独立战争结束后，美国制造业经历了初步的发展，到了19世纪初期，在工业革命的背景下，工厂制度兴起了。生产方式的根本性变革导致生产关系发生重大变化，社会矛盾加剧。制造商、工厂主等机器占有者以及知识精英把各行各业的工匠汇集在一起，组成机械师群体，试图通过开展科学教育，使工匠们获得操作机器的能力，以此缓解社会矛盾。因此，涵盖社会各个阶层的机械师学院成为反应这个时期社会观念变化的重要机构。学界对于美国机械师学院运动的研究主要涉及成人教育、职业教育或劳工教育。然而，美国机械师学院运动不单单是一场教育运动，还是一场对社会阶级变化、生产方式变革反思的社会改良运动。

本研究试图梳理19世纪上半叶美国机械师学院运动的历史，了解这一时期以机械师学院为代表的知识传播机构是如何开展早期科学教育的。美国机械师学院运动大致分为三个阶段：1822年至1824年是美国机械师学院运动的兴起阶段。在美国机械师互助协会和英国机械师学院运动的影响下，美国机械师学院建立。这一阶段的教育实践以科学讲座和以职业为导向的学校建立为主。第二阶段是发展阶段，时间为1825年至19世纪30年代中期。来自欧洲的移民以及费城富兰克林研究所的成功促使美国各地的机械师了解该教育机构，并在新英格兰地区、中大西洋地区等地建立学院形成运动。此时机械师学院的教育实践增多并建立了专属的教育空间。第三个阶段是19世纪30年代末至19世纪50年代的衰落与转变期，这一时期机械师学院运动发展速度减缓，其教育实践呈现“两极化”的发展趋势：一些机械师学院成为社会知识精英的活动场所，学院成为科研机构；另一些机械师学院成为促进工业发展和文化传播的中心。

机械师学院和机械师学院运动是工业革命这一特殊历史背景的产物，是人们对从殖民地时期就一直存在的学徒制的反思和对新型职业教育的探索，也是在社会生产力快速发展的背景下人们对科学和技术的关系以及新工业社会的认识，更是人们对科学、公民道德和社会秩序关系的新思考。与此同时，在机器大生产的背景之下，科学教育成为规训社会的主要工具，机械师学院成为社会控制的重要机构。

After the end of the War of Independence, manufacturing in the United States experienced initial growth, and by the early nineteenth century, the factory system had sprung up against the backdrop of the Industrial Revolution. Fundamental changes in the mode of production led to major changes in the relations of production and intensified social tensions. Manufacturers, factory owners and other machine possessors, as well as the intellectual elite, brought together craftsmen from all walks of life to form groups of mechanics, in an attempt to alleviate social conflicts by providing scientific education and enabling craftsmen to acquire the ability to operate machines. Therefore, the Mechanics’ Institutes, which encompassed all levels of society, became an important institution that responded to the changing social attitudes of this period. Scholarly research on the American Mechanics’ Institute movement has mainly dealt with adult education, vocational education or labor education. However, through the reading of historical materials and related research, it is found that the American Mechanics’ Institute movement was not only an educational movement, but also a social improvement movement due to the reflection on the change of social class and the change of production mode.

Using as many primary historical sources and relevant studies as possible, this study combs through the emergence of the Mechanics’ Institute movement in American society in the first half of the 19th century, trying to understand how the knowledge dissemination institutions represented by Mechanics’ Institutes carried out early science education during this period. This movement in the United States in the first half of the 19th century was roughly divided into three stages: 1822-1824 was the emergence stage of the Mechanics’ Institute movement in the United States. Under the influence of the American mechanic mutual aid societies and the British Mechanics’ Institute movement, the American Mechanics’ Institute was established in the face of a dual shift in the outlook on knowledge and the shape of the economy. The educational practices of this phase were dominated by scientific lectures and the establishment of career-oriented schools. The second phase was the developmental phase from 1825 to the mid-1830s. Immigrants from Europe and the success of the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia prompted mechanics across the United States to learn about this institution and form a movement to establish Mechanics’ Institute in areas of the United States such as New England and the Mid-Atlantic region. At this time the Mechanics’ Institute saw an increase in the types of educational practices and the creation of exclusive educational spaces. The third stage is the decline and transformation period from the late 1830s to the 1850s, during which the development of the Mechanics’ Institute movement slowed down, and its educational practices showed a polarized development trend: some Mechanics’ Institutes became the venue for the activities of the social and intellectual elites, and the Institutes became scientific research institutes; and another development trend Mechanics’ Institutes became centers for industrial development and public cultural activities.

The Mechanics’ Institutes and the Mechanics’ Institute movement were products of the special historical background of the industrial revolution, a reflection on the apprenticeship system that had existed since the colonial period and an exploration of a new type of vocational education, an understanding of the relationship between science and technology and the democratization of knowledge against the background of the rapid development of the social productive forces, and a new way of thinking about the relationship between science, civic morality and the social order. At the same time, in the context of machine mass production, science education had become the main tool for disciplining society, and Mechanics’ Institutes had become important institutions for social control.