00:00:00 Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday Dr. Beckman, happy birthday

00:00:28 to you.

00:00:50 The Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center for the History of Chemistry, popularly known as the

00:00:55 Beckman Center, is a joint endeavor of the American Chemical Society, the American Institute

00:01:01 of Chemical Engineers, and the University of Pennsylvania. The Beckman Center was established

00:01:08 in 1982 to discover and disseminate information about historical resources and to encourage

00:01:15 research, scholarship, and popular writing in the history of chemistry, chemical engineering,

00:01:21 and the chemical process industries. The Beckman Center developed out of a growing

00:01:27 awareness that our chemical heritage must be preserved and made known for the benefit

00:01:32 of future generations. The Center strives to increase the public's understanding of

00:01:38 the contributions of the chemical sciences to society. The existence of the Edgar Foss

00:01:44 Smith Collection and the strength of its Department of History and Sociology of Science make the

00:01:50 University of Pennsylvania an ideal location for the Center.

00:02:03 The Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center for the History of Chemistry overlooks Philadelphia

00:02:08 from its location at 3401 Walnut Street in a modern building in the heart of the University

00:02:14 of Pennsylvania campus. Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley are the cradle of American

00:02:20 chemical sciences and industry and a leading center of today's research and manufacture.

00:02:33 A true Renaissance man, the noted California industrialist, inventor, academic, engineer,

00:02:39 and philanthropist who endowed the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center for the History of

00:02:44 Chemistry through a $2 million challenge grant in 1987, became interested in chemistry at

00:02:50 the age of nine when he read Steele's Fourteen Weeks in Chemistry, a book he found in his

00:02:56 family's attic in the little town of Cullom, Illinois. The path to becoming a chemist from

00:03:02 that early exposure and the little laboratory his father built him was a curious one.

00:03:08 Giving him a breadth of experience and interest that have made him a true citizen chemist.

00:03:16 Arnold Beckman started his career by working as an analytical chemist for a gas works and

00:03:22 for an iron and steel works based on chemistry he'd learned as a precocious high school student.

00:03:28 He also worked variously as a pianist in movie theaters and in jazz clubs. At the age of

00:03:34 18, he joined the Marines for the duration of America's brief participation in World War I.

00:03:40 Afterwards, he traveled across country with a friend to savor some of the last days of the

00:03:46 Wild West. Then he enrolled at the University of Illinois, already a mecca for chemists,

00:03:52 and upon completion of his bachelor's degree there, moved to Caltech for graduate work.

00:03:59 He interrupted his graduate studies at Caltech to return to New York to claim the girl he'd met

00:04:05 during his stint in the Marines, Mabel S. Meinzer. In New York, he was for a short while a

00:04:11 statistician for Bell Laboratories, where he had a chance to hear about the new electronic

00:04:17 technology of vacuum tubes. Lured back to Caltech by his former professor, Arthur Noyes,

00:04:24 he graduated within two years and was invited to join the faculty. Although he was always

00:04:30 known for his ability to rig up chemical and electrical apparatus, the research assistant

00:04:36 every professor wanted, his career as a chemical instrument entrepreneur didn't start until

00:04:42 1935, and at that, seemingly quite by chance. His college friend, Glenn Joseph, needed a

00:04:49 sturdier instrument to test the acidity of lemon juice. Arnold Beckman came up with the

00:04:58 bright idea of using a vacuum tube to measure the passage of electricity due to the migration

00:05:04 of positive and negative ions in solution, the very first Beckman pH meter. Though 1935

00:05:11 was scarcely a promising year to start an enterprise, start he did. The pH meter was

00:05:18 followed in 1941 by Beckman's photoelectric spectrophotometer, the DU. Beckman instruments

00:05:26 are now omnipresent in laboratories everywhere, and they continue to be state of the art.

00:05:33 The Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center for the History of Chemistry offers a wide range of

00:05:43 scholarly and public outreach services, which includes a program of oral histories on major

00:05:49 developments in the modern chemical sciences, preserving historical manuscripts and archival

00:05:55 records on behalf of individuals, trade associations, and companies, publishing resource guides

00:06:02 and historical materials, creating traveling exhibits, and holding conferences, workshops,

00:06:09 and lectures. Today, the Beckman Center has a staff of 20, which includes historians of

00:06:16 science, researchers, and administrative personnel. The Beckman Center operates an extensive

00:06:24 series of publications, including Beckman Center News, a widely quoted newsletter, which

00:06:31 goes out three times a year to 20,000 science journalists, historians, policy makers, school

00:06:37 teachers, chemical scientists, and industrialists, exhibit catalogs, resource guides and technical

00:06:45 pamphlets, and informational brochures. Peter Morris's The American Synthetic Rubber Research

00:06:53 Program is the first book in the series The Chemical Sciences in Society, which the center

00:06:59 is sponsoring with the University of Pennsylvania Press. The Beckman Center develops traveling

00:07:05 exhibits, such as Polymers in People, Scaling Up, Structures of Life, and Joseph Priestley,

00:07:12 Enlightened Chemist, which tour nationwide to schools, museums, and science centers.

00:07:18 These exhibits are accompanied by texts and brochures, which are used in schools and in

00:07:24 formal education. The center also has an exhibit booth, which travels to professional, national,

00:07:30 and regional conferences and trade shows. The center has an extensive oral history program,

00:07:40 with over 80 completed oral histories of leading chemists, engineers, and industrialists, from

00:07:46 Ray Boundy, Carl Geraci, Carol Hochfalt, and Hoyt Hottle, to C.S. Speed Marvel, Mac Pruitt,

00:07:54 and Max Tischler. The center houses manuscript and pictorial collections, which attract a growing

00:08:02 number of media inquiries and scholars from around the globe. Complementing these archival

00:08:08 holdings is the emerging Othmer Library of Chemical History, whose nucleus was formed with the

00:08:14 generous donation of 40,000 volumes from the Chemists Club in New York, which spanned the era

00:08:20 of the Civil War through World War II. The Othmer Library promises to be the premier

00:08:26 library facility in the history of the chemical sciences.

00:08:32 The center organizes public lectures and educational outreach programs, including an informal

00:08:38 conversazione series, departmental workshops, and brown bag luncheons.

00:08:44 The center also sponsors major symposia on subjects such as chemical instrumentation,

00:08:50 molecular biology and biotechnology, and the interaction of chemical history and policy,

00:08:56 which feature Nobel Prize winners and key representatives from industry and academe.

00:09:06 As the academic and program arm of the National Foundation for History of Chemistry, the Arnold

00:09:12 and Mabel Beckman Center for the History of Chemistry is committed to promoting a better

00:09:18 understanding of the chemical sciences by recording and communicating the remarkable story of

00:09:24 chemical achievement. The center's activities earn it worldwide support, both financial and

00:09:30 in-kind, from individuals in more than 40 states and several foreign countries, from chemical

00:09:36 companies, and from foundations. The center's efforts also meet with wide acceptance from

00:09:42 throughout the chemical community. In addition to the two founding organizations,

00:09:48 the American Chemical Society and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, the center

00:09:54 enjoys the endorsement and support of the following affiliated societies.

00:10:00 The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, the Chemists Club,

00:10:06 the Electrochemical Society, Incorporated, the American Society for Mass Spectrometry,

00:10:14 the American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists, the Société de Chimie Industrielle,

00:10:20 American Section, the American Association of Clinical Chemistry, Incorporated,

00:10:26 and Alpha Chi Sigma Fraternity. Presidents and past presidents of these associations,

00:10:34 and past and present chief executive officers of chemical companies, serve on the board of

00:10:40 directors of the National Foundation for History of Chemistry, the advisory board, and the Council of Friends.

00:10:46 The Beckman Center is open to the public between 8.30 a.m. and 5.30 p.m.,

00:10:52 Monday through Friday. We welcome researchers, undergraduate and graduate students,

00:10:58 or anyone interested in the history of chemistry, chemical engineering, and the chemical process industries.

00:11:04 As a reference resource center, the Beckman Center handles inquiries by phone,

00:11:10 mail, or in person. The center also makes available small travel grants to encourage

00:11:16 the use of its facilities and affiliated resources.

00:11:20 So come visit us, and together, let us explore our rich chemical heritage.

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