James Bowdoin

James Bowdoin was an American merchant, statesman, and amateur scientist from Boston who conducted research into electricity in the eighteenth century and corresponded and collaborated with Benjamin Franklin on the subject. In 1788 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London, the first such honor given to an American after independence. He founded the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and served as its first president, leaving his personal library to the organization. Bowdoin also served for decades in Massachusetts politics, presiding over the convention that drafted the Massachusetts Constitution and later serving as governor of the state.