate roots of the NAS can be traced back to the early 1850s and a group of scientists based largely in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The group, which began meeting informally in 1853, called themselves the "Scientific Lazzaroni" in self-mocking reference to the beggars and street people of Naples. The original Lazzaroni consisted of Superintendent of the Coast Survey Alexander Dallas Bache, naturalist Louis Agassiz, Harvard Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy Benjamin Peirce, astronomer Benjamin Gould, and Harvard Professor of Greek and Latin Cornelius Felton. The group was soon joined by others, including Joseph Henry, who was perhaps the leading scientist in America at the time. But it was Bache who gave the most explicit and public expression of the idea of a national scientific academy.

In his speech as outgoing president of the AAAS, Bache in 1851 publicly recommended that the federal government establish a body for the promotion of the country's science. Bache called for "an institution of science...to guide public action in reference to science matters." Such a body would act as a centralized organization to be consulted by the government in matters of science and technology. By 1858, Agassiz in a private letter had outlined the structure and organization of an academy of sciences.

The demands of the Civil War, which broke out in 1861, were conducive to the formation of a scientific consulting body. Many citizens attempted to contribute to the war effort by submitting inventions and related proposals to the government to do with as it saw fit. In order to expedite the evaluation of these approvals, Henry proposed to the Navy Department the formation of an advisory agency for the testing of new weapons. In February 1863 Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles approved Henry's plan, and the Permanent Commission, made up of Henry, Bache, and Rear Admiral Charles Henry Davis, was established.

In the meantime, Agassiz had enlisted the support of Massachusetts Senator Henry Wilson. With Wilson's help, Agassiz, Bache, Peirce, and Gould reworked a plan drafted by Davis and came up with a bill for the incorporation of the National Academy of Sciences. Wilson brought the bill to the Senate on February 20, where it was passed on March 3rd. It was passed by the House of Representatives later that day, and was signed into law by President Lincoln before the day was over. The National Academy of Sciences had officially come into being.

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