The royal society catalogue as an index to nineteenth century American science

The Royal Society Catalogue of Scientific Papers is investigated in terms of its coverage of American science journals and American scientists. The journals indexed by the Catalogue are compared to other standard lists of journals from the nineteenth century. A list of scientists with three or more articles in American journals indexed in the Catalogue is compared to standard lists of scientists based on other criteria. The Catalogue is found to be, in most cases, an excellent index to the contents of American periodical literature, but for complete coverage some supplementary work would be necessary. The study also concludes that, if the number of articles written is not considered, the Royal Society index can be used to compile a near‐universal list of American “scientists.” This leads to the conclusion that in the period 1800 to 1863 (the years covered by this study), journal article writing of some variety and extent already characterized a man of science.