Chemical Society of Philadelphia

Black s enterprise in teaching and his interest in the members of his class are shown by his foundation of a chemical society. Apparently the earliest of all ch nical societies, in 1785 it numbered no fewer than fifty-nine members. The earliest chemical society in America—the Chemical Society of Philadelphia, founded by James Woodhouse in 1792—may also have owed its inception directly to Black, since njamin Rush, one of Black s earlier pupils, had been appointed in 1769 to the first American chair of chemistry, in the medical school of the University of Pennsylvania. 

In 1789, at the age of 20, Penington formed, in Philadelphia, the first chemical society in America (possibly the world s firsh) and authored the first American chemistry book—Chemical and Economical Essays (see Figure 236), a work that had favorably impressed Thomas Jefferson (see p. 397). His chemical society lasted briefly and was succeeded by The Chemical Society of Philadelphia, which was founded in 1792 [Dr. James Woodhouse (M.D.)—first president]. In 1793, he was one of six co-signatories to an endorsement for the Hopkins process for making potash (KOH) and pearl ash (K2CO3), for which the first U.S. patent was granted. ... 

The Chemical Society of Philadelphia disbanded between 1805 and 1810 and was succeeded in 1811 by the Columbian Chemical Society, also formed in Philadelphia (see notes 2 and 3 above). 

The Chemical Society of Philadelphia began in 1792 and was succeeded by the Columbian Chemical Society in 1811. There are few traces of the earlier society, but copies of the annual address delivered by Thomas P. Smith on April 11, 1798 (Figure 238) are known. Smith, only 21 or 22 years old, was a member of the Society s Nitre Committee. The committee placed announcements in newspapers asking citizens to provide any information they had on niter, a component of gunpowder, by mail ( post paid , mind you) to Mr. Smith at No. 19 North Fifth Street or to the other four committee members, including Society President Dr. James Woodhouse (No. 13 Cherry Street). ... 

FIGURE 238. Title page from Thomas P. Smith s lecture before The Chemical Society of Philadelphia on April 11, 1798. The precocious Mr. Smith dared to imagine a world of scientific contributions by female chemists and stretched the notion of oxidation to include (correctly, as it soon turned out) oxidation by gases other than oxygen. 

T.P. Smith, Annual Oration Delivered before the Chemical Society of Philadelphia, April 11,1798— A Sketch of the Revolutions in Chemistry, Samuel H. Smith, Philadelphia, 1798. 

FIGURE 240. Dr. James Woodhouse, Professor of Chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania, founded the Chemical Society of Philadelphia. He also had a profitable lecture series for which he sold his own chemical apparatus. He proclaimed it to he far superior and more economical than that of Guyton de Morveau in France. (From Parkinson, The Chemical Pocket-Book, 1802.)... 

The first of the long-lived specialized societies in the physical or chemical sciences was the Chemical Society of London, founded in 1841. There had been earlier chemical groups, for example, Joseph Black s Edinburgh students, who have been called the first chemical club. A chemical society was founded in the Netherlands in 1797 and in Philadelphia by 1798, and there were clubs in London dating from 1781. 

Bud, Robert F. The Discipline of Chemistry The Origins and Early Years of the Chemical Society of London. Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania Press, 1980. 

Reneker, D. H., and L. H. Bolz. Effect of atomic oxygen on the surface morphology of polyethylene. Paper Presented at Symposium on Plasma Chemistry of Polymers, American Chemical Society Meeting, Philadelphia, April 6-11, 1975. 

Mo., April, 1984. Additional examples of this annulation strategy were reported at the first Latest Trends in Organic Synthesis conference held in Blacksburg, Va., May, 1984 and the 188th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in Philadelphia, Pa., August, 1984. 

Gorman, W. B., and Usmani, A. M., Application of Polymer and Asphalt Chemistries in Roofing, Paper No. 34 presented at the Rubber Division, American Chemical Society (ACS), Philadelphia, PA (May 2-5, 1995)... 

Standard Test Methods For Chemical Analysis of Magnesium and Magnesium Alloys, ASTM E-35 to 88, American Society for Testing and Materials, Philadelphia, Pa., 1992. 

K. P. Beardsley, "An Introduction to the Physics of Material Science," at the MCA Meeting of the 147th Rubber Division, Philadelphia, Pa., May 2—5,1995, American Chemical Society, Washington, D.C. 

Schallenberg, R. IT. (1982). Bottled Energy Electrical Engineering and the Evolution of Chemical Energy Storage. Philadelphia, PA American Philosophical Society. 

American Society of Testing and Materials, Standard Methods for Sampling and Chemical Analysis of Fatty Alkyl Sulfates, D1570-89, 1916 Race St., Philadelphia, PA 19103. 

G.J. DeMenna and W.J. Edison, Novel Sample Preparation Techniques for Chemical Analysis - Microwave and Pressure, Dissolution, Chemical Analysis of Metals, ASTM STP 994 (F.T. Coyle, ed.), American Society for Testing and Materials, Philadelphia, PA (1987), p. 45. 

DC and Philadelphia American Chemical Society and Chemical Heritage Foundation, 1996. This book, a combination of factually reported and imaginatively recreated events, is the source for Carothers deep reading Babbitt Harvard job offer partly Americanized class list of suicides mushroom farmer and 45,000 estate. 

Developed from a symposium sponsored by the Division of Organic Chemistry at the 188th Meeting of the American Chemical Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,... 

Anderson, R. W. Whitlow, M. D. Teeter, M. M. Mohr, S. C. 188th National Meeting of American Chemical Society, Philadelphia, PA, August 27, 1984. 

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