Regular Routines and Events

Archive of the Danish Chemical Society (ADCS), box DCS.01,1. Located at the Steno Institute at the University of Aarhus. 

All gatherings ended with a dinner that was to be paid for independently. The social element was important in itself, and during the First World War the dinner tradition grew stronger. The social dimension was such a crucial element that it makes perfect sense to compare the chemical society with a bourgeoisie club. In both cases, there were specific rules of admission based on a certain educated or cultured background, and the forums provided opportunities to meet men of similar interests, preferably with a fork and knife in hand a situation very similar to the one in the Swedish Chemical Society. 

Despite having no female members, ladies were invited to participate in the summer excursions, arranged from the 1890s. All excursions focused on industrial plants and visits included one to a super-phosphate and sulfuric acid factory in 1888 and another to the Carlsberg Brewery and Laboratory in the winter of 1889-1890. The first woman was admitted in the society in 1898, one year after the first two females graduated from the Polytechnic College. The first woman on the executive committee - Agnes Petersen, married Delbanco -was elected in 1914, and the same year she became the first woman to deliver a paper in the society. There were never many women in the society and they played only minor roles as speakers or members of the executive committee -quite similar to the subordinate roles the female scientists often played in the laboratory. 

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