ACS Presidents Some Micro-Indicators

Prosopographical analysis of the careers of American Chemical Society presidents elucidates the changing nexus among occupation, profession, and discipline in American chemistry. 

Since the first World War, an elite gerontocracy has presided over American chemistry. Academic chemists have exerted disproportionate control over the governance of the ACS. Routes of entry to ACS leadership have been extremely limited. Intricate networks of social ties have linked members of the ACS presidential elite. 

The American Chemical Society has long occupied a central position within the institution of chemistry. The choice of a president for the Society symbolizes the institution s values. The careers of presidents display something of the changing nexus between occupation, profession and discipline. Those values and that nexus may be partially exposed by a highly disaggregated analysis using what might be termed micro-indicators . In this last section we shall turn away from macro-indicators of the institution of chemistry and instead use micro-indicators to elucidate certain matters of interest. The use of micro-indicators also provides a specimen of the possibilities inherent in the analysis of fine structure, an effort which may be mounted within the frame secured by macro-indicators of the kind presented earlier in this work.  

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