Creating Networks in Chemistry The Founding and Early History of Chemical Societies in Europe PDF
Preview Creating Networks in Chemistry The Founding and Early History of Chemical Societies in Europe
Creating Networks in Chemistry The Founding and Early History of Chemical Societies in Europe Science History Tours Naperville,IL,USA Director: Yvonne Twomey Science History Tours is a non-profit organization promoting education inthe history ofscience. Creating Networks in Chemistry The Founding and Early History of Chemical Societies in Europe Edited by Anita Kildebæk Nielsen Center for Electron Nanoscopy, Technical University of Denmark, Denmark Sonˇa Sˇ trba´nˇ ova´ Institute of Contemporary History, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague, Czech Republic SpecialPublicationNo.313 ISBN:978-0-85404-279-1 AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary rTheRoyalSocietyofChemistry2008 Allrightsreserved Apartfromanyfairdealingforthepurposeofresearchorprivatestudyfornon-commercial purposes,orcriticismorreviewaspermittedunderthetermsoftheUKCopyright,Designs and Patents Act 1988 and the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003, this publication may not be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, withoutthepriorpermissioninwritingofTheRoyalSocietyofChemistryorthecopyright owner,orinthecaseofreprographicreproductiononlyinaccordancewiththetermsofthe licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency in the UK, or in accordance with the termsofthelicencesissuedbytheappropriateReproductionRightsOrganizationoutside theUK.Enquiriesconcerningreproductionoutsidethetermsstatedhereshouldbesentto TheRoyalSocietyofChemistryattheaddressprintedonthispage. PublishedbyTheRoyalSocietyofChemistry, ThomasGrahamHouse,SciencePark,MiltonRoad, CambridgeCB40WF,UK RegisteredCharityNumber207890 Forfurtherinformationseeourwebsiteatwww.rsc.org Preface Background Each book has its history. At the cradle of this one stood two associations of historians of science, two meetings and many enthusiastic people. ThefirstassociationtobementionedistheWorkingPartyontheHistoryof Chemistry of the European Association for Chemical and Molecular Sciences,1 which has been joining together history groups of the European national chemical societies and many individuals – professionals and lay historians of chemistry–notonlyfromEuropebutalsofromoverseas.Sinceitsconstitution in 1976, it has organized numerous meetings and coordinated many other activitiescatalysingresearchintotheEuropeanandworldhistoryofchemistry. Theestablishmentoftheother,youngerinstitution–theEuropeanSocietyfor theHistoryofScience2–in2003hasbecomeamomentouspointofdeparturein bringing together the European historians of science. It was at its first conference‘‘ScienceinEurope–EuropeinScience’’inMaastrichtinNovember 2004 where the idea of this book started to bud and where approximately 100 scholars met face-to-face for the first time, including the two editors of this book.They bothreported about chemical societies atthemeeting;while Anita Kildebæk Nielsen focused on creation of disciplinary associations as part of their social demarcation, Sonˇa Sˇtrba´nˇova´ was more oriented towards the disciplinary and intellectual context of their establishment and functioning in the international networks. In our conversations during the lunch breaks we realizedhowmanypuzzlingproblemshavebeenconnectedwithearlydevelop- ment of the European chemical societies and scientific societies in general. Eventuallyweagreedthatinordertofindsolutionsandexplanationsweshould organize a workshop on this topic which would attract other colleagues into 1FormerWorkingPartyontheHistoryofChemistryofTheFederationoftheEuropeanChemical Societies.Fordetailsseehttp://www.euchems.org/Divisions/History/index.asp 2Seehttp://www.eshs.org CreatingNetworksinChemistry:TheFoundingandEarlyHistoryofChemicalSocietiesinEurope EditedbyAnitaKildebækNielsenandSonˇaSˇtrba´nˇova´ rTheRoyalSocietyofChemistry2008 v vi Preface such studies. As a good opportunity for calling the workshop, the upcoming FifthInternationalConferenceontheHistoryofChemistryinPortugalin2005, organized by the Working Party of History of Chemistry, was the obvious suggestion. While still in Maastricht, we explained our idea to Professor Ernst Homburg, chairman of the Working Party, who readily accepted our project and has personally supported it ever since. And this is how everything started. The Estoril Workshop and the Common Framework of the Workshop The Fifth InternationalConference on theHistory ofChemistrytook place in Estoril and Lisbon on 6th–10th September 2005 with the title ‘‘Chemistry, Technology and Society’’. The satellite workshop, which we decided to call ‘‘European Chemical Societies – Comparative Analyses of Demarcations’’, materialized on 6th September in Estoril before the official start of the conference, enjoying the full support of the efficient Portuguese organizers. The aim of the workshop was to show the establishment and early develop- mentoftheEuropeanchemicalsocietiesintheperioduptotheFirstWorldWar. In the directions to the potential speakers, we laid down a common set of questionstobeappliedforthedescriptionandanalysisoftheindividualsocieties. These guidelines, as we hoped, helped to focus on certain problems and in the long run enabled trans-national comparisons of the circumstances in which the societies were constituted and functioned (See box at the end of the Preface). An initial source of inspiration was the concept of ‘‘boundary-work’’ as formulated by the sociologist Thomas Gieryn.3 Through his concept the establishmentsofascientificsociety,inourcaseachemicalsociety,canbeseen asa part of professionalization of chemistry asa discipline, a processthat also included other aspects such as implementing advanced instruction and specia- lized research, rigorous control of competence through standardized examina- tions and establishment of predictable careers. One very important aspect was the formation of a professional autonomy that separated the professional chemists from amateurs and from practitioners of other scientific disciplines. Thechemicalsocietiesprovidedoneoftheimportantinstitutionalbasesforthis formingofdisciplinaryunity.Theinstitutionalandculturalsurroundingshelped to form a specialized self-consciousness and a unique social identity. Afocalquestionweweregoingtoaskintheworkshopwaswhatwecanlearn about the process of professionalization of chemistry by studying the emer- gence of chemical societies in various European countries and their further development in the period before the First World War. In particular, it has beenourambitiontoexploreinacomparativewaytheprocessofdemarcation that inevitably takes place when a social institution of a scientific discipline is formed. Expansion, monopolization and protection of authority are three 3T.F.Gieryn(1983),‘‘Boundary-WorkandtheDemarcationofSciencefromNon-Science:Strains andInterestsinProfessionalIdeologiesofScientists’’,AmericanSociologicalReview48,781–795. Preface vii importantfeaturesoftheprocessofprofessionalizationofascientificdiscipline. In the demarcation of the chemical societies, the European chemists were forcedtomakeexplicittheirtacitassumptionsofwhatchemistrywasandwhat itwasnot.Withfocusontheseso-calledboundary-worksonecanreassessthe professionalization of European chemistry in the nineteenth century as it evolved through the ideologies formulated in the chemical societies. The terminology has been applied to different degrees in the different chapters, and other important angles ofanalysis werediscovered as theproject evolved, making the perspectives of the book more wide-ranged. Theinitial,over-ambitiousideawastoincludethechemicalsocietiesofmost, if not all, European countries. However, due to other obligations, lack of sourcematerialorshortnoticeoftheworkshop,wehadtosettleonaselection of countries. We were lucky enough to arouse the interest of a number of historians of science who were willing to elaborate the early history of one or more societies of chemists in a particular country. Those who came to Estoril certainly constituted an impressive group of internationally recognized scho- lars, as the list of contents bears witness. We understoodfrom the very beginning of this project that the materialsof the workshop should be disseminated in some manner. We felt the great responsibility of such a job as valuable historical material on the different chemical societies in Europe transcending the initial ‘‘demarcation topic’’ was gatheredfortheworkshop.Itcontaineddataonthecircumstancesinwhichthe societies were constituted and functioned, their relations with universities and chemical industry, international contacts, etc. During the workshop the participants and observers also discussed the understanding of chemistry as a discipline in the latter half of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century and the roles scientific societies played in the political and cultural environmentofthevariouscountries.Thiswaytheoriginalideaofacompara- tive analysis of demarcations grew into a much more extensive elaboration of thefoundationandearlyhistoryofthechemicalsocietiesinEuropetreatingthe issue of demarcation as one of the important problems. Whenwedeliberatedaboutthepossibleproductoftheworkshopwecameto the decision that such a wealth of material might enable us to prepare not simple proceedings, but rather a book on European chemical societies with uniformlystructuredchaptersandanextensivefinalpartwhereananalysisand comparison across the geographical idea would be made. We were happy to announce at the workshop that the publishing house of The Royal Society of Chemistry was willing to accept this task. Forerunners Thereexistnumerousanalysesofdifferentaspectsofthehistoryofchemistryin theEuropeancountriesandsomeofthemhaveconsideredatleastperipherally the history of the chemical societies.4 4Thereaderwillfindthereferencesintheindividualchapters. viii Preface Figure1 TitlepageofBolton’sbrochureonchemicalsocieties.Thecopyisdedicated totheCzechchemistBohuslavBrauner,Bolton’sfriend,whohelpedBolton togathersomedata. In 1902, the American chemist and historian of chemistry H. C. Bolton publishedathinbrochureasanattempttoproduceanoverviewonallchemical societiesintheworldthatexistedin1900.5Hismotivationwasthe‘‘beginning of the new century [which] affords an opportune period for chronicling the progressofchemistryasshownbytheorganizationsformedtofosteritsstudy and to stimulate its adherents’’.6 The statistical data in the booklet (seat and date of founding, name of president and membership in 1900, serial publica- tionsandremarks)Boltoncollectedchieflybycorrespondencewiththeofficers of the societies. In the booklet, however, several countries and societies had been left out, and the contents were strictly descriptive (Figure 1). 5H.C.Bolton,ChemicalSocietiesoftheNineteenthCentury,SmithsonianInstitution,Washington, 1902. 6Ibid.,p.1. Preface ix Anotherimportantpieceofliteraturethatshouldbementionedisacollected workbyDavidKnightandHelgeKragh.AspartofalargeEuropeanScience Foundationprojectonthehistoryofchemistry,thetwohistorianspublishedan anthologywithchapterson thesocialhistoryofchemistry inEuropefromthe FrenchrevolutiontotheFirstWorldWar,entitledTheMakingoftheChemist.7 The book comprises chapters on many of the same countries covered in this volume, and some of them also deal in part with the creation of national chemical societies. As the focus in The Making of the Chemist is more general we recommend seeking further information on the national scenes in that publication.Notallcountriesrepresentedinourvolumeare,however,included in that treatise and it is our belief that by applying different perspectives, the two publications, that is The Making of the Chemist and the one we are presenting here, will supplement each other. In any case, we suppose that our book, which deals in such a complex way with the emergence and functioning of scientific societies, has no predecessors. Contents of the Book Wehavechosentheyear1914asanaturalhistoricalboundarythatchangedto alargeextentnotonlytheconceptofsciencebutalsoEuropeassuchinavery complex way. However, this ‘‘final’’ date was not considered dogma in some instances (e.g. Portugal or Poland) where the delayed establishment of a national chemical society or other reasons justified the extended time limit of the narrative in certain chapters. As already mentioned, we have attempted to make as consistent as possible thestructureoftheindividualchaptersbecauseonlysuchanapproachenables trans-national analysis and comparisons.The guidelines we elaborated for the authorsareshownintheBoxandwemustunderlinethatallauthorsdidtheir best to comply with the task. Even so, however, the attentive reader may find substantial differences in how the authors coped with their chapters. In fact, this is what we would expect dealing with strong, independent individualities andlocal histories whose circumstancesdiffered somuchandrequiredspecific approaches.Weshouldalsokeepinmindthattherehavebeengreatvariations insourcesavailableforthedifferentcountriesandsocieties.Somesocietieshave keptextensivearchivesandsomehavenotorthearchiveshavebeenlostinthe course of time. Some societies have already published books on their history and some have not. For some countries there already existed materials elaborated in English, German or French, but in some cases the chapter in our book is the very first presentation of the history of a national chemical society in a language intelligible to most readers. The bottom line, though, is the commitment to the guidelines; therefore all chapters have been written in numerouseditionsinordertofittheframeworkandfacilitatetheinternational comparison. In consequence we are able to present fourteen chapters 7D. Knight and H. Kragh (eds.), The Making of the Chemist, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,1998.
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