Museum helps university celebrate 150 years of chemistry

Like other sciences, chemistry can seem a little cold and detached.

Science and Engineering Librarian Mark Chalmers tries to put a personal face on the subject to help his students at the University of Cincinnati relate to this fundamental discipline.

“Everything in chemistry is named for people: the Aufbau principle, the Bunsen burner, Boyle’s law. I connect with chemistry students by showing them who these people were and the context of the time they lived, whether it was Revolutionary France or having to flee Nazi Germany,” he said.

“These people were making profound scientific contributions against incredible backdrops of history. I try to bring personalities to the people who are just names in textbooks.”

It’s a lesson he learned from writings by the late American chemist Ralph Oesper, whose endowment helped establish the university’s Oesper Collections in the History of Chemistry museum as well as a professorship with help from the Department of Chemistry and UC Libraries.

“We’re a museum, library and portrait and print collection,” said Chalmers, the museum curator.

Tucked in a quiet corner of Rieveschl Hall, the museum boasts a reproduction laboratory from the early 1900s along with antique lab equipment, custom glassware and photographs of chemistry titans like Marie Curie. There is also a library of chemistry books, journals and documents chronicling centuries of discoveries.

Chalmers opened one book the size of a paperback, titled “Pirotechnia” published in 1550.

“This was before chemistry was even used as a word. ‘Pirotechnia’ was an early term for chemistry, the technology and art of manipulating fire,” he said.

The library has many such books dating back hundreds of years and chronicling the people, discoveries and principles of chemistry in dozens of languages, including a 1789 copy of Antoine Lavoisier’s “Elementary Treatise of Chemistry.”

“This book is commonly referred to as the first chemistry textbook,” Chalmers said. “It’s central to what is lovingly referred to as the first chemical revolution. And it has beautiful engravings prepared by Lavoisier’s wife.”

This is a big year for chemistry at UC. The university is celebrating 150 years of chemistry in the College of Arts and Sciences. And in September UC reopened its Old Chemistry building after $190 million in renovations.

The American Chemical Society this year named UC Professor George Rieveschl’s discovery of Benadryl a national historic chemical landmark. Previously, the group recognized UC’s Oesper Collections with that honor.

The department is among the oldest at UC. Besides launching the careers of countless students in fields from manufacturing to pharmaceuticals, the Chemistry Department has faithfully documented the history of chemistry around the world and in Cincinnati through the museum.

“The museum brings so many elements of chemistry together,” UC Senior Librarian Ted Baldwin said.

Chalmers took over curatorship of the museum from chemistry Professor Emeritus William Jensen, who passed away a year ago. Jensen founded the museum and served as its first curator. He greatly expanded the museum’s offerings by soliciting donations of lab equipment from universities across the country where he lectured.

“The 150th anniversary of the Chemistry Department is a huge deal. One of my core values in the Oesper Collections is not just chemistry history but Cincinnati chemistry history,” Chalmers said.
Cincinnati was a cornerstone of the chemical industry and chemical education during the last century. 

“The first chemical industry wave was in Philadelphia and Boston. And moving westward, Cincinnati was one of the big centers of industry beyond the East Coast,” Chalmers said.

“Jensen called Cincinnati one of the most important centers of chemical industry and education in the postcolonial expansion of America,” Chalmers said.

Chalmers invites faculty to take advantage of the museum’s offerings whenever it’s relevant for their classes. He can even help them prepare learning exercises around the tour.

“My goal is to facilitate better integration of the museum with the department, the curriculum across the College of Arts and Sciences and the other colleges and as a scholarly destination with the national community of historians of chemistry,” he said.