1876 1976 '^ss^
American Chemical Society: the first 1 0 0 years K e n n e t h M. R e e s e
The founders of the American Chemical Society surely would have considered eccentric anyone who predicted at the organizing meeting, on April 6, 1876, that a century thence the society would have more than 110,000 members. As late as 1901, past president (1893-94) Harvey W. Wiley forecast that membership by 1976 would be "nearly 10,000." In fact, it reached 10,603 in 1917. Wiley and his colleagues could hardly have grasped the full import of the great scientific breakthroughs that were coming at the turn of the century. But discoveries like radium, the electron, radioactivity, and x-rays were to have an enormous impact on chemistry in the subsequent 75 years and thus on the size and character of ACS. The origins of the society have been recounted elsewhere in some detail (1,2). The precipitating event was the Priestley Centennial meeting of July 31, 1874, in Northumberland, Pa., the site of Joseph Priestley's last home and grave. The meeting commemorated the British scientist's discovery of oxygen, on Aug. 1, 1774; in attendance were 75 chemists from 15 states and the District of Columbia and one each from Canada and Great Britain. Before the event concluded, Prof. Persifor Frazer of the University of Pennsylvania proposed "the formation of a chemical society which should date its origin from this centennial celebration." The move was opposed by J. Lawrence Smith, a past president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Smith argued that chemists would do better to work toward strengthening the chemical section formed earlier in 1874 in AAAS. A resolution in that sense was offered by H. Carrington Bolton of Columbia College, who 22
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Anna J. Harrison presided at ceremonies at Joseph Priestley house in 1974 to commemorate 200th anniversary of Priestley's discovery of oxygen. A parallel gathering held 100 years earlier led directly to establishment of ACS
had organized the Priestley Centennial, and there the matter rested for some 20 months. Smith, ironically, would become the second president of the society, in 1877. When ACS was formed, the U.S. was a nation of contrasts. Agriculture was strong, but the country was only two decades away from becoming the world's largest producer of pig iron. The first transcontinental rail link had been completed in 1869, when the Union Pacific and Central Pacific met at Promontory, Utah. Seven years later, nearly three months after the society was organized, George Armstrong Custer and his command were wiped out by the Sioux at the Little Bighorn. The nation's chemical industry, too, was a study in contrasts in 1876. The inorganic segment of the industry, though not large, was well established. In 1880, it produced more than 154,000 tons of sulfuric acid (50° Baume). The manufacture
of organic chemicals, on the other hand, was quite small, and Germany was rapidly assuming the dominant position in the field. This country's petroleum industry was thriving by the early 1880's, when John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Co. hired its first full-time chemist, but refiners' interests—and knowledge—lay in fuels and lubricants, not organic chemicals. In chemical education, the U.S. was well behind Europe. Chemistry was taught mainly as part of the medical curriculum. Yale had granted its first Ph.D. in science only in 1863, to J. Willard Gibbs, and Harvard its first in chemistry in 1877. A year earlier the country's first primarily graduate university, Johns Hopkins, had taken its first students. On its staff was Ira Remsen. Like most Americans who sought advanced training in chemistry, he had been compelled to study abroad, under Friedrich Wôhler at Gôttingen. Wôhler had
been the first to synthesize urea, in and these also were adopted by 1828. His students included six fu- vote. The second organizational ture ACS presidents: Charles F. meeting took place April 20, 1876, Chandler (1881, 1889); James C. with 27 chemists present. They Booth (1883-85); Henry B. Nason adopted without dissent the slate of (1890); George C. Caldwell (1892); officers that the nominating comEdgar Fahs Smith (1895, 1921-22); mittee had prepared; John W. and Remsen (1902). In the two dec- Draper became the first president ades 1881-1900, U.S. schools con- of the new society. At this same ferred only 418 Ph.D.'s in chemis- meeting, William H. Nichols (ACS try. president in 1918-19) suggested Europe also was leading the U.S. that New York City members meet in chemical science when the soci- every third Thursday "to discuss ety was formed, although good work matters of relatively minor imporwas being done in this country. Wil- tance not suited to the dignity of liam H. Perkin in England synthe- the regular sessions." Many of these sized mauve (aniline purple) acci- "conversaziones" took place; dedentally in 1856. The German spite the initial rationale for them, Friedrich Kekulé and the Scot Ar- the level of dignity evidently was chibald S. Couper advanced their high, since they led eventually to ideas on the structure of organic compounds in 1858. Mendeleev proposed his version of the Periodic Law in 1869. And by the last quarter of the 19th century, coal-tar chemistry was moving rapidly, especially in Germany. In the U.S., meanwhile, Willard Gibbs created the science of chemical thermodynamics with a two-part paper published in 1876 and 1878. The brilliance of this paper, however, was at least equaled by its abstruseness; the work was widely ignored in this country and even in Europe attracted little attention for almost a decade. Formation off ACS
Early in 1876, a group of chemists who had attended the Priestley Centennial 18 months earlier met in New York City at the home of Prof. Charles F. Chandler of Columbia College. There they decided to form a local chemical society. But when a circular mailed to 100 local chemists drew 40 favorable responses, the group decided instead to form a national society. In March, they mailed a second circular, to some 220 chemists throughout the country, and received 60 favorable responses from nonresidents of the New York area. With this, the organizing meeting of the society was set for Thursday evening, April 6, 1876, at 8 PM, in the lecture room of the College of Pharmacy of the City of New York. Thirty-five chemists attended. At this meeting, Chandler outlined the need for a new society, and Isidor Waltz, after suitable discussion, proposed that the group "proceed to organize a national chemical society which shall be called the American Chemical Society." The motion carried. The organizing committee had forearmed itself with a constitution and bylaws,
John W. Draper was the first president of the American Chemical Society
the establishment of the Chemists' Club of New York, in 1898. At the first regular meeting of ACS, on May 4, 1876, the secretary was authorized to record the names of the organizing members, 53 chemists living in New York City and 80 residing more than 30 miles away. Resident members paid an initiation fee of $5.00; nonresident members paid nothing. The annual dues were $5.00, but a single payment of $100 freed the member permanently from this obligation. The Proceedings of this first regular meeting appeared in June 1876 in the American Chemist, which had been founded in 1869 by Chandler and his brother, W. H. Chandler. The Proceedings were to be reprinted for distribution to ACS members, and the first print order was 500. The American Chemist folded in 1877, after carrying the reports of the first three meetings of that year, and the Proceedings went on alone. With the issue of April
1879 the publication became the Journal of the American Chemical Society. ACS held all of its regular meetings during its first year in the lecture room of the New York College of Pharmacy, excepting one session in Philadelphia in connection with the Centennial Exposition. Then the group decided to lease quarters of its own in New York City. To do so, it had to incorporate in the state of New York, and this was done Nov. 10, 1877. The charter of incorporation required that a board of directors act as the legal representative of the society, so the council created by the constitution of April 6, 1876, was converted to a board. Rent for the first full year for the ACS rooms was $800. During the 1880's, the society fell on hard times. Membership reached a high of 243 in 1881, but fell to 167 by 1889. The charter required that directors be residents of the state of New York, so that New Yorkers dominated ACS. This was resented by out-of-state members. The situation was made worse by the inconvenience of travel and the fact that, even by 1890, only about a quarter of the nation's population enjoyed regular mail delivery. JAC S was not published in some months because of a lack of papers. During 1880, six regular ACS meetings in New York City were attended by fewer than 15 members, the quorum required to transact business. Spirits seem not to have been damped entirely, however. In a shoebox full of memorabilia at ACS headquarters in Washington, D.C., is a pamphlet commemorating "The Misogynist Dinner of the American Chemical Society," on Aug. 27, 1880, in Boston. This document bears the legend "Printed for private circulation," and no other evidence of the event appears to be extant. It seems possible, if not probable, that no dinner took place, and that the pamphlet was the work of some misguided wag. Dissent and local sections
In any event, the continuing dissatisfaction with ACS led in January 1884 to the formation of the Chemical Society of Washington, which still exists under that name, but now as a local section of the society. This group of 37 dissidents was led by Harvey Wiley and Frank W. Clarke (ACS president in 1901). By 1887, ACS had no members in the Washington, D.C., area. At a meeting of the society in November 1889, Charles F. Monroe (ACS president in 1898) proposed the formaApril 6, 1976 C&EN
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éfe Mack Printing-ACS tie a l o n g l a s t i n g one The American Chemical Society has had a goodly number of friends over the years, both inside and outside the society, but one of the most unusual and long-lasting was Harvey F. Mack and the printing company that bears his name, Mack Printing Co. The affair got its start when Edward Hart took over the editorship of the Journal of the American Chemical Society in 1893. Harvey Wiley, then president of ACS, had persuaded Hart to merge his own
Harvey F. Mack
EASTON Λ
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FRIDAY, JANUARY 15, 1W6.
successful Journal of Analytical and Applied Chemistry with J ACS in addition to accepting the nonpaying editorship of the latter. Hart was a member of the faculty at Lafayette College in Easton, Pa., at the time and also owned and operated Chemical Publishing Co. in Easton. Thus it was that JACS moved to Easton and Chemical Publishing. In 1900 Norman Hart, eldest son of Edward Hart, persuaded his friend and schoolmate, Harvey Mack, to take a job with his father at Chemical Publishing. By 1902, Mack had formed a partnership with Charles A. Hilburn, a foreman at Chemical Publishing, to manage the publishing firm for Edward Hart. Over the next few years, Mack and Hilburn completed the purchase of Eschenbach Printing Co. in Easton, and in 1905 severed their connection with Chemical Publishing. Thereafter, Eschenbach handled the printing of ACS publications. Harvey Mack purchased the interests of Hilburn in 1907, but it
ESCHENBACH'S NOW THE MACK PRINTING COMPANY Announcement was made today at the offices of the Eschenbach Printing Company, « 5 Church street, that the name of the corporation has been changed to Mack Printing Company.' Preceding commencement of the construction of a new and completely modern establishment at 20th and Northampton streets, this announce· ment will be received with wide in terest In view of the fact that Harvey F. Mack, president of the company, has been prominently identi fied with its every enterprise, and his wide prominence in the publication business, it was deemed advisable to substitute his name In the corporate title. Mock Printing Company, it ψΛ3' stated at its office today, will follow in tho path of its predecessor in the publication of scientific and business periodicals and will continue to carry the.name of Easton all over the world In tile Journals which it prints. The Mack Printing Company is the de velopment of a long established printing and publication business In this city and its friends predict for it in the future even greater success than has characterized its past his tory.
was not until almost two decades later that Eschenbach Printing officially had its name changed to Mack Printing Co. The late Harvey Mack took a strong and continuing interest in ACS publications and is, in fact, credited with saving the Journal of Chemical Education when it ran into severe financial problems during the depression be tween the two world wars. Today ACS publications are still printed by Harvey Mack's company—a three-quarters of a century associa tion.
Ψ& 24
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tion of a national society embody ing the concept of local sections. The upshot was a new constitution, adopted June 6, 1890. It provided in part for ACS meetings outside the New York City area and for local sections. The first general meeting of the society under the new consti tution, in August 1890, attracted 43 chemists from seven states. In Jan uary 1891, the society approved the formation of the Rhode Island Sec tion, its first local section. In August 1891, during a general meeting in Washington, D.C., rep resentatives of the society and nine other organizations discussed a plan for federation. The 10 societies had a combined membership of about 1000. From this meeting came a res olution "That the American Chemi cal Society be so extended as to in clude the members of all local so cieties in its membership; that the New York members . . . be request ed to organize a local section of the American Chemical Society in New York." To reflect the sense of this meeting, ACS adopted its third con stitution, on Nov. 4, 1892. In part the new instrument established the council as the governing body of the society, although the board re mained the legal representative. In 1893, the publishing office of JACS was moved from New York to Easton, Pa., home of the newly appointed editor, Prof. Edward Hart of Lafayette College. One re sult was the elimination of the jour nal's New York board of editors, which pleased chemists in other parts of the country. Hart owned the Journal of Analytical and Ap plied Chemistry, which he merged into JACS in June 1893. He also headed Chemical Publishing Co. in Easton, and that firm became the society's printer in 1893. The ar rangement would be durable. Har vey F. Mack joined the printing company in 1900 and soon became a part owner. In 1905 he purchased Eschenbach Printing Co. and in 1926 changed its name to Mack Printing Co. Mack Printing is still the society's printer after 83 years. Despite the organizational prog ress ACS had made by 1895, it still was suffering from the requirement that the directors reside in New York. Through the efforts of gener al secretary Albert C. Hale, the problem was solved in April of that year when the governor of New York signed "An Act for the Relief of the American Chemical Society." The move called for still another new constitution, which was adopt ed Dec. 2,1897. This fourth ACS constitution was the first to give local sections—
there were nine at the time—proportional representation on the council. The board of directors was to act as the legal representative of the society, and to manage its property, under the general direction of the council, which was to be the ''general governing body." The new constitution established the council on a basis that continued through 1947, excepting changes made in 1908 that provided for divisions and divisional councilors. Other changes in the constitution of 1897 during its 50-year life included the establishment of the post of presidentelect in 1928 and the addition of the immediate past president to the board in 1936. The latter change brought the number of directors to 15: the president, the presidentelect, the immediate past president, the secretary, the treasurer, four directors-at-large, and six regional directors. In 1931 the board was made responsible for electing the secretary and the treasurer, and the position of business manager was created. In 1895, Arthur A. Noyes of Massachusetts Institute of Technology founded the Review of American Chemical Research. Noyes, who was ACS president in 1904, established the journal to publish abstracts of U.S. chemical papers only. It appeared first as a supplement to MIT's Technology Quarterly, but in 1897 became part of JACS. In 1906, the ACS council authorized the publication of a separate Chemical Abstracts, effective in January 1907. The editor was W. A. Noyes, who had been editor of JACS since 1902 and retained that post. Also in 1907, Charles L. Parsons of New Hampshire College became secretary of the society, an office he would hold for more than 38 years. In 1911, Parsons was named chief chemist of the U.S. Bureau of Mines, but retained the then-parttime post of secretary when he moved to Washington, D.C., in 1912. Charlie Parsons was an operator; he would become well known for the long series of coups that dotted his professional life. One of these, a modest effort by Parsons' standards, came in the early 1900's. A U.S. soap maker had retained two well-known consulting laboratories to determine the ingredients of a perfumed soap being sold in this country by a German firm. Neither lab had succeeded. Finally the company offered Parsons $1000 to do the job. He figured he couldn't compete with the skilled analysts who had failed, so he wrote to the producer and asked for the composi-
tion of the product. The German company happily sent Parsons a copy of its patent on the soap, which disclosed the necessary information. He sent the composition to the U.S. company and collected the $1000. The first divisions
By 1907, the year that Parsons was hired, considerable pressure had arisen from ACS members who wished to be differentiated by specialty. In 1903, a committee of the council had recommended that the society form five divisions, but the motion died. New organizations in various specialties of chemistry
mid-1914, Germany had about one quarter of the world's chemical industry and was making 85% of its dyes. The British blockade cut off German shipments of chemicals to this country, and the public quickly became aware of the need for chemists and a chemical industry. ACS president Charles H. Herty dwelt on these difficulties in a letter to President Woodrow Wilson in September 1915. In April of that year, meanwhile, Germany had introduced gas warfare. In 1917, the Secretary of the Interior assigned the gas problem to the Bureau of Mines, where secretary Parsons was still chief chemist. Parsons recruited many of the chemists who
Charles L. Parsons, secretary of the society from 1907 to 1945, was a dominant figure during years of critical growth for the society
began to spring up, however, and in 1908 ACS formed its first five divisions: Industrial Chemists and Chemical Engineers, Agricultural and Food Chemistry, Fertilizer Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, and Physical and Inorganic Chemistry. (Divisions hereafter are identified by their names in 1975.) Also in 1908, as a result of the same kinds of pressures that produced the divisions, the society created the Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, with the first issue appearing in January 1909. In that year, too, the Division of Medicinal Chemistry was founded. These moves proved effective. ACS membership rose from 3389 in 1907 to 5081 in 1910. Annual dues in 1910 were $10, and the society's expenditures totaled $24,722. To be nominated for membership in ACS one need only be "interested in the promotion of chemistry," although nearly all members were chemists. When World War I broke out, in
worked on the problem and was instrumental in the formation of the Chemical Warfare Service. In February 1917, he launched a census of U.S. chemists, an effort sponsored jointly by ACS and the Bureau of Mines. In mid-1917, Marston T. Bogert (ACS president in 1907-08) directed the preparation of a classified listing of the nation's research chemists. This project was under the aegis of the National Research Council, which President Wilson had established in September 1916. The years 1910-20 were busy ones for the society. Membership more than tripled, to 15,582 in 1920; annual expenditures rose almost 20-fold, to $423,804. Dues remained at $10 (they rose to $15 in 1921), but the society enjoyed substantial additional revenue from advertising and other sources. "Miscellaneous" income in 1920, for example, totaled $143,751. ACS had 60 local sections in 1920 and nine divisions, having added Biological Chemistry in 1913, April 6, 1976 C&EN
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Environmental Chemistry in 1915, and the Rubber Division in 1919. One result of this growing level of activity was that Parsons resigned from the Bureau of Mines in 1919 to devote more time to ACS affairs. In 1915, Evan J Crane began his 43 years as editor of Chemical Abstracts, which by then was located on the campus of Ohio State University in Columbus. He had turned up at CA in 1911 on the recommendation of the Ohio State chemistry department. Crane had no middle name—just the J—but evidently he was a man with a vision. Three times a year, from 1930 until his death, in 1966, he got out The Little CA, a bulletin in which he psyched his flock with pep talks and "terse verse." One example: If you're obscure, Please find a cure. Crane's tactics seemed to work. When he retired, in 1958, CA in its field was the best in the world. In 1919, the society started the ACS Monograph series. In the same year it created the ACS News Service and assigned to it the duties handled previously by the ACS Press and Publicity Committee. The press had covered chemical activities widely during the war, and the society wished to maintain the momentum, primarily to stimulate public support for a strong chemical industry. The News Service was to do this by promoting public understanding of chemistry. In 1924, ACS actively fought a bill in the Pennsylvania legislature that proposed to restrict the conduct of clinical laboratory procedures to persons licensed to practice medicine. The bill was defeated, but it marked the beginning of a long struggle to protect the rights of clinical chemists to practice. In 1975 the society was still active in this area through the National Council on Health Laboratory Services and the National Registry in Clinical Chemistry. The ACS publications program continued to progress during the decade ending with 1930. The News Edition of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry was launched in 1923 and the Analytical Edition in 1929. Chemical Reviews appeared in 1924. The society's advertising income exceeded $100,000 for the first time in 1926. Two ACS divisions became publishers during this period. The Division of Chemical Education started the Journal of Chemical Education in 1924, and the Rubber Division started Rubber Chemistry & Technology in 1928. Both journals achieved world recognition, although not without prob26
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The chemical reportage of the 1920's was marked by a tone not found in the fearless journalism of 1976. In 1928, Chemical Foundation revealed that it would give $195,000 over five years to support the John J. Abel Fund for Research on the Common Cold, whose operations were installed at Johns Hopkins. The News Edition reported Francis Garvan's announcement of the gift in a story that concluded: "Chemists, if needed, will be only too eager to serve under the leadership of Doctor Abel, whom they look upon as one of the outstanding leaders in their profession, and we can promise with confidence the wholehearted cooperation of our science in this effort to free the public of Evan J Crane edited Chemical Ab- the source of loss of comfort, effistracts for 43 years, from 1915 to 1958 ciency, wealth, and even life." The society's members numbered lems, and both are still owned and 18,206 in 1930, and expenditures published by the respective divi- reached $626,301. Annual dues remained at $15. Local sections tosions. taled 83 and divisions 17. The divisions added during the decade were Chemical Foundation Carbohydrate (1921); Cellulose, The Journal of Chemical Educa- Paper, and Textile (1922); Petroletion was supported for nine years um (1922); Chemical Education by Chemical Foundation Inc., (1924); Fuel Chemistry (1925); Colwhich even paid the salary of loid and Surface Chemistry (1926); founder and editor Neil Gordon. History of Chemistry (1927); and Chemical Foundation, headed by Organic Coatings and Plastics Francis P. Garvan, had been orga- Chemistry (1927). nized in 1919 by executive order of ACS activities reflected in several President Wilson to foster the de- ways the impact of the depression velopment of an independent U.S. that followed the stock market chemical industry. To do this, it crash of 1929. A loss of members sold to U.S. companies nonexclusive was eased in part by a reduction in licenses to processes, apparatus, dues, from $15 to $9.00, effective in and products covered by patents 1934. Before 1934, members re(mainly German) that had been ceived all ACS journals automatiseized by the Alien Property Custo- cally; thereafter they received only dian during the war. The founda- the News Edition. The other jourtion used the revenue from these nals, in effect, were put on a subsales to support chemical research scription basis. In 1933, the society and education, including education upgraded its requirements for of the public at large. Various ACS membership for the first time in activities were considerable benefi- three decades. The new requireciaries of this program until the ments for membership in ACS stipearly 1930's, when the depression ulated in part "an adequate collecompelled the foundation to with- giate training in chemistry or its draw its support. The latter event equivalent." plunged the Journal of Chemical In 1935, president Roger Adams Education into the fiscal soup appointed a committee "to give again, but Harvey Mack at Mack continuing consideration to matters Printing began personally to carry affecting the status of the chemical the division's printing bills. Otto profession." A year later this group Reinmuth, who succeeded Neil Gor- was split into two committees. One don as editor of the journal, once has functioned ever since and exists wrote that "I used to have cold today as the Committee on Profeschills whenever I wondered what sional Training. The other commitwould happen to the Journal if tee, although it was later dissomeone should take the man aside charged, was a precursor of today's and explain the facts of life to him." Committee on Professional RelaEventually the journal moved into tions. the black and repaid its benefactor, The News Edition during the who, like printers everywhere, ap- 1930's was ever alert to chicanery. A pears to have had an acute grasp of story in October 1932 announced the facts of life. that "Knowledge of the true identi-
ty and present whereabouts of a man calling himself Dr. Wilhelm A. Wenster is very much desired by several chemists who are substantial losers because of his operations." After giving further particulars, the story concluded, "Besides desiring to locate and apprehend this operator, this information is printed in the hope of warning others who otherwise may be subject to embarrassing losses. Anyone having information should advise the Editor of the News Edition." In December 1936, the News Edition revealed that "several of our outstanding chemists have received a letter from the Academia de Sciencias e Artes in Rio de Janeiro, . . . stating t h a t . . . the Congregation of this Academy resolved to confère you a Diploma of Doctor of Chemistry, in Honoris-Causa." The academy, or rather Prof. Arsenio dos Santos Barboza, proposed to collect $10 a head from those who accepted the degree. "We have made careful inquiry through reliable and established channels," the News Edition reported, "and learn . . . that this academy is not a reliable institution. While it seems doubtful that any one of those to whom the proposition is made would be interested, we expose this swindle in the interests of our readers." The federal charter
In 1937, ACS held its first formal Employment Clearing House, chartered its first chapter of student affiliates, and obtained its federal charter. The circumstances surrounding the granting of the charter smack of the modus operandi of Charlie Parsons. The society was still a New York corporation, and the board of directors had resolved to reincorporate under an act of Congress or the laws of the District of Columbia. The News Edition for Aug. 10, 1937, called a general assembly of the society for Sept. 8, during the upcoming national meeting, to act on the board resolution. Yet on Aug. 25, only two weeks after this notice had appeared, President Franklin Roosevelt signed the necessary legislation, Public Act 358. Either the machinery had been in motion for some time before August or the federal government had acted with uncharacteristically blinding speed. In September the general assembly approved the board's resolution, and the directors formally accepted the charter in January 1937. ACS organized only one new division during the 1930's, Analytical Chemistry, in 1938, which brought
The war brought restrictions on travel, but ACS managed to continue to hold national meetings, except in 1945 during the presidency of Carl S. Marvel. Still, travel was a problem, and a number of local sections began to hold "meetings-inminiature." Groups of local sections had been organizing regional meetings for years before the war brought them to a halt. Late in the war, difficulties with travel produced the first of the modern series of regional meetings, the Southwest Regional Meeting. It occurred in Baton Rouge in 1944. Ten regional meetings are scheduled for this centennial year. The ACS publishing program did well during the 1940's, although the war years were marked by problems. One of these was a shortage of paper. Another was a combination of security classification and the difficulty of obtaining scientific journals and documents from abroad. The number of abstracts published by Chemical Abstracts fell from 65,432 in 1938 to 32,281 in 1945, the year the war ended. CA did not recover the lost ground until the early 1950's. In 1940, ACS began to copyright its publications. It had not done so previously in the interest of free dissemination of scientific information, but the growing size and cost of the publishing enterprise had gradually outmoded this policy. In 1942, the News Edition was renamed Chemical & Engineering News; in 1947 it was changed from a biweekly to a weekly. In 1943, Walter J. Murphy edited both C&EN andWalter J. Murphy joined the ACS l&EC, headed the ACS News Service staff as editor of I&EC and C&EN and director of the ACS News Service. The Analytical Edition of I&EC was converted to the independent Analytical Chemistry in 1948. The Advances in Chemistry series was launched in 1949. By 1950, Murphy had field editorial offices in New York, Chicago, Houston, San Francisco, and London. The society's advertising revenue in that year reached $1,219,000. The Wagner Act of 1935 had guaranteed employees, including professionals, the right to organize and bargain collectively, and this provision drew the society into efforts to protect the professional status of chemists and chemical engineers. In 1941, a union at Shell Development Co. in Emeryville, Calif., tried to force a group of professionals at the company to join. The professionals asked the society to help. ACS counsel Elisha Hanson argued the case before the National Labor Relations Board, and early in 1942 NLRB ruled that professionals the total to 18. And it added only one publication, The Journal of Physical Chemistry. Wilder D. Bancroft (ACS president in 1910) had started the journal in 1896; he gave it to the society in 1933. Membership climbed one third during the decade 1931-40, to 25,414, but annual expenditures rose only slightly, to just over $644,000. Local sections numbered 93 in 1940. Dues remained at $9.00. For most of the world the major event of the 1940's was the war that erupted with the German attack on Poland in the fall of 1939. World War II was a time of frenzied activity for the chemical world in general and for the society in particular. Of the war-related difficulties that occupied ACS, by far the most energy-consuming was manpower. Scientists and engineers were not exempt from the draft. The society led the technical community in the struggle to ensure that their services were used, whether in or out of the military, in the manner best suited to the demands of the war effort. Parsons and ACS staff members and elected officials worked tirelessly to keep Selective Service authorities and local draft boards aware of the value of the work of chemists and chemical engineers. Through the News Edition, the society worked with equal doggedness to keep individuals and organizations informed of their rights and responsibilities under Selective Service.
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could not be forced to join a heterogeneous union—one with both professional and nonprofessional members. In 1947, ACS and counsel Hanson helped to ensure that the Taft-Hartley Act, which revised the Wagner Act, contained language that protected the professional status of chemists. The Petroleum Research Fund
In September 1944, ACS president Thomas Midgley Jr. received a telephone call advising him that the seven oil companies that owned Universal Oil Products Co. were thinking of offering their security holdings in UOP to the society as a trust. The upshot was an agreement of October 1944 between the donor companies and Guaranty Trust Co. of New York. The bank accepted the securities as trustee for the newly established Petroleum Research Fund; ACS, as recipient of the income from the trust, agreed to use the funds solely to support ''advanced scientific education and fundamental research in the 'petroleum field.' " In the late 1950's, the UOP securities were sold to the public, and the proceeds to PRF were invested in a diversified portfolio with Morgan Guaranty Trust Co. as trustee. The position of the society as recipient and administrator of the income remained unchanged. PRF awarded its first grants in 1954; in 1960-75 it provided an average of more than $3.4 million annually to support research. The society's expanding programs and the wartime housing shortage in Washington, D.C., led the staff to seek an alternative to the rented quarters it had occupied for some years. As a result, in December 1940, ACS bought a fivestory apartment house on the site of its present headquarters building for $150,000. Parsons apparently encountered some opposition to the deal before it was closed, and there are several accounts of his reaction. One is that he wired the directors to the effect that if they did not authorize him to buy the building for the society he would buy it on his own account. The ACS staff occupied the building in April 1941. At the end of 1945, Charlie Parsons retired after more than 38 years as secretary of ACS. He was succeeded as secretary and business manager by Alden H. Emery, his assistant manager since 1936. In 1947, Emery's title was changed to executive secretary. By the mid-1940's, ACS clearly had outgrown its constitution of 28
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1897. The board of directors authorized a study of the society's governance and induced John M. Hancock, a noted investment banker and public servant, to undertake it. Hancock submitted his report early in 1947. It led to the completely revised constitution and bylaws that took effect Jan. 1, 1948. This fifth governing instrument of the society has served ever since without major revision. It expanded the powers of the board of directors and spoke of the council as deliberative and advisory. Its other major innovations included: • The president-elect and six regional directors were to be elected directly by the membership. The Committee on Nominations and Elections, to be elected by the council from among its members, was made responsible for soliciting four nominees for each of these offices; from these the council would select, for each office, two nominees to be voted on by the membership. Nomination by petition also was provided for; petition nominees would be added to those selected by the council. • The Council Policy Committee, its members to be elected by the council from among its membership, was empowered to coordinate council business. In addition, a series of standing committees was established with permission to hold open meetings. • Councilors were to be elected for three-year terms. Councilors from "larger" local sections were to number between 280 and 320, and each division was to have two councilors.
In 1951 ACS officials dedicated this plaque at site of ACS founding meeting
The decade ending with 1950 saw the formation of two new ACS divisions, Chemical Information in 1948 and Polymer Chemistry in 1950, bringing the total to 20. The number of local sections grew some 45%, to 137. Membership more than doubled, to 63,349; annual expenditures quadrupled, to more than $2.8 million. Annual dues were raised to $12, effective in 1950. The society opened the 1950's with its Diamond Jubilee meeting, Sept. 3-7, 1951, in New York City. It was the largest meeting ACS had ever held. The 20 divisions organized 275 technical sessions with 1622 papers; registration totaled 13,466. The XVIth Conference of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry took place
ACS Diamond Jubilee meeting in September 1951 in New York City was the biggest meeting the society has ever held, with registration totaling 13,466
the following week in New York; this, with the ACS meeting, provided two weeks of continuous chemical activity. On Sept. 3, retired secretary Charles L. Parsons unveiled a commemorative plaque at the site of the organizing meeting of the society on April 6, 1876. With him at the ceremony were president N. Howell Furman, executive secretary Alden H. Emery, and past president (1933) Arthur B. Lamb. The Postmaster General had authorized a commemorative three-cent stamp for the Jubilee, with the first sale taking place in a program at New York's main post office. At the general meeting, in Manhattan Center, Roger Adams, past president (1935) and board chairman (1945-49), introduced the honorary cochairmen of the meeting, Parsons and past president Marston T. Bogert. The major speakers included Priestley medalist E. J Crane, then in his 36th year as editor of Chemical Abstracts. The ceremonial session of the Diamond Jubilee meeting took place on the afternoon of Sept. 5 in the 71st Regiment Armory. The major speaker was James B. Conant, president of Harvard and later (195355) U.S. High Commissioner in Germany. Conant predicted among other things that atomic warfare would not come during the remainder of the 20th century and that oral contraceptives would be available to the public in 1961. Both predictions were reported widely in the press. The first oral contraceptive came on the market in 1960, only a year earlier than predicted, but Conant may have known something. He had been chairman of the Division of Organic Chemistry in 1931, and, no doubt, was still in touch. The Diamond Jubilee ceremonies concluded Sept. 5 with a banquet at the Waldorf Astoria. The speakers included Alben W. Barkley, Vice President of the United States. The society's publications program continued to expand in the 1950's. The ACS Corporation Associates was formed in 1952 to help support Chemical Abstracts and the fundamental journals. In the same year, J AC S was converted from a bimonthly to a monthly because of the volume of papers that it was receiving. The Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry was launched in 1953 and the Journal of Chemical and Engineering Data in 1959. In 1955 the society acquired The Journal of Organic Chemistry, which had been conceived by Morris Kharasch and first appeared in 1936.
ACS's eight-story headquarters building in Washington cost about $3 million
Chemical Abstracts, meanwhile, was growing rapidly. The number of abstracts published annually reached 100,000 in 1957. In 1955, CA's deficit over subscription income neared $500,000, and the board of directors adjusted subscription prices to put the publication on a break-even basis, the policy still in effect. In 1956, the operation was renamed Chemical Abstracts Service, with E. J Crane as director. When Crane retired in 1958, he was succeeded by Dale B. Baker. In 1955, the board reorganized the society's applied publications— those designed primarily to serve industrial chemists and chemical engineers. C. B. Larrabee, who had been chairman of Printer's Ink, a magazine serving the publishing industry, was appointed to the new post of director of publications, applied journals. Walter Murphy became editorial director, applied journals. Murphy died late in 1959; he was succeeded as editorial director by Richard L. Kenyon. A new headquarters
Early in 1960, the ACS headquarters staff moved into a new, eightstory building on the site of the converted apartment house that had been its home since 1941. The staff had worked in rented quarters during construction. The new structure cost about $3 million; a fund drive raised almost $2.3 million from 34,482 ACS members and 436 companies. The society's membership rose another 30% during 1951-60, to 92,193; annual expenditures nearly tripled, to almost $8.5 million. The
number of divisions rose to 22 with the addition of Chemical Marketing and Economics in 1952 and Inorganic Chemistry in 1956. Twelve new local sections brought the total to 159. Dues remained at $12. The 1960's for ACS was a period of vigorous and varied activity, cut short by the economic problems that struck the chemical profession (and the rest of the nation) in about 1968. The effects on the society's operations are still visible today. In January 1961, the ACS News Service inaugurated its "Men and Molecules" series of 15-minute science documentary programs. They are still produced weekly and taped for distribution to radio stations at no charge. The series was the third to be produced by the society for radio. The first, "Headlines in Chemistry," began in the fall of 1947. It was succeeded by a second 15-minute show, "Objective," the predecessor to "Men and Molecules." The latter program was renamed "Man and Molecules" in 1974. By the end of 1975, the News Service had produced 785 programs in the series, which was being carried by some 525 radio stations in this country and abroad. At the end of 1961, W. Albert Noyes Jr. (ACS president in 1947), who was editor of both J AC S and The Journal of Physical Chemistry, asked to be relieved of the former post. At the end of 1964, Noyes also retired as editor of JPC. His departure marked the first time since 1902 that no ACS publication was being edited by either him or his father, W. A. Noyes (ACS president in 1920). In the mid-1960's, the by-then April 6, 1976 C&EN
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heavy involvement of the federal government with the scientific community spurred ACS to intensify its work in public affairs. In April 1964, the board granted "up to $50,000" to support the efforts of the Committee for the Survey of Chemistry of the National Academy of Sciences. The committee received additional support from the National Science Foundation. Its charge was to assess the view that opportunities in basic research were being neglected because of lack of funding. The committee's report, "Chemistry: Opportunities and Needs" (the Westheimer report), appeared in 1965. It recommended, among other actions, increased public and private funding for basic research in chemistry. In the spring of 1965, ACS president Charles C. Price, in an address to the council, called for a new mechanism to improve the society's effectiveness in dealing with issues of public policy involving chemistry. The board thereupon created its Committee on Chemistry and Public Affairs, with Price as the first chairman. The group was made a joint board-council committee in 1968. CCPA and its staff develop testimony and statements on society positions for Congress and other arms of the federal government. The committee's book-length publications include "Cleaning Our Environment: The Chemical Basis for Action" (September 1969) and "Chemistry in the Economy" (September 1973). A major CCPA study on chemistry in medicine was nearing completion early in 1976. In mid-1965, Alden H. Emery concluded his more than 19 years as executive secretary; he was succeeded by B. R. Stanerson, who had been deputy secretary since 1960. Emery remained as honorary secretary until mid-1966, when he retired. Also in 1965, the society's Department of Educational Activities introduced the ACS Short Courses, a form of continuing education. By the end of 1975, about 30,000 individuals had taken the Short Courses and about 50 different courses were being presented annually. A second continuing education program, ACS Audio Courses, was introduced in 1971. Two others, ACS Film Courses and Correspondence Interaction Courses, are being developed. Also in development in 1976 are advanced continuing education systems involving computer-text combinations and audio and film cassette combinations. Work on these systems is being supported by an $839,000 30
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grant from the National Science Foundation. Eruption off journals
The ACS publications program mushroomed during the 1960's. The Journal of Chemical Documentation (now the Journal of Chemical Information and Computer Sciences) appeared in 1961. Inorganic Chemistry and Biochemistry began publication in 1962. In the same year the society acquired the Journal of Medicinal and Pharmaceutical Chemistry, which it began publishing in 1962 and renamed the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry in 1963. The year 1963 also saw the advent of a revamped Industrial & Engineering Chemistry. It comprised a general edition of I&EC, C. B. Larrabee was hired as director of and three quarterly supplements: publications in a 1955 reorganization Fundamentals, Process Design and Development, and Product Re- tional meetings of 1967, the ratio of search and Development. Subscrib- employers to job-seekers was 1.56; ers were offered the general edition, in 1969 it was 0.58. Chemists began plus a quarterly of choice; the other to lose their jobs, and members two quarterlies were available at began to demand that ACS "do moderate additional cost. Still an- something." other move of 1962 was the society's These demands produced a rising purchase of Chemistry, a pocket- tide of professionalism within the size magazine for secondary-level society. The Committee on Professtudents. Chemistry continued to sional Relations since the late appear, but ACS redesigned it dur- 1950's had been willing to assist ing 1963; the first issue in the new members who felt that they had format appeared in 1964. In 1967 been terminated or otherwise treatthe society introduced Accounts of ed in a manner that compromised Chemical Research and Environ- their professional status. During the mental Science & Technology. The late 1960's and early 1970's, CPR eruption of new journals during this was handling as many as 20 memfrenetic decade ended finally in ber-assistance cases at a time. It 1968 with the appearance of Macro- also developed a series of "Guidemolecules. lines for Employers," which includIn 1965, meanwhile, the society had merged its applied journals and fundamental journals into a single unit, with Richard L. Kenyon as director of publications. Kenyon had headed the applied journals since 1962, when he succeeded C. B. Larrabee upon the latter's retirement. The year 1965 also saw the completion of a new, four-story building for Chemical Abstracts Service on a 50-acre site next to the Ohio State campus that ACS had purchased in 1962. The number of chemical documents to be abstracted refused to stop growing, however. Abstracts published annually by CA passed 200,000 in 1966 and 300,000 in 1971. A second CAS building, almost as large as the first, was completed at the Columbus site in 1973. The economic problems that arose in the late 1960's, and especially the cutbacks in space and military programs for research and development, were reflected quickly in the prospects for chemical employment. At the Employment Frederick T. Wall served as ACS's first Clearing House for the two ACS na- executive director from 1969 to 1972
ed standards for terms of employment, pension plans, and termination conditions. The guidelines were adopted by the council in 1970 and endorsed by the board in 1971. By 1975 they had been revised to include standards for employees as well as employers and, in consequence, were renamed "Professional Employment Guidelines." The economic crisis also produced five consecutive petition nominees for president-elect in the 1970-74 elections. The three candidates involved—two were nominated twice by petition—ran on professionalism platforms. Two of the three won office—Alan C. Nixon in 1971 and Bernard S. Friedman in 1972. Nixon was instrumental in the establishment of a Professional Enhancement Program. The program raised about $120,000 from ACS members to help support expanded employment-aid and other professional activities by the ACS staff. Hard times for ACS
The society as an organization fared none too well economically during the period. Membership— and thus dues income—fell from 116,816 in 1969 to 110,285 in 1973. ACS advertising income had peaked at $4,426,000 in 1967. Thereafter it fell steadily. In 1974, although a recovery had started, advertising income totaled only $2,414,000. The decline, combined with rising costs, necessitated reductions in staff and in the volume of pages published. In October 1969, in the midst of these economic uncertainties, Frederick T. Wall took office as executive director of the society. The post was a new one, created in a reorganization of full-time staff. It brought all ACS staff activities under a single head, the executive director, who reported to the board of directors. B. R. Stanerson, currently an ACS director, remained as executive secretary until October 1970, when he retired. In 1970, Wall's first full year, ACS membership was 114,323. Expenditures topped $31 million, almost four times the level of 1960. During the 1960's the number of ACS local sections increased by 13, to 172. The number of divisions increased to 26 with the addition of Microbial Chemistry and Technology in 1961; Fluorine Chemistry in 1963; Nuclear Chemistry and Technology in 1963; and Pesticide Chemistry in 1969. Dues in 1970 were increased to $25; they had been $16 since 1961. The half-decade immediately preceding the society's centennial
10 ACS past presidents were at dedication of Washington headquarters building in 1960—from left, W. Albert Noyes Jr. (1947), William G. Young (board member, but not a president), Farrington Daniels (1953), Roger Adams (1935), Arthur C. Cope (1961), John C. Bailar Jr. (1959), N. Howell Furman (1951), Albert L. Elder (1960), Charles A. Thomas (1948), Carl $. Marvel (1945), Ernest H. Volwiler (1950)
year was a time of consolidation and reflection, but new activities still were being undertaken. In 1971, ACS replaced the monthly edition of Industrial & Engineering Chemistry with the new Chemical Technology. In 1972 came the Journal of Physical and Chemical Reference Data, a joint project of the society, the American Institute of Physics, and the National Bureau of Standards. By the end of 1975, ACS had published the 21st volume of the "ACS Symposium Series," started a year earlier, and the 147th volume of "Advances in Chemistry." The society had been working for some years on the technology of its publishing operations, and by the 1970's, highly automated, computer-assisted systems were in use by Chemical Abstracts Service and Mack Printing Co. Public affairs in 1975 remained a center of ACS attention. In the period October 1972 through December 1975, the society submitted 50 official statements and communications to the three branches of the government. By the end of 1975, ACS Legislative Counselors, acting mainly on a constituent-Congressman basis, were assigned to nearly all Senators and Representatives. In December 1972, Robert W. Cairns, a past president (1968) and board chairman (1972), became executive director, succeeding Frederick T. Wall, who retired. Reporting to Cairns in 1975 were four staff divisions: Books and Journals, under D. H. Michael Bowen; Chemical Abstracts Service, under Dale B. Baker; Membership, under Robert E. Henze; and Public, Professional, and International Communication,
under Richard L. Kenyon. Headquarters staff numbered some 300 in 1975, CAS staff more than 1100. In 1974, the society retained Arthur D. Little Inc. to study its organization, structure, and business management. Little submitted its report and recommendations early in 1975. Study of the document began at once, and the board and council, using it as background, are expected to effect suitable changes in governance. ACS completed 1975 with 110,820 members, some 535 above the low point of 1973. The number of local sections had increased by three since 1970, to 175. The number of divisions had risen to 28 with the addition of Professional Relations in 1972 and Computers in Chemistry in 1974. Money had been a problem. Dues were raised to $28 in 1974, to $29 in 1975, and to $35 in 1976. Expenditures in 1975, estimated at $35.2 million, had risen about 13% since 1970, but the stringent measures of the intervening years had maintained fiscal stability. The American Chemical Society, under president Glenn T. Seaborg, entered its centennial year in sound condition "to continue to encourage in the broadest and most liberal manner the advancement of chemistry in all its branches." References 1. Brown, Charles Albert, Weeks, Mary Elvira, "A History of the American Chemical Society—Seventy-five Eventful Years," American Chemical Society, Washington, D.C., 1952. 2. "A Century of Chemistry—The Role of Chemists and the American Chemical Society," American Chemical Society, Washington, D.C., 1976.
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