12 July 2002

Amateur Science, 1900-1950: A Historical Overview (With Emphasis on Amateur Chemistry)

by Norm Stanley

Editor's Note: The following article was written for presentation at the First Annual Citizen Science Conference last June. Norm was unable to attend, so we are publishing his paper here. -SG

Science, as we know it today, would not be what it is without the contributions of amateurs. In fact I think it not too brash a statement to assert that basic science and what we know as the scientific method was largely developed by amateurs. From alchemists in search of the Philosophers' Stone to monks investigating Nature in pea gardens to the gentlemen amateurs of the seventeenth century on, they were developing the experimental/observational/hypothetical approach of modern science. True, with the passage of time the role of the amateur, working independently, has diminished as experimental techniques became highly sophisticated and string and sealing wax no longer sufficed for doing cutting-edge science. Despite vicissitudes, amateur or recreational science remains healthy today, as witness the present gathering.

In Victorian times, and likely earlier, school boys (girls seem not to have been mentioned) studied the science of the day and often carried out their own "see for yourself" experiments. Thomas Hughes' classic novel of English Public School life, Tom Brown's School Days has an amusing episode involving a minor explosion set off by one of the lads. Better known is the story of William Henry Perkin who, at the age of eighteen, synthesized mauveine, the first synthetic dye, in his home laboratory (Never mind that he was trying to synthesize quinineĞan achievement that was not realized until a century later). And we all know the story of young Thomas Edison and his laboratory in a railroad car. Also from this era I'd like to mention a quaintly illustrated British book entitled, as I recall, The Boys' Playbook of Science. This featured recipes for chemical demonstrations (some quite risky), telegraphy (the Brits used a system quite different from that of Morse), photography (no PolaroidTM back then), "Limelight" (then in use for stage illumination), along with advice for boys preparing for a military career on the proper sword to buy!

On this side of the pond, Scientific American, established in 1845, became a source of much practical scientific information for the tinkerer and aspiring inventor. Long before "The Backyard Astronomer", it frequently featured experiments that the amateur could perform. (One such was a demonstration that a rapidly rotating paper disk could saw a wooden pencil in half.) A page of classified advertisements served as a forum for cranks hawking pamphlets describing their paradigm-busting mathematical and scientific breakthroughs. Popular Mechanics and Popular Science offered similar editorial material. Following in this tradition, a latecomer, Modern Mechanics and Inventions (presently Modern Mechanix) appeared in the late twenties. Along about 1934 it published an article about a 14 year old electrical wizard named Franklin E. Lee and his garage laboratory which was protected by a network of electrically-charged wires to keep trespassers at bay. Over the years that name became well known as the founder of Morris and Lee, makers of low-cost scientific apparatus for the amateur. Around the turn of the century the accomplishments of Edison, Marconi, and Tesla inspired amateur electrical experimentation. In this area Harper's Electricity Book for Boys (1907) was a bible for the amateur. Undoubtedly the credit for being a sparkplug goes to Hugo Gernsback (1882-1967), a native of Lichtenstein. In his autobiography (Radio-Craft, March 1958) he claimed that at age 15 he designed and installed an elaborate electric bell system in a local convent (it required a dispensation from the Vatican to permit him entry!). At age 20 he emigrated to the United States and set up the Electro Importing Company in New York City. Relying on his European contacts he imported electrical apparatus not readily available in the States, offering this and items of his own design through his catalogs. Among the latter was a Marconi-type wireless transmitter and receiver, mounted (literally) on two breadboards. This invited a visit by the New York Police on the suspicion that he was perpetrating a fraud. Gernsback's real forte, however, was magazine publishing in the electrical and radio field, starting with Modern Electrics (1908). This became the legendary Electrical Experimenter (later, Science and Invention). In 1929 Gernsback lost control of his magazines through bankruptcy, but immediately bounced back with a new stable of publications, among them Radio-Craft (ancestor of the present-day Poptronics) and Everyday Mechanics, soon renamed Everyday Science and Mechanics. In the mid-thirties Gernsback sold this title, along with his science fiction magazines. Renamed again as Science and Mechanics, it featured little or no material for the experimenter. Joseph H. Kraus, former editor of Everyday Science and Mechanics, started a new publication, Mechanics and Handicrafts, which continued the hands-on editorial policy of the former.

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Amateur biology got a boost in the early thirties when Bausch & Lomb marketed a high quality but low cost microscope for the student or amateur. Microscopy flourished as a hobby, apparently inspired to some extent by this. Gernsback capitalized on this with a digest-sized magazine, Practical Microscopy.

Although these magazines were oriented more toward electrical and mechanical tinkerers than to chemists, they did publish some chemical articles. Most notable was a series of articles by Raymond B. Wailes, a prolific writer for the science magazines. These appeared monthly in Popular Science for several years during the 1930s. This material was later adapted for a book, The Home Chemist, by Wailes. There were, however, two letter-press chemistry magazines that I know of. Popular Chemistry was published throughout the 1920s. The other was The Home Laboratory Journal, a slim pamphlet sponsored by A. Daigger & Co., a Chicago laboratory supply house. This was published from 1933 to 1936, at the height of the Great Depression, and presumably was intended to drum up business for Daigger. Edited by M. Woldenberg, Ph.D., it published some excellent material, some quite sophisticated (preparing diethyl zinc, for example). The company is still in business and run by the Woldenberg family. The American Chemical Society's Journal of Chemical Education carried articles on chemical demonstrations and the like of interest to advanced amateurs.

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In addition to Wailes, two other writers provided guides for the amateur chemist. Raymond Francis Yates authored a handbook, How to Make and Use a Home Chemical Laboratory. A. Frederick Collins was a prolific author of popular books on a variety of scientific subjects. One of these was Experimental Chemistry.

Chemistry sets were (and I suspect still are) a common means of entry for the budding chemist to get involved in "doing chemistry". Chemist John J. Porter founded Porter Chemical Company of Hagerstown, Maryland in 1914 to make chemistry sets under the trade name "Chemcraft". The company regularly ran advertisements in American Boy and elsewhere offering a sure 'nuf ChemcraftTM chemistry set by mail order for 25 cents. For this sum what you got was a small box containing envelopes of chemicals bearing awesome names such as "sodium ferrocyanide" and "ferric ammonium sulphate", along with a tiny measuring spoon and a brief manual describing how to turn water into wine, make your own writing ink, and the like. Best of all, though, was the Porter catalog offering larger sets as well as individual chemicals and labware items and tutorial information on elementary chemistry. To promote the sets, Porter sponsored Chemcraft Chemists Clubs with a slim magazine featuring club news, fiction, experiments, and Porter ads. Typically, the implicit assumption was that boys were the market for chemistry sets; for the girls Porter offered "Sachetcraft" for the amateur perfumer (not to denigrate the highly technical art of perfumery). In 1961 Porter was sold to Lionel Toy Corporation. By that time it had sold an estimated one million Chemcraft sets. Many professional chemists have testified that their childhood experiences with these and the Gilbert sets provided the motivation to choose a chemical career..

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A. C. Gilbert of "Erector Set" fame also had a line of chemistry sets, with the reagents neatly packaged in turned wooden boxes. I also recall as a kid having seen a Gilbert Hydraulic Engineering set in a store window, and priced beyond my meager allowance. And let's not forget the battery-powered Gilbert Electric Motor, used to power Erector Set models. Its open-frame construction was designed to allow it to be easily taken apart and reassembled. When removed, the field assembly served as a powerful electromagnet. As a 10 year old kid I was baffled for quite some time as to how to make the motor reversible.

Kem-Kit Chemical Corporation put out a set which differed from the others in that the reagents were solutions put up in 2-oz. glass bottles. The manual was directed more to experiments in chemical analysis than to the magic tricks of the more popular sets. Kem-Kit also sold a kit of glassware for the organic laboratory, as well as a comprehensive line of apparatus and reagents. A search of the Internet revealed that the Kem-Kit name is still attached to kits supplied to organic chemistry students, although the original company seems to be long gone.

Chemistry sets are still sold in toy stores, but the experiments that can be done with them are pretty tame compared to what could be done with the old-time sets. Apparently their makers are fearful of damage suits arising from misuse of their products.

The depression years of the 1930s spawned an interesting social development among amateur chemists: Dissatisfied with the meager amount of chemistry appearing in the newsstand magazines, they started publishing their own. A certain parallel exists here with the science fiction fans of the day who, not getting an adequate "fix" for their craving from the pros, started their own journals of fiction and commentary. The hektograph and mimeograph provided inexpensive ways to get into print.

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The motivations behind these amateur chemistry sheets and their readers were complex. Beyond the basic desire to communicate with others of like mind, some saw home study and experimentation as a way to improve one's financial lot in those difficult times, or even to attain fame and fortune as inventors. In at least two poignant instances that I know of journals were published by individuals who had lost loved ones to cancer, and hoped that amateur research might contribute in some way to the conquest of this and other dread diseases. The readers and contributors to these journals ranged from youngsters just graduated from chemistry sets, to skilled hobbyists, to graduate chemists unable to find employment in a severely depressed job market, to cranks unable to get a hearing in the professional community.

The American Amateur Chemists Society was founded in 1931 by Fred Allen Lankton, a man in his late twenties and a graduate of Michigan State University. In the editorial for the first issue of its pubication, Chemical Digest, Lankton wrote:

"THE CHEMICAL DIGEST is not being published for vercenary [sic] reasons but has been placed into circulation because the Editor is intensely interested in chemistry and believes that there are hundreds of others who desire to know more about this subject but can not obtain the desired information from technical journals or books. The amateur chemist must content himself with a few articles picked up here and there in various mediums and trade magazines, many of which are of a technical nature; consequently very little information can be gained from their pages.

"This small medium does not wish to be of a technical nature, but wishes to conform to a strictly 'amateur policy', to create a desire for creative arguments, for general discussion, delving into amateur theories and hypothesis's [sic], promotion of amateur ability into the commercial field and in general, 'an amateur journal for amateurs."

Initially a weekly journal, it featured meaty issues of ten or more mimeographed pages In mid-1932 Chemical Digest became The Journal of the American Amateur Chemists Association. This was done to avoid confusion with a publication of the same name, published by Foster Dee Snell's chemical consulting firm. Lankton also published magazines aimed at the younger amateurs; Home Chemist and The Junior Chemist; these were sponsored by A.C. Gilbert who placed full-page advertisements in each issue. With the passage of years publication became more sporadic. In an open letter to AACS members in October 1940, Lankton described his tribulations in trying to keep the publication going and in fruitless efforts to obtain outside support from foundations and chemical manufacturers. The AACS and its journal appears to have gone out of existence shortly thereafter.

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Other organizations that were around during this period included the Organic Chemists' Correspondence Club (OCCC) and American Amateur Scientists League (AASL). OCCC appears to have been an informal network of skilled amateur "organikers" . It published a journal, The OCCC Monograph during the mid-thirties. AASL published The Amateur Scientist. By the late thirties a younger group of amateur chemists began to publish journals. A teen-aged Iowan, William Louden, founded Retort. At first a hektographed sheet, it soon became a neatly edited and mimeographed publication. The Louden family were manufacturers of farm equipment, and it appears that young Bill drafted the office secretary to type and mimeograph Retort and other related booklets, including a thick (physically, that is) vade mecum of inorganic preparations and laboratory techniques. Publication ceased in 1939 when Bill moved east to attend MIT. Issues of Retort carried the proceedings of yet another amateur chemists' society, The Twentieth Century Alchemists of America.

Shortly before the demise of Retort, another amateur journal, Crucible, was launched by John Samida, Jr., a 20 year old New Yorker. Neat mimeography on 24-lb. yellow "goldenrod" stock lent it an elegant appearance. Excellent articles by some of John's former classmates at New York's DeWitt Clinton High School plus regulars from AACS and Retort made it a "class act". Subscribers were automatically considered to be members of the "Benzene Ring", an informal group with no activities beyond being readers and contributors. As is frequently the case with amateur publishers, the time required to prepare and mail out their papers quickly becomes burdensome. Such was the case with John Samida, and in mid-1940 publication was suspended.

The Crucible and Benzene Ring names were taken over by Lawrence J. Lange, a part-time student at the University of Chicago and an amateur organic chemist of considerable skill. Lange had ambitious plans to expand the scope of Crucible to encompass an "Organic Chemicals Depot" for the bulk purchase of reagents, and a series of "Benzene Ring Monographs". The Benzene Ring was to become established as an active society, an amateur counterpart to the American Chemical Society. He even proposed awarding amateur "degrees". I dissuaded him from that, pointing out that one thing amateur chemistry didn't need was to be identified with diploma mills.

Lange was greatly disappointed when only a handful of Samida's subscribers responded to his offerings. However by 1940 the social climate of the country had changed. More young people were entering the defense industry or the armed forces; gone were some of the motivations that were behind Lankton's AACS. Although a few of the more active amateurs, including Roland Schmitt (another name later to become well known), expressed interest in writing Monographs, only one, "The Benzoin Condensation", by Lange himself, ever saw print.

Yet another journal, modestly titled Journal of Advanced Chemistry, made its debut in July 1940. Founded in West Virginia by Donald Kulick, Jr. and taken over a year later by Marvin R. Peterson of Chicago, it was more of a success that its predecessors, continuing to appear monthly up to 1942 and boasting a quite respectable circulation of 800. At that time the name was changed to the less grandiose Popular Chemistry. (Peterson was unaware of the previous use of that title.) By then the country was at war, and shortages and restrictions on chemicals and laboratory supplies severely limited the amateur chemist's activities. Publication of Popular Chemistry was suspended "for the duration."

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Nevertheless amateur science continued to be done even under wartime conditions. A number of transitory organizations came and went, among them Amateur Scientists of America (ASA). Its publication, Amateur Scientists' Magazine debuted in 1943. This journal was published by Carlo Sellari, a family man in his mid-thirties. Despite the fact that his formal education ended after the seventh grade, Carlo had largely educated himself by reading and experimenting in the sciences. The magazine was edited initially by Ms. P. M. Mezey, a writer for the New York Times. Following some turmoil in the ASA, the organization was dissolved and its resources devoted to publication of the magazine. It was published quite regularly throughout 1944 and 1945 under the editorship of James A. Moser a former contributer to Peterson's magazine. 1946 saw the magazine's name change to Science Quest with Sellari in the editor's seat. Publication continued until 1950, although at the end the magazine had diminished to a four-page leaflet.

Unlike Lankton, who endeavored to make a career out of his publishing, Louden and the others published as a means of expression and to communicate with other amateurs. There was no rivalry; the appearance of a new journal was always welcomed. Their editors somehow found time for voluminous correspondence with each other and their subscribers.

To end this history on a more upbeat note, much credit should be given to Gernsback Publications and Scientific American for continuing to publish material for experimenters during and following the war. The late forties saw the appearance of huge quantities of surplus war materials on the market. A number of companies sprang up to deal in this electronic and mechanical gear. This was a gold mine for the experimenter, though not so much for the chemistry enthusiast. Heath Company, originally a manufacturer of light airplanes in kit form, started to produce electronic instruments in kit form. Its initial offering, the HeathkitTM oscilloscope, was constructed from surplus components. I still recall the thrill on turning it on and seeing that thin, slightly wobbly, green line appear on the face of the cathode ray tube. And, not least, "Red" Stong's amateur scientist columns, started to appear in Scientific American. But that's another story and another era.