| Summary: | This chapter examines U.S. Navy’s hydrographic efforts after the American Civil War, in the period from 1865-1890, an era in which earlier commercial imperatives began to significantly breakdown with the near demise of the American merchant marine and amid slowly-growing geo-strategic imperatives related to the growth of American imperial aspirations, particularly in the Pacific Ocean. The chapter traces a multiplicity of hydrographic efforts from the North Pacific, to the Central American isthmus, the Arctic and the deep sea, arguing that this era was actually one of vigour for American naval science even as the American navy more generally shrank considerably from wartime peaks and lost ground in terms of technological innovation. The Navy’s hydrographic efforts show both a continued commercial imperative and now, emergent strategic interests that would fully emerge in 1898 during the Spanish-American War and with the acquisition of a territorial empire. Finally, despite a growing faith in technology and machines to both usher new dimensions of hydrographic surveys and to change the natural world, these American efforts remained limited, often undermined by the magnitude and dangers of scientific work in a difficult environment.
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