Becoming America: How Science Shaped a Nation

Becoming America: How Science Shaped a Nation is a free, ticketed exhibition at a museum in South Kensington, on level 2 of the building and recommended for ages 11 and up. It was made by the Science Museum with support from Griffin Catalyst as title funder, marking 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Covering the 1760s to the 1790s, it reveals how science shaped, and was shaped by, the land, peoples and power that led to the emergence of the United States, connecting colonial scientific ambition with the knowledge of enslaved and free African-descended peoples and Indigenous practices. Through maps, paintings, instruments and artefacts — including a rare surviving 1776 print of the Declaration of Independence, a microscope made for King George III, a dugout canoe built with traditional Indigenous methods, and the first known chart of the Gulf Stream — it explores the scientific undercurrents of this tumultuous period.