The Department of Chemistry in 1839
Development and Growth of the Chemical Laboratory
EXPERIMENTAL sciences were given a place in the curriculums of University studies with the nomination of Douglass Houghton to a combined professorship of chemistry, geology, and mineralogy in 1839, but actual teaching of chemistry was deferred until 1844, when Silas H. Douglass became an assistant to the Professor of Chemistry. At this time instruction in chemistry comprised lectures and quizzes only. Laboratory work was initiated shortly after Henry P. Tappan became President of the University in 1852. Mainly, it consisted of chemical analyses and their applications to toxicology and to other subjects, chiefly medical. Hence it was fitting that quarters for the work should be in the old Medical Building, known at that time as the "Laboratory Building." The plans for this structure had been drawn by Silas Douglass, who also superintended its erection. The immediate success of the practical course and of Douglass' persistent effort to procure a separate building for chemistry led to the inclusion of a request for a chemical laboratory building in the President's Report to the Regents in December, 1855. The following spring, funds were appropriated for the erection of "a convenient building for the experiments and instruction in analytical chemistry," and Douglass was again made superintendent of construction. Thus was erected in 1856 the first chemical laboratory building of a state university, at a total cost of about six thousand dollars for building and equipment. It was a one-story structure containing three rooms and was equipped with twenty-six laboratory tables.
Probably the original chemistry building, then called the Chemical Laboratory of the University of Michigan, was the first structure on the North American continent that was designed, erected, and equipped solely for instruction in chemistry. Other older American chemical laboratories, such as the quarters used by Professor Benjamin Silliman at Yale University, the laboratory of Dr. Robert Hare in Philadelphia, and the laboratories for instruction of students in chemistry and in physics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, were not designed and erected for the purpose, but were adapted from structures already existing.
With the erection of this building the University inaugurated a policy of housing under one roof all chemical activities; academic as well as professional students had practical chemistry in the one laboratory. The natural growth of the University, and particularly the development of professional training in dentistry, engineering, medicine, and pharmacy, together with enhanced interest in chemistry for teacher training and as a profession distinct from engineering, have necessitated additions to the original structure from time to time. Altogether, seven additions were made — in 1861, 1866, 1868, 1874, 1880, 1888, and 1901. The third addition was coincident with the establishment of curriculums in pharmacy; the fourth barely preceded the establishment of the School of Pharmacy in 1876.
The number of laboratory tables had increased from the original twenty-six to 190 in 1874, and to 362 in 1901, exclusive of a limited number for special research and for staff use. It had not been possible to adhere to a definite structural plan in adding units to the building; hence, as a whole, the laboratory was unhandy. Moreover, it was not fireproof. Numerous locker fires in the course of years resulted ultimately in a ruling by the Regents prohibiting instruction in blowpipe analysis, this apparently having been mainly responsible for the difficulty. So far as can be ascertained at present, the prohibition is still in effect, although the work of the laboratory has been conducted in a fireproof building since 1909. Lack of adequate ventilation in the old building was apparent, especially in late afternoon hours, when dense and acrid fumes dimmed the analytical laboratories, and, incidentally, permitted only a short span of life to the woodwork of fume-closets. Still another serious deficiency was the almost complete lack of sanitary facilities.
The writer vividly recalls his first experiences in the University as lecturer on general chemistry to engineering students in 1902. Although included in engineering curriculums, the work was conducted in the Chemical Laboratory, which could not provide laboratory facilities for these students. The largest lecture room accommodated about 120 listeners, and the class numbered 279. To give all of its members the advantages of experimental lecture demonstrations, it was necessary to offer the single weekly lecture three times. This could be done only when the lecture room was not otherwise in use and when the students did not have other classes. In the several quiz sections that met twice weekly, some members would not have witnessed the demonstrations of the week, some would have seen them before either quiz, and others would have seen them only between quizzes. The arrangement certainly was disconcerting to the instructor, and it was not conducive to efficiency of teaching. Fortunately, amphitheater space became available in the old Medical Building when the new one was completed in 1903, and later the amphitheater in the old Dental Building was taken over for lectures to the larger classes in elementary chemistry. But these rooms had been built for other purposes and were unprovided with facilities adequate for setting up lecture demonstrations in chemistry.
Continued growth in numbers of students and an urge for expansion along various lines of chemical engineering, chemistry, and pharmacy showed that it was imperative to erect a new chemical laboratory building if the University were to maintain its leading position among institutions of higher learning. Prior to his death in 1905 Professor Albert B. Prescott had worked on tentative plans for a new building. His successor as Director of the Chemical Laboratory, Professor Edward D. Campbell, and a selected group of the staff also were busied with preliminary problems of spacing and equipment for the three units that would occupy a new building. In the fall of 1907 architects were employed to draw up plans and specifications for a building that should meet the needs of the University for a number of years. The Regents approved plans for a four-story building, 270 feet in length and 150 feet wide, with provision for about 950 laboratory tables and a liberal allowance of rooms for special research and staff accommodation. But when the plans were submitted to the contractors for bids in the following spring, the estimates were so high that it became necessary to reduce the size of the structure. Accordingly, new plans were approved for a four-story building 230 feet long and 130 feet wide, and contracts for its erection were authorized on September 24, 1908. The structure retained essential features of design and arrangement shown by the first plan, but the number of laboratory tables was reduced to 634. Fortunately, only a minor reduction of accommodations for research and for the staff was necessitated. By October of 1909 the present building was so nearly completed that some courses were given in the new laboratories during the first semester of that academic year, and the remaining courses were transferred at the beginning of the second semester, in February, 1910.
During the decade 1910-20 an unprecedented increase in the number of students attending the University overtaxed the original equipment of the new laboratory. To alleviate growing pains, changes in table equipment were made from time to time. Space required for storage of each student's personal apparatus and supplies was reduced by rebuilding table lockers. Fortunately, the original design of the tables and the distribution of gas, water, and waste lines to them permitted this reduction of locker spacing without involving too great an expense. Locker accommodations of laboratory tables for beginning courses, situated on the fourth floor, have been doubled, and in this way table space has been provided for approximately 1,000 students, of whom 250 may occupy the laboratories at one time. For more advanced work it was not feasible to reduce locker dimensions to so great an extent, but an increase of 50 per cent in the number of lockers has been made for tables in all advanced laboratories. It is not possible to proceed further in this direction, for locker spacing is now at an irreducible minimum.
The transfer of the Department of Chemical Engineering to the East Engineering Building in 1923 relieved congestion both in the laboratory and in the chemical library. Part of the vacated laboratory and office space has been used for advanced laboratory courses and research in the several divisions of pure chemistry and in pharmacy, and an opportunity has thus been provided for a change in the organization and functions of the laboratory dispensing department. A new laboratory was equipped for electrochemistry, and several smaller rooms were made available for research in this field. The general laboratory, into which all regular course work of physical chemistry had been crowded, was equipped as a special laboratory for colloid chemistry, and more ample accommodations were found for the general course work in physical chemistry. Similarly, new laboratories were established for advanced work in analytical and organic chemistry, and increased facilities were provided for research in these two departmental units. Likewise, a prescription laboratory was equipped for the College of Pharmacy, and extra space was given over to the College for research.
Hitherto, the dispensing department had been charged with the handling of student accounts and had supplied apparatus and chemicals, mainly to the chemical laboratory. At the June meeting in 1923, the Board of Regents initiated a new policy for the distribution of such materials, through the establishment of a University Chemical Storehouse, of which the dispensing arrangements for the chemical laboratory should be a part. The resolution of the Board reads as follows:
Chemstores
The University Chemical Storehouse shall be assigned quarters now occupied by the dispensing rooms in the Chemical Laboratory, and in addition Rooms 126, 128, 132, 136, 138 and 227 of the Chemical Laboratory … Professor Robert J. Carney shall be in charge of the University Chemical Storehouse, and it shall be operated as a part of the business organization of the University for the service of all University work in chemistry, and … responsibility of Professor Carney as head of this work shall be to the Secretary of the University. (R.P., 1920-23, p. 856.)
The new policy is a result of the continued increase in scientific laboratory work done by many departments of the University, for which the purchase and distribution of apparatus and supplies has become an important problem. The University Chemical Storehouse furnishes apparatus, chemicals, and other supplies on requisition to all departments, to individual faculty members, and to students. The change has resulted in a considerable saving to all departments using laboratory materials, and has made available an excellent, diversified stock. During the fourteen years of its existence the yearly net receipts have increased from $23,000 to more than $86,000. If the materials supplied to the Department of Chemistry and to the College of Pharmacy are taken into account, the annual business of the University Chemical Storehouse is now considerably more than $100,000. Besides the regular dispensing employees, a glass blower is engaged to repair apparatus and construct special equipment, so essential to modern research. The Storehouse also furnishes employment to a number of student assistants.
In February, 1926, an advanced course in gas analysis was offered for the first time in a laboratory newly equipped for this service. This is the most recent special laboratory to be established in the building for regular course instruction. Naturally, equipment of research rooms changes from time to time as new problems are developed for investigation. Pressure to offer laboratory work in organic chemistry to students in training for admission to a medical school was met for several years by providing extra facilities in the summer session. When the Medical School made laboratory work in organic chemistry an absolute requirement for all students entering in 1933 and thereafter, it became impracticable to require a summer session for this work. Accordingly, space that is provided with equipment suitable for organic chemistry has been borrowed temporarily in the general pharmacy laboratory. This has been possible because the growth in the number of pharmacy students has not kept pace with the numerical increase of the students enrolled in chemistry, since a four-year training period is now required of pharmacy students, and all shorter periods of training for the pharmaceutical profession have been discontinued. Although the borrowing of space for the use of premedical students continues, it may not be permitted to jeopardize the natural growth of facilities for the use of the students of pharmacy.
Organization of the Chemical Laboratory
Early organization. — No need existed for divisions within the Department of Chemistry until the scope of laboratory work was expanded to include several independent fields of application. Prior to the establishment of the Michigan Agricultural College (now Michigan State College of Agriculture and Applied Science) at East Lansing in 1855, lectures on agricultural chemistry had been offered in the Department of Chemistry. The subject has not been developed further, however, because those responsible for chemistry here felt that agricultural chemistry should be promoted entirely within the Michigan Agricultural College. Association with the Department of Medicine and Surgery was given up eventually to allow expansion of medical interests elsewhere, and of other work in the Chemistry Building. Instruction in hygiene was transferred in 1888 to the building erected for the laboratories of hygiene and physics, and the laboratory work in physiological chemistry was removed on completion of a new medical building (now called West Medical Building) in 1903. The departmental units that were left in the Chemical Laboratory Building at that time were those in chemical engineering, pure chemistry, and pharmacy. These remained together until 1923, when the work in chemical engineering was transferred from the present Chemistry Building to quarters in the East Engineering Building.
Since the Department of Chemistry has always served all schools and colleges of the University except the Law School, responsibility for teaching chemistry and for the needs of the laboratory was vested in a director of the chemical laboratory. Silas H. Douglass was the first appointee and held office from 1870 until his resignation in 1877. A successor was not appointed until 1884, when Professor Albert B. Prescott was designated Director of the Chemical Laboratory. He was responsible for both the chemical laboratory and the School of Pharmacy until the time of his death in 1905.
The laboratory of general chemistry. — During the early seventies the rapid development of industries, particularly in iron and steel metallurgy, gave rise to a demand for chemists especially trained in analyses of metallurgical and other industrial materials. The University responded by offering courses and developing research in chemical technology. The promotion of training toward professional chemistry then led to an organization of general chemistry and to the development of laboratory instruction in beginning phases of the work. In 1880 the laboratory of general chemistry was set up under an administration separate from that of analytical, applied, and organic chemistry. Ultimately, it received a status not unlike that of the "second chemical laboratory" of some European universities. Paul C. Freer became its first and only Director in 1891. Nominally, he served until his resignation in 1904, but he was away on leave of absence in the Philippine Islands from 1901 to 1904. For this period S. Lawrence Bigelow was appointed acting head of the department, and he was continued in this position until 1905, when several changes were made in the administration of units within the chemical laboratory, occasioned by the death of Professor Prescott. Physical chemistry was then administered with general chemistry under the guidance of Professor Bigelow, and the directorship of the laboratory of general chemistry was abandoned. At the same time the elementary lecture course hitherto given by Smeaton in the curriculums of the Department of Engineering was transferred to the Department of General and Physical Chemistry, which was placed on the same footing as the Department of Analytical and Organic Chemistry. Between 1895 and 1900, laboratory work in physical chemistry received initial development within the Department of General Chemistry, Bigelow having been called to the University in 1898 to promote the work. This field has had rapid and wide expansion, in keeping with general trends of the period.
Later organization
In 1905, after the death of Prescott, the School of Pharmacy and the chemical laboratory ceased to have the same administrative head, and the approach toward the establishment of a "second chemical laboratory" was given up. The chemical laboratory, minus its offshoots in the Department of Medicine and Surgery, the Department of Engineering, and the School of Pharmacy, was once more unified, and Professor Edward D. Campbell, head of the Department of Chemical Engineering and Professor of Analytical Chemistry, was made Director. Campbell resigned the professorship of chemiical engineering in 1914, but he retained his other positions until his death in 1925. After a brief delay Moses Gomberg, Professor of Organic Chemistry, was made Chairman of the Department of Chemistry. The directorship of the laboratory was then discontinued. There seemed no longer any need for it, since Robert J. Carney, as head of the University Chemical Storehouse, was responsible for the building and its supplies. When Gomberg reached the age for retirement, in February, 1936, Chester S. Schoepfle was appointed Professor of Organic Chemistry and Chairman of the Department of Chemistry. The affairs of the department are administered by the chairman and an executive committee selected from the teaching staff. Matters pertaining to the budget are in the hands of the chairman and of a committee comprising staff members of full professorial rank.
Professional Training in Chemistry
University recognition of professional training for chemists came first in 1884, when a curriculum leading to the degree of bachelor of science in chemistry was organized in the Department of Literature, Science, and the Arts. The degree was first conferred in 1886, the recipients being Edward D. Campbell, Louis M. Dennis, and Frederick G. Novy, but was abolished in 1896, along with the special degree in biology, except for students who had already begun the course. The last of these students graduated in 1899. In place of this course a new curriculum leading to the degree of bachelor of science in chemical engineering was set up in 1898 in the College (then called Department) of Engineering. The new course resembled the old, except for the inclusion of engineering studies. In this way arose the Department of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering (see Part VII: Department of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering). Until 1909 students in this department had all their classes in chemistry and in chemical engineering in the old Chemical Laboratory Building, under men of both the engineering and the literary faculties. These classes were thereafter conducted in the present Chemistry and Pharmacy Building until 1923. By 1920 the advisability of removing this work from the chemical laboratory had become apparent. There was a need of more room in which new technological projects could be promoted, and pressure was added also by an urge to develop new courses in physical chemistry and by the crowding of regular laboratory work throughout the Department of Chemistry. The work in chemical engineering was transferred to the new East Engineering Building in 1923. At the time of this transfer there was an adjustment of ownership rights to scientific journals and reference works, for which joint subscriptions had been made by the two departments, and many volumes were removed to the East Engineering Building.
From 1898 on, the courses in chemical engineering offered the only means of training students for the profession of chemistry. But a demand arose for a training that would include more chemistry than was possible in the engineering course. This was met by re-establishing the curriculum leading to the degree of bachelor of science in chemistry in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. The reinstated degree was conferred for the first time in 1916. Interest in this curriculum has not waned. A further advance in the standards of professional chemical training was made in 1919, when the Regents authorized the Graduate School to announce the degree of master of science in chemistry. To obtain this degree the candidate must have completed all requirements for the degree of bachelor of science in chemistry and also a full year of graduate training in chemistry and cognate subjects, as prescribed by the Department of Chemistry. More and more, this degree is being regarded as a step on the way to the several doctorates that represent final training for the profession.
Pharmacy Training
As early as 1860, courses in pharmacy were offered in conjunction with analytical chemistry, and in 1868 a two-year curriculum was set up, leading to the degree of pharmaceutical chemist. Within the next few years work in pharmacy was expanded so greatly that the Regents established the School of Pharmacy within the chemical laboratory as a separate department, and Albert B. Prescott was chosen its first Dean in 1876 (see Part VII: College of Pharmacy). When, in 1905, Julius O. Schlotterbeck succeeded Prescott as Dean of the School of Pharmacy, the administrative control of the school was separated permanently from that of the chemical laboratory.
Enrollments in Chemistry Classes
For the two semesters of 1908-09, the last year in which the old building was occupied, 2,599 students in all were enrolled for classwork, and 1,271 had work in laboratory courses. Three University units — the Department of Literature, Science, and the Arts, the Department of Engineering, and the School of Pharmacy — furnished 74.5 per cent of all students in chemistry classes and 81.7 per cent of those in laboratory work. Students in the two medical schools and in the College of Dental Surgery, who then were required to present chemistry as a part of their professional training, made up 24.5 per cent of the class and 16.3 per cent of the laboratory registrations. The Graduate School accounted for the remainder — a total of twenty-five graduate students in the classes and twenty-eight in the laboratory courses. Seven years later, registrations from the medical schools had become insignificant, since medical students were by that time required to present chemistry as a part of their premedical training, and in 1927-28 students from the School of Dentistry had disappeared for a similar reason. In the year 1915-16 the four schools and colleges furnished a total enrollment of 3,497 for classwork and 2,253 for laboratory work. Thus within six years after the present building was occupied, class enrollments had increased 34.5 per cent, and laboratory registrations had shown a 77.3 per cent gain, necessitating reconstruction of nearly all laboratory-table equipment.
In 1924, the year after the removal of the work in chemical engineering to new quarters, registrations totaled 2,525 for classes and 2,033 for laboratory work. Of these, 2,320 in classes and 1,933 in laboratory work were registered in pure chemistry and the remainder were in pharmacy. Total registrations have fluctuated considerably during the depression years, but recently they have shown a continuous increase, totaling 36 per cent in class enrollments and 32 per cent in laboratory enrollments in the four years ending in 1938.
A steadily mounting interest in chemistry as a field of graduate study is particularly gratifying to the departmental staff. In the old laboratory, graduate students rarely constituted even an integral percentage of total registrations, and in the maximum, never more than 2 per cent. Increased facilities provided by the present Chemistry Building have attracted graduate students in constantly increasing numbers. Occasionally, during the first fourteen years of its occupancy, they have made up as much as 5 per cent of the total enrollment. From the time when the Department of Chemical Engineering was removed, in 1923, until the end of June, 1930, graduate students constituted more than 7 per cent of both class and laboratory enrollment. The number listed in separate class and laboratory courses for 1929-30 was 385. In the following year it had increased to 562, and the enhanced interest has been maintained. For 1935-36 the graduate enrollment in pure chemistry was 740, representing 13.5 per cent of all students.
This trend is shown even more markedly by registrations for the summer session, and also by the number of professional and advanced degrees conferred on students from the department. Chemistry has been offered in the summer session ever since summer work was begun in 1894, as well as in the special summer school of chemistry conducted in 1890 (see Part IV: Summer Session). An occasional graduate student registered for the six-week period of summer session work in the old chemical laboratory. In the summer session of 1910, when the first summer laboratory work in chemistry was offered in the present building, the thirty-two graduate students represented 10.4 per cent of the registration total in the department. During the next fourteen years the proportion grew slightly, but there was some fluctuation. The session of 1924 witnessed a decisive increase to 23 per cent of total registrations, and the rate of increase rose steadily over the next four-year period until, in 1928, graduate enrollment had become 35.8 per cent of the total registrations. The following year another marked increase raised the proportion to 50.7 per cent, and, ever since, a majority of chemistry students in the summer session have been graduates. A peak was reached in 1932 with a 60 per cent graduate enrollment. The small diminution in the interim may be attributed to partial recovery of chemical industries from the effects of the business depression.
By the end of June, 1940, 207 students had received the degree of bachelor of science in chemistry since the curriculum leading to it had been re-established, an average of eight per year for the period of twenty-five years. The strictly professional degree, master of science in chemistry, was conferred on eighty persons from the time of its establishment in 1919 through June, 1940, but of the entire list of students receiving the master's degree with specialization in chemistry, this number represents only a minority. In the first forty years of this century, 168 persons specializing in chemistry received either the doctor of philosophy or the doctor of science degree. Prior to the occupancy of the present laboratory only five of this group had received doctorates, but the continuity in conferring the doctor's degrees has been unbroken since 1909. In the first two decades, from 1900 to 1920, doctorates in chemistry were conferred on a total of thirty-two persons. The next decade added forty-five to the list, and in the years 1930-40 the number of doctor's degrees in chemistry was ninety-one.
The Chemistry Library
An abundant journal and monograph literature is a most important part of that equipment which is essential to productive research and teaching. Ever since the first Chemical Laboratory Building was erected, in 1856, the department has provided for faculty and student use numerous standard reference works, monographs, and periodicals, both domestic and foreign, that contain articles on chemistry and in cognate fields. The General Library has acquired works on chemistry as new projects have been undertaken in the laboratory. In the course of time a room was set aside in the Chemical Laboratory Building to house a few of the works that were indispensable laboratory equipment. No regular library service was ever provided in the old building. Plans for the present laboratory called for a combined library and reading-room on the second floor, with very particular safeguards against possible damage from fumes or from leakage of waste lines. The room has accommodations for ninety readers, and can house about 14,000 volumes. It contains chiefly journals and monographs, with relatively few textbooks. Owing to the depression, subscriptions to seven journals devoted to pharmacy, and to twenty-three pertaining to chemistry, were discontinued, leaving 144 periodical subscriptions still carried. The diminished buying powers of the library, which represents the very lifeblood of an institution of higher learning, are due largely to the depreciation of American currency in foreign markets, from which many books, monographs, and journals must come.
Older volumes of various journal sets are kept in the General Library. An unusually comprehensive historical collection and a special collection of textbooks and reference works for secondary schools are noteworthy minor features of the chemical library. The department offers various seminars as well as instructional courses in the history of chemistry and in chemical literature, all of which require use of the library. In a course in chemical literature under Professor Soule, the more advanced students are assisted in locating information on works dealing with chemistry.
Departmental Research
Three periods offer a convenient chronology for depicting the organization of divisions within the Department of Chemistry and the foundation of its research programs. In the first period the Department of Chemistry and the Medical School, then known as the Department of Medicine and Surgery, entered into a mutually beneficial symbiosis. The old Medical Building housed the first chemical laboratory work, and in turn the original Chemical Laboratory Building housed the medical laboratories of hygiene and physiological chemistry until the erection of other more appropriate buildings permitted their withdrawal. Moreover, the arrangement was in keeping with the scientific spirit of that time, and particularly with the training and predilections of Professor Silas H. Douglass, who served the two departments impartially.
Gradual expansion of activities along independent lines in both the Department of Chemistry and the Department of Medicine and Surgery loosened the symbiotic tie in the second period, and it was severed with the erection of the present Chemistry Building (1909). During most of this time the destinies of the laboratory were in the capable hands of Professor Albert B. Prescott. The period brought to completion the organization of four main divisions within the Department of Chemistry and subsequently a transfer of numerous activities that pertain to chemical technology from the jurisdiction of the Department of Literature, Science, and the Arts to that of the Department of Engineering. It saw the perfecting of the organization of the School of Pharmacy and its subsequent administrative separation from the Department of Chemistry. Most significant was the beginning of productive research, which led to the establishment of subdivisions within departmental units of chemistry.
Edward D. Campbell guided the laboratory over the difficulties of transfer from the old to the new building. The new laboratory permitted expansion of teaching and a much wider development of research in pharmacy, chemical engineering, and chemistry. Opportunity to receive adequate training for the profession of chemistry again was provided to students in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. The ultimate parting of the Department of Chemical Engineering from its foster parent toward the close of Professor Campbell's regime offered further opportunity to project chemical research. Hence, a marked increase in the number of graduate students of chemistry and a corresponding augmentation of research are outstanding features in the history of the laboratory during the entire period of Gomberg's administration, and the same situation continues under the chairmanship of Professor Schoepfle.
Chemistry and medicine
Up to his resignation in 1877 Silas Hamilton Douglass (A.M. hon. Vermont '47) had served the University for thirty-three years. Coming here in 1844 as an assistant to the Professor of Chemistry, he became Lecturer on Chemistry and Geology in the following year. After the accidental death of Douglass Houghton he was appointed Professor of Chemistry, Mineralogy, and Geology. At times before 1870, he also held the professorships of pharmacy, materia medica, medical jurisprudence, and toxicology. In this year he became the first Director of the Chemical Laboratory and held only the single professorship of chemistry until 1875, when his title became Professor of Metallurgy and Chemical Technology. For the first thirteen years he taught all chemistry courses without help, except such as could be rendered by student assistants. Alfred DuBois ('48, A.M. '54), who had acted as assistant from 1855 to 1857, received appointment to the second position on the staff as Assistant Professor of Chemistry in 1857, and served until his resignation in 1863.
He was succeeded by Albert Benjamin Prescott ('64m, Ph.D. hon. '86), who also had been an assistant from 1862 to 1864. Prescott was Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Lecturer on Organic Chemistry and Metallurgy from 1865 to 1870, when he became Professor of Organic and Applied Chemistry and of Pharmacy. Similarly, Victor Clarence Vaughan (Ph.D. '76, '78m, LL.D. '00) began his teaching career under Professors Douglass and Prescott as an assistant in the Chemical Laboratory from 1875 to 1883. He was Lecturer on Medical Chemistry in 1879-80, and Assistant Professor of Medical Chemistry from 1880 to 1883. His earlier papers on physiological chemistry represent contributions from the chemical laboratory, as do those of Preston Benjamin Rose ('62m), assistant for nine years and Assistant Professor of Physiological Chemistry in 1875 and from 1879 to 1881 (see Part I: Douglas-Rose Controversy). Otis Coe Johnson (Oberlin '68, A.M. ibid. '77, Michigan '71p) also served as an assistant in the Chemical Laboratory from 1873 to 1880, when he was appointed Assistant Professor of Applied Chemistry. He was raised to the professorship in 1889. Johnson was appointed Professor of Qualitative Analysis in 1906 and in 1911 was retired as Professor Emeritus. John Williams Langley (Harvard '61, M.D. hon. Michigan '77, Ph.D. hon. ibid. '92) was the last to be appointed to the chemistry staff during the regime of Professor Douglass. He served both in the Department of Chemistry and in the Department of Physics as Acting Professor and Professor, 1875 to 1877, when he gave up the chair of physics. As Professor of General Chemistry from 1877 to 1888 he organized the first instruction in this field. Langley became Professor of General Chemistry and Metallurgy in 1888, but he had a leave of absence in this year, and the following year he resigned to take up metallurgical work with an industrial concern in Pittsburgh. He served as Nonresident Lecturer on the Metallurgy of Steel from 1889 to 1892. During Langley's leave of absence in 1888-89, Lucius Lincoln Van Slyke ('79, Ph.D. '82) carried his teaching duties in general chemistry. While in the University Langley published valuable contributions to metallurgy and chemistry.
During the period of Douglass' activity, the laboratory staff had grown to four regular teachers and two assistants, who had organized work in analytical, organic, and general chemistry, and also in the several applications to medicine, pharmacy, and technology. Professor Douglass bore a heavy burden of teaching and administration. In January, 1847, he was made Inspector of the Buildings and Grounds of the University, holding the post until 1851. He submitted the plans for the second University building, the South College, now known as the South Wing, and superintended its erection in 1848. His plans for the old Medical Building, including a chemical audience room, were submitted in 1848, and, when the building was finally erected, he also superintended its construction. He planned and superintended the construction of the first Chemical Laboratory Building and arranged for its equipment and for four of its additions. He had in charge the erection of the Observatory and of other University construction. Likewise, he was active in the establishment of the Department of Medicine and Surgery, in which he taught for many years. In shifting the fields of his own teaching he demonstrated great versatility and unusual capabilities, and he rendered signal service to the University by providing the nucleus of an admirable teaching organization, comprising Professors Prescott, Vaughan, Johnson, and Langley. To public demand for chemical reports on topics pertaining to general welfare he always responded willingly.
Douglass' Guide to a Systematic Correction of Qualitative Chemical Analysis (1864) was incorporated, ten years after its first publication, in a textbook Qualitative Chemical Analysis, under the joint authorship of Professors Douglass and Prescott. A fourth edition, rewritten by Professors Prescott and Johnson, long had vogue as a standard text and reference work in this field. The writer of this article used it in the early nineties while an undergraduate at the University of Toronto. A ninth, and the most recent, edition of the text was rewritten by Professors McAlpine and Soule in 1933.
The first original contribution from the chemical laboratory was a paper on "The Blow-pipe Assay," published by Prescott in the Engineering and Mining fournal for 1869. His name as author appears on 126 research papers, scientific addresses, monographs, and textbooks, and, together with Contributions from the Chemical Laboratory of the University of Michigan, representing researches published in the names of students who were working under his direction, the whole of his contributions would amount to some two hundred articles. His monograph, The Chemical Examination of Alcoholic Liquors, and the two textbooks of organic chemistry, Outlines of Proximate Organic Analysis and Organic Analysis, were considered authoritative works for many years. Chemistry, medicine, pharmacy, and the teaching profession have derived lasting benefits from his example and precepts. The renown of the University was augmented by his service in behalf of state and national pharmacy, and by his election to the national presidency of both the American Chemical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Many students trained by him in pharmacy and chemistry have become leaders in teaching and in industry, both at home and abroad. The following are noteworthy: the late Alfred Senier ('74, '74m, Ph.D. Berlin '87), Professor of Chemistry in Queen's College, Galway; the late Abram Van Eps Young (75, '75p), Professor of Chemistry in Northwestern University; the late Lucius Lincoln Van Slyke, Professor of Dairy Chemistry in Cornell University; Louis Munroe Dennis (Ph.B. '85, B.S. [Chem.] '86, Sc.D. hon. '26), Professor of Chemistry in Cornell University; Bernhard Conrad Hesse ('89p, '93, Ph.D. Chicago '96), formerly research chemist with the Badische Anilin u. Soda Fabrik and latterly internationally known consulting chemist of New York City.
Expansion and specialization
Under the guidance of Professor Prescott, from 1876 to 1905, the expansion and co-ordination of laboratory work was continued. He relinquished teaching in metallurgy and applied chemistry to devote more time to pharmacy, and ultimately to organic chemistry exclusively. In 1881 Dr. Byron William Cheever ('63, '67m, '75l) became Acting Professor of Metallurgy; he continued in this position until his death in 1888. Under his direction, work in metallurgy became allied closely with quantitative chemical analysis, which now was offered as a separate course in analytical chemistry. Cheever had very high ideals of scholarship. Besides eight valuable papers on metallurgical research he published Select Methods in Quantitative Analysis, a work of great merit. Professor Johnson was charged with the duty of lecturing on general applied chemistry. As applications to engineering industries multiplied, his activity in this field ceased. He developed comprehensive courses of instruction in qualitative chemical analysis, to which he remained devoted until he retired. After the time of Cheever and Langley, responsibility for metallurgy and quantitative analysis was placed in the hands of Edward D. Campbell ('86), who later became Director of the Chemical Laboratory and also Chairman of the Department of Chemical Engineering. His influence procured the services of Alfred Holmes White ('93, '04e), who came in 1897 from the Federal Polytechnicum of Zurich to develop new work in chemical technology. Soon afterward, when action by the faculty of the Department of Literature, Science, and the Arts abolished certain special degrees, the Department of Chemical Engineering was founded. Responsibility for teaching chemical technology has remained with this department, in which White succeeded Campbell as chairman in 1914.
Altogether, ten other members of the instructing staff taught analytical or technological chemistry in the old building. Frederick Levy Dunlap ('92, ScD. Harvard '95), Eugene Cornelius Sullivan ('94, Ph.D. Leipzig '99), and Hobart Hurd Willard ('03, Ph.D. Harvard '09) all taught analytical chemistry during Prescott's time. Dunlap resigned in 1907 to become a member of the Federal Board of Food and Drug Inspection. Sullivan went to the United States Geological Survey in 1903, and afterward he developed pyrex ware at the Corning Glass Works. He is now president of the Corning Glass Company. Willard held an acting instructorship from 1903 to 1905, when he became Instructor in Qualitative Analysis. He held a fellowship at Harvard University for two years, completing research there in the field of atomic-weight determination with Professor Theodore W. Richards. In 1925 he succeeded Professor Campbell as head of the Department of Analytical Chemistry. Karl Wilhelmj Zimmerschied ('03, M.S. '04) taught quantitative analysis and metallurgy from 1902 to 1912. He developed the first courses of instruction in metallography. Entering the employ of the General Motors Corporation in 1912, he was for some time president of the Chevrolet Motor Company. In 1907 Harry Newton Cole ('01, '06e, M.S. '15) and Robert John Carney ('07, Ph.D. '16) came to the staff in qualitative analysis and have continued teaching in this division. Cole was retired as Instructor in 1935. Assistant Professor Carney has become Director of the University Chemical Storehouse and has retained only a part of his teaching. He has developed courses of instruction in microchemical analysis and in the chemistry of the rare earths. The other instructors in analytical and applied chemistry have left after very short periods of service.
Instruction leading to the degree of pharmaceutical chemist (Ph.C.) had become a proving ground for the profession of chemistry. Dean Prescott did not discontinue teaching pharmacy until he had provided an adequate staff for the School. When this was accomplished he devoted more time to instruction in organic chemistry and to the development of research. Theodore John Wrampelmeier ('78, '78p), at first his private assistant and later Instructor of Analytical Chemistry, became Assistant Professor of Organic Chemistry and Pharmacy in 1885, but ill health led to his resignation a year later. Afterward he became foreign representative in London for the E. I. du Pont de Nemours Powder Company, and still later was a noted consulting chemist and chemical engineer in New York City.
The nucleus of a separate staff for the School of Pharmacy was provided in the persons of Alviso Burdett Stevens ('75, Ph.D. Bern '05) and Julius Otto Schlotterbeck ('91, '87p, Ph.D. Bern '96). Stevens succeeded Theodore Wrampelmeier in 1886 as Instructor of Pharmacy, and Schlotterbeck developed instruction in pharmacognosy. Both gave long years of service to the School, and both have served it as dean. Only one other instructor came to this staff during the administration of Dr. Prescott.
Professors Rose and Vaughan continued their teaching activity in medical chemistry. Similarly, Frederick George Novy ('86, Sc.D. '90, '91m) diverted his interests to medicine and taught medical chemistry in the old laboratory from 1887 until 1902. He and Moses Gomberg ('90, Sc.D. '94) are outstanding among students who have received from Prescott inspiration to carry on graduate research. On the shoulders of Gomberg has come to rest the mantle of Professor Prescott as investigator, teacher, and administrator in the Department of Chemistry. He succeeded to the professorship of organic chemistry and to the chairmanship of the department. Five other staff members taught organic chemistry during Professor Prescott's regime. Among them, Perry Fox Trowbridge ('92, Ph.D. Illinois '06) is the only one who remained with the department for more than a year or two. He served as Instructor in Organic Chemistry from 1895 to 1902, and afterward became director of the Agricultural Experiment Station at North Dakota Agricultural College.
Following Professors Langley and Van Slyke, Paul Caspar Freer (M.D. Rush Medical '82, Ph.D. Munich '87) became Lecturer on General Chemistry in 1889. The next year he was appointed Professor of General Chemistry and Director of the Laboratory of General Chemistry. Under his direction the organization of teaching in this field was completed. He gathered a corps of instructors and published textbooks for use in the classes. His Descriptive Inorganic General Chemistry and Elements of Chemistry were popular college texts for a number of years. Freer preferred research activity in organic chemistry, and he has published a number of papers in this field. He was absent on leave in the Philippine Islands from 1901 to 1904, when he resigned to become director of the Government Scientific Laboratories at Manila. During his regime, class and laboratory work in physical chemistry was added to the activities of the Department of General Chemistry. In the interim this has become an important field for original investigations.
Between 1889 and 1905 twelve men were appointed to the teaching staff in general chemistry. The first three had been students in the department. George Oswin Higley ('91, Ph.D. '05) served as Instructor from 1891 to 1905, when he became Professor of Chemistry at Ohio Wesleyan University. David Martin Lichty (West Chester Normal '87, Ph.D. Heidelberg '07) served on the staff of the department from 1891 until his retirement as Associate Professor Emeritus in 1932. After working on his doctoral studies at the University of Heidelberg from 1905 to 1907 he returned to the University of Michigan and became Assistant Professor of General Chemistry. For many years Lichty had charge of elementary general chemistry for students of pharmacy and dentistry. Two instructors who had been trained in the University of Munich were appointed in 1896. They both remained for only a short period of service, during which they collaborated with Paul C. Freer in organic research. Two years later another influx of German-trained staff members was begun, with the appointment of Samuel Lawrence Bigelow (A.B. Harvard '91, B.S. Massachusetts Institute of Technology '95, Ph.D. Leipzig '98) from the Physical-Chemical Institute of the University of Leipzig. Five staff members came to the department from this institute during the next seven years.
Bigelow was charged with the development of instruction in physical chemistry, and he had teaching duties also in general chemistry. To promote laboratory instruction and research in physical chemistry he procured the appointment of George Augustus Hulett (Princeton '92, Ph.D. Leipzig '98) in 1899. Hulett stayed until 1905, when he resigned as Assistant Professor of Physical Chemistry to become a member of the chemistry staff at Princeton University. He was an indefatigable research worker. During his stay the laboratory of physical chemistry was well equipped and organized, and it gained an enviable reputation for productive research. The tradition was upheld by Samuel Colville Lind (A.B. Washington and Lee '99, S.B. Massachusetts Institute of Technology '02, Ph.D. Leipzig '05), who succeeded Hulett in 1905. He resigned as Assistant Professor of General and Physical Chemistry in 1915, to enter the service of the United States Bureau of Mines at Reno, Nevada. Lind is now dean of the combined Schools of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at the University of Minnesota. Bigelow took over the teaching and administrative duties of Freer during the latter's absence on leave and succeeded him in the chair of general chemistry, later becoming Professor of General and Physical Chemistry.
The Department of Engineering had requested separate instruction in general chemistry for engineering students, but Freer was unwilling to permit such a course to be developed. Because of this William Gabb Smeaton (Toronto '98) was called from the Physical-Chemical Institute at Leipzig in 1902 to develop a lecture course for engineering students. This separate division of general chemistry was merged with the regular department in 1905. Smeaton had charge of the course until 1919, when he took over the teaching duties of William Jay Hale (Miami '97, Ph.D. Harvard '02), Associate Professor of General Chemistry. Hale had come to the department in 1903 charged with responsibility for one of the several parallel lecture courses in elementary general chemistry; he had become Assistant Professor in 1908 and Associate Professor in 1915. He resigned in 1919 to become director of organic research with the Dow Chemical Company. Hale had been associated with Professor Alexander Smith at Chicago, and had collaborated in the preparation of the laboratory manual to accompany Smith's Introduction to General Inorganic Chemistry. Later, the manual was published separately by Hale. Smeaton has revised and rewritten all recent issues of the manual. Another valuable work, Calculations of General Chemistry, was written by Hale while in the University. He promoted research in organic chemistry and published fifty original papers, of which a number are joint contributions with research students.
Chemistry in the new building
Within the period of occupancy of the old Chemistry Laboratory Building forty-five full-time staff members gave instruction in medical chemistry, pharmacy, chemical engineering, and pure chemistry. Sixteen came over to the present building when the transfer of work in pharmacy, chemical engineering, and chemistry was made in 1909, and two additional instructors were appointed then. In June, 1940, nineteen men of the rank of instructor or higher were teaching in the Department of Chemistry. The number of chemistry students has become so large that in order to conduct the many laboratory and quiz sections the department has adopted the policy of providing teaching fellows, who devote half time to assigned duties with laboratory and quiz sections and in their own interests elect advanced courses and carry on research leading to advanced degrees. Teaching fellows may be reappointed for a period not exceeding three years. They are chosen by a departmental committee on the basis of qualifications for both teaching and research. Generally there is an abundance of qualified applicants. All three divisions of chemistry make use of their services, but the majority are needed for duties with beginning courses, principally in elementary general chemistry, which may have from 650 to 800 or more elections. From 1913-14 to 1927-28 the number of teaching fellows has averaged twelve a year, from a minimum of nine to a maximum of fifteen.
Some years ago the staff in general chemistry made an exhaustive study of problems connected with efficiency of laboratory instruction. Opinions were gathered from departmental staffs in other universities that had laboratory problems similar to our own. The outcome was a recommendation that the administration should increase the number of teaching fellows to provide instruction for laboratory groups of approximately twenty students. Increases have been slow in coming, but ultimately the desired end was attained in 1931-32, when eighteen teaching fellows were appointed. But the number was reduced to sixteen in the following year, to thirteen a year later, and to eleven in 1934-35, owing to a need for retrenchment. The regular teaching staff had at that time been diminished by several retirements for which no replacements have been made. For the year 1936-37 the Department of Chemistry had five fewer teaching fellows and three fewer members of the full-time staff than it had in 1931-32, and it cared for 37.4 per cent more students than were enrolled in 1931-32; but in 1939-40 there were nineteen teaching fellows in addition to nineteen regular staff members. Fortunately, the number of University fellowships and of other nonteaching fellowships supported by various industries was not diminished greatly during the depression period. Frequently, recruits for temporary instructorships to replace staff members on leave of absence are found among those who have finished a period of service as teaching fellows.
A few days before the beginning of spring vacation in 1892 Professor E. D. Campbell lost both eyes in a laboratory explosion. When work was resumed after the recess he met his classes with a bandage over the forehead. For the next thirty-three years, in spite of his great handicap, he was active in research. During later years he discontinued lecturing, but he carried on the duties of administration and the direction of research students throughout his lifetime. Professor Campbell learned through the sight and touch of his colleagues and students. He developed a remarkably retentive memory, an amazing capacity to visualize operations and trends of research problems, and an unusually delicate sense of touch. The writer has often watched him adjust a delicate mechanism, to which his hands had been guided and for which, alas, one's own hands were all too clumsy. His first original investigation was conducted in his senior college year, when he was assistant to Professor Cheever. It bore the title, "A Colorimetric Process for Estimating Phosphorus in Iron and Steel." Altogether, he published twenty-three papers on analysis of iron and steel, fourteen on the constitution of Portland cement, and forty that deal with correlations of chemical and physical properties in steel. Colleagues in the Iron and Steel Institute of Great Britain considered Campbell an authority in their field. He was revered by all who had personal intimacy with him.
Teaching and administration of quantitative analysis gradually came into the capable hands of Hobart Hurd Willard, who has developed courses to include all phases of inorganic analysis. Clifford Cyrille Meloche (Wisconsin '10, Ph.D. ibid. '14), Assistant Professor of Analytical Chemistry, is his associate in teaching regular course work in quantitative analysis. Meloche has organized a special field of work in gas analysis. Roy Kenneth McAlpine ('06, Ph.D. '21) and Byron Avery Soule (18, Sc.D. '24), both assistant professors of analytical chemistry, are associated with Assistant Professor Carney in regular course work of qualitative analysis. Besides collaborating in rewriting the Textbook of Qualitative Chemical Analysis of Prescott and Johnson, they published jointly in 1936 Fundamentals of Qualitative Chemical Analysis, a textbook that is finding favor for use of classes in colleges and universities. McAlpine offers courses to aid candidates who are preparing to teach chemistry in secondary schools, and he conducts research in the field of atomicweight measurement. Soule has developed instruction in the use of chemical literature and has a general interest in chemical bibliography and in independent research.
Willard has prepared comprehensive mimeographed laboratory manuals for the fundamental courses of quantitative analysis. These have had a number of reissues and revisions. Jointly with Professor N. H. Furman, of Princeton University, he published Elementary Quantitative Analysis, a textbook that has appeared in a second edition within two years of the first issue. General and special courses provided by the department offer a broad foundation for research in this field. Particularly helpful to graduate students is the course on physicochemical methods in quantitative analysis. Willard is well known to the profession all over the country for his service in the American Chemical Society as division chairman, member of the Council, director, and associate editor of the Journal. In June, 1940, his research papers numbered seventy-four important contributions, of which a number have been done in collaboration with research students. The subjects of them include atomic-weight determinations on silver, lithium, antimony, and chlorine; perchloric and periodic acids and their salts; numerous oxidizing agents; and various physicochemical methods of analysis. Many graduate students are attracted to this field in the Department of Chemistry for work leading to advanced degrees.
The earliest instruction in elementary general chemistry was developed by lectures and quizzes. Laboratory work became possible only after the new Chemistry Building could provide room without detriment to more advanced work. In 1902, when Smeaton came to the laboratory, only a part of the student body in elementary general chemistry could be accommodated in laboratory work. But all discrimination involving special groups of students was obviated when the present building became available.
The foundation course provides a continuity of work through the year. Courses for special groups of students run for a single semester, and at first these had no laboratory work. Bigelow took over from Freer the responsibility for the foundation course. For many years Lichty handled a special group of students from the College of Dental Surgery and from the School of Pharmacy and occasional students from the two medical schools. Smeaton had a similar group of engineering students; Hale gave instruction in the first semester to a group of students who brought a usable foundation in chemistry from secondary and other preparatory schools. There have been fewer medical and dental students in chemistry classes, as a result of changes in the professional school entrance requirements, but the number of parallel lecture courses has not changed, for enrollments have increased and limitations have been imposed by the need for lecture demonstrations that must be seen by all members of the lecture group. When Hale resigned in 1919 as Associate Professor of General Chemistry, Smeaton was assigned his teaching duties with elementary classes. James Hallett Hodges (Harvard '14, Ph.D. ibid. '17) was appointed Instructor in General Chemistry and was placed in charge of the course for engineering students. As Assistant Professor of General and Physical Chemistry he still has responsibility for this course and, in addition, gives advanced lecture courses in physical chemistry. Hodges' research interests lie in the field of actinochemistry.
Bigelow came to the University mainly for the purpose of promoting instruction in physical chemistry. Because his activities were diverted to the administration of the work in general chemistry during Freer's absence, colleagues were brought to the staff to develop the laboratory instruction and programs of research. Bigelow conducted the fundamental lecture courses in both general and physical chemistry. He has published lecture synopses for elementary general chemistry and a popular textbook, Theoretical and Physical Chemistry. His researches have contributed fundamentally to the knowledge of osmotic phenomena. With small groups of students he has directed researches in this field for a number of years. A study of the size of pores in porcelain and of osmotic effects, in collaboration with Floyd Earl Bartell ('08, Ph.D. '10), led to a staff appointment for Dr. Bartell in 1910. Bartell was associated with Smeaton in teaching elementary general chemistry for a few years. When Lind resigned, in 1915, Bartell was placed in charge of physical chemistry laboratory work. He has continued in the laboratory the spirit of research introduced by Professor Hulett and maintained throughout Professor Lind's tenure. He is prominent in the colloid divison of the American Chemical Society and has rendered valuable service in organizing national colloid symposia. When readjustments were made in 1923, a newly equipped laboratory for colloid chemistry was established. Here numerous researches are constantly in progress. Bartell's contributions number sixty papers, dealing chiefly with adsorption and the phenomena of wetting.
Richard Chase Tolman (Massachusetts Institute of Technology '03, Ph.D. ibid. '10) came to the department as Instructor in Physical Chemistry in 1910. He remained one year and contributed four research papers in that time. One of these, done in collaboration with Alfred Lynn Ferguson ('08, A.M. '09, Ph.D. '15), started the latter in his research career. Ferguson became Instructor in 1915 and is now Associate Professor of General and Physical Chemistry. He organized a special laboratory for electrochemistry. He has published twenty-six papers in this field and six dealing with problems of education. Numerous important research projects have been developed in this laboratory. One especially deserving mention is that concerned with the redeterminations of fundamental physical constants.
In 1921 Philip Francis Weatherill (Bowdoin '16, Ph.D. Harvard '21) and Lee Owen Case ('20e, Ph.D. '27) were added to the staff as instructors. Both are now assistant professors. Weatherill is responsible for lectures in elementary general chemistry. He offers advanced courses in thermodynamics and has charge of laboratory work in physical chemistry. Case also has charge of laboratory work and offers advanced lecture courses. When Professor Lichty was retired in 1932, John Reginald Bates (Amherst '24, Ph.D. Princeton '27) was called to an assistant professorship of physical chemistry. He was advanced to an associate professorship in 1935 and was granted a leave of absence for 1936. Professor Bates developed new lines of research in photosynthesis and directed many original investigations. He has published a number of papers jointly with Leigh C. Anderson and Joseph O. Halford of the staff in organic chemistry.
In 1936 provision was made to give opportunity for research in still another field of modern physicochemical investigation by the appointment of Kasimir Fajans (Ph.D. Heidelberg '09) to a professorship. Formerly, Fajans had held the chair of physical chemistry in the University of Munich, and his Radioactivity and Latest Developments in the Study of the Chemical Elements, as well as a text of which he was coauthor, had been published in three languages. He is known among scientists as one of the world's leading teachers and investigators.
Toward the close of Prescott's period of service Gomberg had entire responsibility for teaching organic chemistry in both classroom and laboratory, aided only by a few laboratory assistants. In 1905 Lee Holt Cone (Pomona '01, Ph.D. Michigan '05) became an instructor in the department. Cone became successively an assistant professor and an associate professor. From 1915 to 1917 he gave part-time service to the Dow Chemical Company, and he withdrew from the staff in the latter year. Gomberg and Cone, with laboratory assistants, gave all class and laboratory work in organic chemistry until 1916. In that year three instructors were appointed. Two of them left the service after one year, but Chester Seitz Schoepfle ('14e, Sc.D. '18) remained. He succeeded to the positions held by Associate Professor Cone, who left in 1917 and ultimately became Professor of Organic Chemistry and, upon Gomberg's retirement in 1936, Chairman of the Department of Chemistry. Four instructors who received appointments between 1917 and 1921 resigned within one or two years to enter industrial service. Frederick Franklin Blicke ('16, Ph.D. '21), who became Instructor in 1921, was promoted to an assistant professorship in 1925. A year later he was transferred to the College of Pharmacy as Assistant Professor of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, a position that was created especially for him. At the present time he is continuing a program of organic research as Professor of Pharmaceutical Chemistry.
In each of the years 1924, 1925, and 1926 one instructor was added to the staff. All three appointees have remained in the department, and all have received promotions. In the meantime instructors have been obtained on temporary appointments only, as substitutes for regular staff members on leaves of absence.
Leigh Charles Anderson ('21, Ph.D. '24), appointed Instructor in Organic Chemistry in 1924 and Associate Professor in 1937, had undergraduate and graduate training at the University. He held a teaching fellowship while doing work for the doctorate. Anderson has developed spectrometric research dealing with absorption spectra of organic compounds. Werner Emmanuel Bachmann ('23, Ph.D. '26) had a part of his undergraduate and all his graduate training in the University. Since his appointment to the staff in 1925 he has held a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship for study at the University of Zurich, 1928-29, and a Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellowship in 1935 for study in England and Germany. He is developing a research field in biochemistry. Anderson and Bachmann are authors of a Laboratory Manual of Organic Chemistry. In 1938 Professor Bachmann was named chairman of the division of organic chemistry of the American Chemical Society, and in 1939 he and two other chemists at the University — J. Wayne Cole, Du Pont Postdoctoral Fellow, and Alfred J. Wilds, Teaching Fellow — duplicated in the laboratory the process by which the sex hormone estrone is manufactured by the human body. This was the first time that any human sex hormone had ever been synthetically produced.
Joseph Olney Halford (California '24, Ph.D. ibid. '26), who had done his work for the doctorate in physical chemistry, came to the staff in 1926 for the purpose of applying physical chemistry to research problems of organic chemistry. He has developed spectrometric methods in this field.
All members of the department participate in laboratory instruction and share the classwork. Research activities are particularly well co-ordinated. Prescott had established a tradition for intensive research in organic chemistry. When Gomberg succeeded to a professorship in 1904 he had published twenty-eight original investigations that were recognized in all countries as outstanding contributions. Altogether, his scientific papers number ninety-two, of which some are in collaboration with colleagues. The major investigations have led to the opening of new and varied fields of inquiry, and in following these openings many students have been trained in research under his guidance. Now they are spread over the country in industrial research laboratories and in institutions of higher learning. National recognition has come to him in the awards of the Nichols, Willard Gibbs, and Chandler medals, the national presidency of the American Chemical Society, and membership in the National Academy and in numerous other scientific societies, both at home and abroad. In building up a staff of associates he has shown a rare good judgment in selecting an articulated group whose members share the teaching and supplement one another in research. Already the four associates now on the staff have contributed almost one hundred original papers. Professor Emeritus Gomberg has assurance that the work begun under him will progress much further.
In a History of the Chemical Laboratory (1916), Campbell estimated that a total of 746 articles had been published by members of the teaching staff while they were connected with the chemical laboratory. These included papers in medical chemistry, in pharmacy, in chemical engineering, and in pure chemistry. Original contributions to the science of chemistry amounted to 401. From 1916 to 1940 the staff in pure chemistry has added 432 original contributions. Included in the list are a number of epochmaking papers.
