Dr. Rachel Lloyd (1839-1900): American Chemist Ann T. Tarbell and D. Stanley Tarbell Vanderbilt University. Nashville. TN 37235 Among the first women to publish in the American Chemical Journal was Rachel Lloyd, coauthor of three solid papers on acrylic acid derivatives with C. F. Mabery (I). Mrs. Lloyd (b. 1839, Flushing, Ohio) lost her husband, Franklin, in 1865; he was a chemist with Powers and Weightman (2). After some time abroad, she supported herself by-teaching in a private girls' school in Louisville, Kentucky. Her increasing interest in chemistry led her to attend the Harvard Summer School from 18761884, where she did research with Mabery.' Realizing that she needed a doctorate to attain her ambition of a university professorship, she went to Zurich, the only place where women could then work for a doctorate in c h e m i ~ t r y . ~ Already an experienced research worker, Mrs. Lloyd was awarded her doctorate in 1886. Her dissertation with Professor V. Merz dealt with conversion of phenols to aromatic amines at high temneratures (4). She is orobablv the first woman P~.D: in ~ m e r i c a nchemistry. ~ u r i n her g stay in Switzerland she also became interested in the sugar beet industry (2,5). The University of Nebraska offered Dr. Lloyd an appointment as associate professor of analytical chemistry effective July 1,1887, a t an annual salary of $1500, and she accepted the offer in a letter from London3 (6). She was also appointed assistant chemist (H. H. Nicholson, chemistd) to the Nebraska Agricultural Experimental Station (7). Dr. Lloyd was afull member of the Nebraska faculty, being promoted to full professor in 1888 ( 8 ) and carrying a heavy teaching schedule. In 1888-1889, for example, she taught two full courses on the metallic elements and their compounds, with a total of twelve hours per week of laboratory; a year course on quantitative analysis, with fifteen hours of laboratory per week; a year course on the history of chemistry, one lecture per week; and organic chemistry, two lectures with two hours of laboratory practice per week for one year. (9). In addition, she and Nicholson, who comprised the whole chemistry faculty, offered "Investigation of important chemical problems." During this period, at least two Nebraska graduates were inspired to obtain Ph.D.'s from Heidelberg in 1896: Samuel Avery (1865-1936), professor of chemistry and later Chancellor of the University of Nebraska 1909-1927; and H. A. Senter, educator in Omaha (10). Professor Lloyd's work a t the Nebraska Agricultural Experiment Station, newly established in 1887 in response to the Hatch Bill passed that year, was to be fundamental and laborious. The success of the sugar beet industry abroad (5)had
led to its introduction into the United States after 1830 (11-13), and the first two commercially successful heet sugar factories in this country were established in California in 1879 and 1888. This promising cash crop and industry aroused the interest of the farmers around Grand Island, Nebraska. However, wide variations in climate, soil, agricultural procedures, and genetic characteristics of seed led to wide variations in the sugar content of beets; therefore, it became one of the prime tasks of the experiment station to determine if Nebraska-grown beets were rich enough in sugar to warrant a sugar factory. Professor Lloyd analyzed beets from the Grand Island trial crop in 1888 and reported a favorable outlook to the state board of agriculture. Director Nicholson and she then planned systematic experiments for the seasons of 1889,1890, and 1891, and since the Nebraska station had no agriculturist a t first. the two chemists assumed the entire direction of the project (l4,15). Thev arraneed for exnerimental olots to be olanted at new substations ationveniedt distances on the state's railroad l i e s and sought to enlist the cooperation of as many farmers as possible. Four varieties of beet seed were used, some donated by the United States Department of Agriculture, whose chief chemist, Harvey W. Wiley, was an enthusiastic promoter of heet culture in this countrv. Field aeents and farmers re" sponded by providing beet samples and returning questionnaires..eivine details on seed. acreaee. - . climatic conditions.. soil.. agricultural procedures, casts, and yields per acre to Professor Lloyd.
'
Charles F. Mabery (1850-1927, B.S., DSc. 1876,1881Harvard, with J. P. Cooke) developed the Harvard Summer School and was a facultvmember at Case Institute of Technoiw 1883-1911, where he built up the chemistry department and published important studies on Detroleum chemistrv. in her charmmg account of vls#tsto leadmg European universities In 1887. Helen M chael (3)louna the Unlverslty of Zurich "crowded' wlm women sfuaenls No other unlversry would admd women PhD chemistry students, although professors could allow women to work in their private laboratories. We are indebted to Drs. N. H. Cromwell, J. J. Scholz, and J. G. Svoboda (UniversityArchivist) for copies of documents from the Nebraska Archives. rlenry N cholson (1850-1940. A M Lawrence 1874. wlth studnes at Haward, Berl~n.and Headelberg)was professor of chemistry at Neoraska and ater a consulting mlnmg an0 tnduslrtal englneer
Volume 59
Number 9 September 1982
743
Professor Lloyd, with the help of several naid assistants drawn from und&aduateand graduate students, analyzed beets from each l(xntiun from Aupust thruurh mid-Yovemher. She determined percent of sucrose by weight in beets a t the early stage of growth; later analyses on the expressed juice provided specific gravity, total solids, percent of sucrose, percent of reducing sugars (by Fehling's solution), and the impurtant factor, coefficient of purity-the percent of sugar in total solids-which indicated the ease with which the white sugar could be refined. Although, as the sugar chemist C. A. Browne l a t h noted (16),sugar analysis in the late 1800's was limited to determination of density, specific rotation, and reducing power, sugar chemists had well-standardized methods. Dr. Llovd undouhtedly used a procedure similar to that used in the ~atsonville, California, plant: digestion of the beet pulp from the cored sample, clarification of the liquid by hasic lead acetate, and "polarization" of the filtrate. A "first class" ~olarimetercould then be obtained for $300 (17). About 700 analyses (exhaustively tabulated) in the first two years with over 2000 farmers cooperating showed that, in 1889, 31 percent of the beets possessed a sugar content of 12 percent (the percentage necessary for a profit). With increased experience on the nart of the farmers. 72 Dercent of the beets contained adequate sugar during the seiond year with a high degree of purity indicated. The farmers also demonstrated satisfactory yields and costa per acre. At this time the Federal Congress, realizing that the beet sugar industry could become national in scope, appropriated federal money in 1889 for bounties to farmers and Drocessors and to subsihize purchase of high quality ~ u r o ~ e aseed n ~~
~~
I"\
(1).
These favorable results influenced the Oxnard brothers, Henry, Benjamin, Rohert, and James, who were sugar technologists and refiners with experience in France and the United States, to build the nation's third successful beet s w a r factory in Grand Island in 1890, and a year later a simzar factory in Norfolk, Nehraska, was built (13). Continued intensive examination of the data accumulated by the two station chemists over 75,000 square miles of the state, and abundant comparisons with conditions described in European journals gave important information on the development of the sugar, improvements through better seed and agricultural procedures, food value of the by-products for stock-feed, effects of storage, and many otherpoints in heet culture (15, 18). Their results indicated that with careful farming, beets rich in sugar (averaxing 13.5%)could be profitably p r o w in any part of thestate in Nebraskn'scool climate and rich, mellow soil, and that favorahle costa ($30 per acre) and yields (15 tons per acre) could "bring sugar capital into the state." Nirholsun and other scientists at the station con-
744
Journal of Chemical Education
tinued research on beet culture for decades, publishing twelve bulletins in the "Sugar Beet Series" by 1903. The Oxnard brothers built a third plant in Leavitt, Nebraska, in 1899, and in the ensuing years many more heet sugar factories arose in Nebraska. In 1977 Nehraska ranked eighth in the nation in heet sugar production with well over one million tons of sugar and a monetary value of almost thirty-seven million dollars (19),impressive fruition of the labors of Nebraska's two chemists in the first vears of the agricultural experiment station. Professor Lloyd continued as assistant chemist a t the experiment station through 1891, and as full professor a t the university until 1894 when she resimed because of ill health. She diedat Beverly, N. J., May 7, i900. Mahery wrote movingly of Professor Lloyd's great ability, her remarkahle energy, and forceful character. Attractive in personality, cultured in manner, broadened by her travels, sympathetic in nature, she contributed much to her profession. In a memorial lecture at the university after her death, Acting Chancellor Charles E. Bessey, a distinguished botanist and former colleague at the experiment station, said: "She was not only an eminent chemist, she was a great teacher, and more than that, she was the beloved advisor and counselor of students" (2). Literature Cited (1) Mabery, C. F. end Lloyd, Rachel. A m r Chem J., 3,124 (1881): 4.92 (1882); 6,157 were pohhhed in p r e h i i n w form in the I f o c Am,. Amd. M a Md (lwk r i r
*
(21 Mabery, C. F., "Obituary,"J Amer Chem. Sor,Pmceod;ga,JS,s4 (1901). (3) Michael, Helen A b b a t ,"studiesi" Plant and OrganieChmiitryandIr-Papera," Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass.,1901,pp. 2687. (4) Lloyd. Rachel. Ber, 20.1254 (1887): Nebrosko Univ Studies. I, 97 (1888). (5) Ksuffman, G. B. and Pliebe, P. M., J. C H m . EDUC., 56,503 (1979). (6) Letter, Rachel Lloyd toProfessor H. H. Nieholsan. DirectorofChemiealLeboratory, April 26, 1887: minutes of Nebraska Board of Regents. April 8. 1887: University of Nebraska Archives. (7) "Fourth Annual Report of the Agricultural Experiment Station of Nebrash, H.H. Neholson, Diredor,nJanuary29, 1891. Experiment StationRulleti 13,April. 1890, Lincnh, Nebraska. (8) Letter, J. G.S v o b d a t e DST, October 2, l9sO (9) "The University of NebraakaCatalagand&giater, 1888-1889," Linmlo.pp. 5960. (10) "University of Nebraska Calendar, 18961897," Linmln, p 14. "American Men of Science," 4th Ed. 1927:"Who Was Who in America," vol. 1. (11) U n i M Ststes Beet Sugar Association, '"TheB e t Sugar Sfory," Wsshibton. D. C.. 1959,especially pp. 1P19. (12) Arrington, L. J., "Beet Sugar inthe West," University of Washington Pms.Seattle. 1966. (18) MeCinnh,R. A,, (Editor). " ~ t - S u ~ T ~ h n o l o g y ~ R e i n h o l d P v b l i s h i n g C o r p . . N ~ York. 1951,pp. 15-29. (14) Nicholson, H. H., "Fifth Annual Report of the Agricultural Experiment Station of Nebraska, Drember 31.1891," Lineoln.Nebra&a. (15) Nicholson, H. H.. and Lloyd. Rachel, "Experiment. in thcCvltureofthe Sugar Beat in Nebraska," Bulletin 21. March 1892, Nebraska Erpriment Station. Lincoln. Nebraska. (18) Broame,C.A.,and Zerban,F. W.,"Ph~icalandChhi~MethodaofS~garhalyais~ 3rd Ed., Wiley, 1941, p. ix in "Prefaceto 1st Edition, 1912,"sr.d pasaim. (17) Arrington.p.7. (18) Anon. "Sixth Annual Raport of the Agrievltural Ew.im.imt Station of Nebrda," Linmln, 1892. (19) U. S. Department of Agriculture, "ASriedtural Statitim 1979." Weshinmn, 1919, P. 78.
