Priestley in America, 1794-1804

Joseph Priestley arrived in Philadelphia in 1794 as one of the most celebrated scientists in the Western world, the man who had discovered oxygen and isolated carbon monoxide. He was also a theological radical and political dissident whose support for the French Revolution had made him a target in England: a Birmingham mob had burned his home and laboratory to the ground. This book traces the decade he spent in American exile, where he found unexpected refuge among the young republic's intellectual elite. Edgar Fahs Smith, himself a chemist and historian, renders Priestley's American years with the reverence of someone who understands what was lost when this brilliant, restless mind stopped breathing in 1804. The narrative follows Priestley as he built a new laboratory, clashed with Federalists who viewed his rationalist views with suspicion, and formed friendships with Thomas Jefferson and John Adams over shared passions for science and Enlightenment thought. It captures a singular moment when the discoverer of oxygen chose the American experiment as his final chapter.