New Directions in the History of the Chemical Sciences and Technologies Mary Ellen Bowden Beckman Center for the History of Chemistry, 3401 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104 Seymour Mauskopf, Conference Organizer History Department, Duke University, Durham, NC 27706 For the first time in history, scholars from many countries have come together to focus specifically on the role the chemical sciences and technologies are playing and have played in molding modern culture, transforming long-standing patterns of production and consumption, influencing warfare, health, art, and human aspirations. A conference on "Chemical Sciences in the Modern World" (May 17-20,1990) sponsored by the Beckman Center for the History of Chemistry (Philadelphia) provided a unique forum to generate new perspectives on the last 150 years of chemical history. At the conference there was a growing realization of the urgency of bringing historical and cultural perspectives into the teaching of chemistry at all levels for prospective chemists and nonchemists alike. "It is without doubt the most eclectic group of scholars that I can remember being joined for the discussion of a single topic", said Edward Arnett of Duke University, one of the commentators a t the conference. The gathering of 60 participants included Nobel laureate Roald Hoffmann of Cornell, modern historian and former provost Fritz Stern of Columbia University, historians of chemistry and of chemical industry from Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Israel, and the United States; college and high school chemistry teachers; E. N. Brandt, historian a t The Dow Chemical Company; Stuart Borman of Chemical Engineering News, and Joseph J. Lagowski and William B. Jensen, editors, res~ectivelv.of the Journal of Chemical Education and of t h ~ ~ u l l e tfor i n the History of Chemistry. Since the ~rofessionalhistorians gave the majority of papers, they tdok stage center, but t o a deeply engaged audience who had read the papers in advance. Like work a t the research front in any discipline, the first expression of new findings in historical research is intended for fellow practitioners. Just as research-front chemistry is made teachable througharticles in the Journal of Chemical Education, textbooks, and laboratory manuals, so, too, historical research has to be made more generally available and understandable. What could he gleaned from the work of the historians? What is the potential for this work to enhance chemistry teaching and encourage the public understanding of chemistry?
Is Chemistry Fundamentally Different from Other Sciences? In considering this issue, chemistry is usually compared with physics and its aim of reducing the phenomena of nature and the laboratory to a grand, unified theoretical structure. Mary Jo Nye of the University of Oklahoma showed how chemistry largely ahandoned the search for such grand theoretical explanation around 1840 when organic chemistry began togrow explosively and could not be so easily reduced. Nevertheless, some chemists continued to seek grand systems. Roald Hoffmann, speakinn from the perspective of a modern theoretical chemibt, suggested that chemists are not so much "discoverers" of the pre-existent, as many physi~
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cists and astronomers would claim to be in their own work, hut creators of the new. Even in understanding- and cowinn .. .. natural processes, the chemist invents novel substances and nathwavs. From a study of the changinn "imane" of the 'chemist" in chemical teitbooks and e&yclopedi& Robert Friedel of the University of Maryland came to a very similar conclusion. As industrialization proceeded, the public image of the chemist changed from analyzer of natural products and discoverer of natural laws to the synthesizer of new materials. On Dolng the Hlstory of lndustrlal Chemistry
T o this day most histories of the chemical industry are organized around products or firms. The best ones focus on the evolution of specific chemical technologies and the economic aspects of chemicals. John K. Smith of Lehigh University essayed a much needed overview of 20th-century American industrial developments structured by the parameters of "need" (market demand for a chemical function), "scale" (the move from small-scale laboratory to large-scale industrial production), and "scope" (the range of products that can be developed out of a particular type of industrial ~rocess).From this model it is evident that Smith sees the science-technology-market relationship as interactive rather than directional from science to the marketplace.
Flaure 1. Gerhard Damaok won the 1939 Nobel Rlze tor Phvslolaav w Meat ns tor me t rst s ~ l f adrug, b n why dla m e I G Faroen chemists fee mey a e m r v d It 1007 C O Y R B S01~ Becrman Center far history of Chemlslry
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The paper hy John Lesch of the University of California, Berkeley, on the "invention" of the first sulfonamide drugs was a complement to Smith's overview. According to him, the invention of the sulfa drugs a t I. G. Farben Industrie in the 1930's was less conventional laboratory research and more "rational engineering" and therefore can he analyzed in the terms of technological change. Lesch also investigated the tensions and the differences in the auoroaches of the biomedical and chemical scientists working on the project. Indeed, the disuutes surroundina the award of the 1939 Nohel Prize for physiology or medicine to Gerhard Domagk (Fig. 1) can he best understood in light of this background, Is Theory Change In Chemistry Stlmulated by Laboratory Data andlor a Product of Soclal Circumstances?
A number of papers addressed in one way or other aschool of thought that holds that scientific knowledee is constructed through social processes essentially independent of empirical data. Yale's Frederic L. Holmes has undertaken a fine-detailed study of the interactions of individual scientists around Justus Liehig (Fig. 2) during the period of the emergence of organic chemistry, 1820-1840. Holmes has seen some aspects of social construction in this story, hut also the role of empirical data. Liebig did in fact see the chemistry of his time as a fight to construct reality: would Liehig or Jean-Baptiste Dumas impose his own theory of chemical radicals and so direct the new field? Then for intellectual reasons thev became allies for a while. Bv" 1840 - - - ~ Liehig had left organic chemistry because i t seemed to have its ownintellectualmomentum that wasout of hiscontrol. In his study of the reform of atomic weights and molecular formulas in the 1850's. Alan Rocke from Case Western Reserve argued for the importance of rationalist and empiricist factors enriched, to be sure, by social factors. Christopher Hamlin of ~ o t r Dame e struck a balance hetween the polarities of rationalism and a social constructionist analysis in his study of the activities of chemists and other scientists to improve the environment of 18- and 19century Britain. The investigation by Penn's Robert Kohler of George Beadle's "science oractice" (1930's and 1940's) focused on the instruments of scientific research. His approach combines a socioloeical framework with a detailed studv of the creative In his very broad definition, the ladoratory
Figure 3. Labwatwy C of the Johns Hopkins Chemical Laboratory insured that all Ira Remsen's students standing at one long bench were indisputably his students. Nde Remsen's own office with adjolnlng bathroom, including tub. Science 1885, 5. 27.
organisms, Drosophila and Neurospora, are taken to he amone the instruments of oroduction. ~ a g o Rahkin v of the university of Montreal also studies instruments hut in more conventional terms. He demonstrated how instruments like the precision balance, the Voltaic uile and the IR snectroscone were not merelv the means of carrying out research agend& but they oftenacted to set agendas. Similarlv. R.P.1.k Thomas Carroll showed how acadimic chemical iaboratory buildings are built to reflect a particular research tradition. For example, in some designs, each professor has his own domain. And the building itself continues for generations to create personal and intellectual fiefdoms (Figs. 3 and 4). The History of Chemlstry and its Relationshipto Chemlsts and Chemlcal Educators
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William Jensen of the Universitv of Cincinnati coeentlv" argued that as scholarship in thd history of science has moved awav from the more straightforward, concent-oriented, chronoiogically organized su;veys repre~ented'b~ Aaron Ihde's The Deue/oprnenr uf Modprn Ch~rnistrvto more soecialized and narrokly focised studies deployed to particular interpretative theses, it has become less meaningful and certainly less coherent foroutsiders, even those with serious historical interests. (Ihde, professor emeritus from the Universitv of Wisconsin and doven of American historians of chemistry, attended the conGrence and was an active participant in debates.) In discussion, the presence of the high school teachers, ~~~
Figure 2. Justus Liebig, a passionate fighter in the chemical wars of the nineteenth century. Courtesy of Liebig Museum. Giesren.
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Journal of Chemical Education
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Figure 4. Perspective drawing of Harvard's anempt (ca. 1911)to preserve ths autonomy of individual professors.The plan provided for a separate building for each specialty and hence each professor.Only Gibbs and Coolidge Laboratories were ever built. (The two buildings at Me left and to rear, if the complex is faced from Wm main gate.) Courtesy of Me Haward University Archives.
with their pressing need for generally understandahle accounts, pushed the entire conference to considering what should he done to bring history of chemistry to wider audiences. Roald Hoffmann advocated reworking scholarly accounts for popular audiences. He pointed to several good "stories" in the papers presented, including one on the passage in the 1950's of the Delaney Laws controlling food additives and toxic substances. John Ihde, a teacher and son of Aaron Ihde, urged the writing of a sequel, as it were, to his father's hook to give a compact historical frame of reference
for students and teachers alike. What was most attractive to the teachers about the work of the historians was the integration they had already achieved between chemistry and its social and cultural context. Several follow-ups to the conference are intended. The papers will he puhlished in hook form to stimulate future research and to encourage incorporation of these and other chemical history topics in secondary and college curricula. And a workshop for high school teachers is being planned for the summer of 1991.
Science and Technology Education: Responsible Change for the 2191 Century The Sixth International Symposium on World Trends in Science and Technology Education will he held August 1222,1991, a t the Wyndham Palm Springs Hotel and Conference Center, Palm Springs, California. IOSTE (International Organization for Science and Technology Education) was established to advance the cause of education in science and technology as a vital part of the general education of the peoples of all countries and to provide scholarly exchange and
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aian,arion. .. .. .. .....
The theme of the forthcoming symposium is Responsible Change for the 21at Century. E s c h a n ~ eand discussions will
be held in the subthemes (or contexts) of science education issues, environmental issues. terhndag). issues, and aorio-
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Submit proposals for presentations as soon as poasihle to: IOSTE 6th Sympasrum Organizer and Chairman, Herbert
K. Brunkhorst. Institute for Science Education, California State University, Sen Bernardinu, 5500 University Parkway. San Hernardino, CA 92407-2397, USA: FAX: (714) 880-5988.
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