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A Chemical Genealogy Assignment Michael D. Mosher* Department of Chemistry, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID 83844-2343 Chemistry students need to learn how to use the reference materials commonly available in a library. Such skills are necessary whether the students plan to attend graduate school, to teach, or to work in the chemical industries. As help in teaching students to use the materials available in most libraries, many chemistry departments offer courses that require use of the library. Some even teach chemical literature courses. Students enrolling in the chemical literature courses are generally given homework assignments dealing with the use of common reference materials. A course in “Chemical Information Retrieval” has been outlined that covers the basic goals quite well (1). While these assignments are extremely useful to students, they can become monotonous, and students frequently appear to lose interest in them. Moreover, students are not exposed to the wealth of information on the history behind the chemistry. One assignment that has sustained the curiosity of chemical literature students here at the University of Idaho involves finding a particular professor’s chemistry ancestors. This assignment is given after the introduction of such useful references as Dissertation Abstracts, Poggendorff ’s Biographisch-literarisches Handwörterbuch, Who Was Who, Chemical Abstracts Author Indices, American Men and Women of Science, and other similar sources of information. The assignment consists of the students choosing a member of the current faculty and tracing the doctoral advisors back in time as far as possible. The initial advisors are easily found in Dissertation Abstracts International and American Doctoral Dissertations. However, as the lineage grows, use of Poggendorff ’s Biographischliterarisches Handwörterbuch, Who Was Who, and J. R. Partington’s History of Chemistry becomes necessary. With few exceptions, the genealogy can be retraced all the way to the founding fathers of chemistry. Students are scored on the number of ancestors correctly determined based on the difficulty of finding such information and the availability of the information at hand. In most cases, they are easily able to trace the ancestors of the faculty back four generations. A few students have been able to trace the lineage back into the 18th century. Some students have used the published *Present address: Department of Chemistry, University of Nebraska at Kearney, Kearney, NE 68849-1150.
genealogies (2), which they find on their own accord, as help in completing this assignment. Students have remarked that the assignment teaches more than the use of the library’s biographical sources. It is designed to do just that. For instance, the history of chemistry is revealed beautifully in this assignment, without prejudice toward a particular viewpoint. The chemical investigations of such people as Wilkinson, Hinshelwood, and Baeyer are revealed quite nicely. The politics of the field of chemistry is also revealed in the chemists’ biographies (3). The students’ preliminary work has produced the genealogy for the University of Idaho. In cases where the doctoral advisor is not known, could not be determined, or did not exist (as was generally the case before the 20th century) the person deemed to be the most influential was assigned as the chemical predecessor. It is interesting to note that the faculty at the University of Idaho can be traced to three major chemists of the 18th century (J. von Liebig, L. N. Vaquelin, and J. J. F. von Berzelius). Three basic lineages represent the entire chemistry department at the University of Idaho. One lineage traces back through Vaquelin to Lavoisier in Paris, one through Berthollet to Jean Baptiste Michel Bucquet in Paris, and the other to Berzelius in Uppsala. Bucquet and Lavoisier have a presumptive link to Guillaume Rouelle, a contemporary in Paris. Berzelius can be linked to Afzelius in Uppsala. The genealogic scheme emerging from the students’ efforts will be available on the World Wide Web in the online Journal of Chemical Education, http://jchemed.chem.wisc.edu/. Acknowledgments I would like to extend special thanks to Brenda E. Waller (graduate student, University of Idaho) for her help in completing the lineage of this department. Also instrumental were Wayland E. Noland (Professor, University of Minnesota) and Donna Hanson (Science Librarian, University of Idaho). Literature Cited 1 . Abrash, H. I. J. Chem. Educ. 1992, 62, 143. 2 . Rocke, A. J.; Ihde, A. J. J. Chem. Educ. 1979, 56, 93; McCarty, C. N. J. Chem. Educ. 1969, 46, 317; Graham, R. P. J. Chem. Educ. 1948, 25, 632; Bartow, V. J. Chem. Educ. 1939, 16, 236; Cedar, F. C. Chem. Canada 1974, 26, 9. 3 . For example, see: Kolbe, H. J. Prakt. Chem. 1877, 15(2), 473.
Find it on the Web: http://jchemed.chem.wisc.edu/
Vol. 73 No. 12 December 1996 • Journal of Chemical Education
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