Viewpoint, BSHS Info

NO. 105: OCTOBER 2014 ISSN: 1751-8261 MAGAZINE OF THE BRITISH SOCIETY FOR THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE Contents Blowing up the Basement 1-3 BSHS Prizes 3 Meccano Magazine 4 Little Hitlers 5 BSHS Grant Report 6-7 BJHS Themes 7 AIDS and YOU GAME 8-9 Conference Reports 10-14 Interview 15 BJHS, Viewpoint, BSHS info. 16 Editorial I Welcome to my final issue as Viewpoint editor: I have rather self-indulgently themed it around my own area of research, the history of science for children. Our feature article by Rebecca Onion (1-3) explores the dangerous consequences when juvenile experiments go wrong, and argues for the role of error and injury in histories of science at home. Peter Bowler continues the nostalgic theme, with his introduction to Meccano Magazine (4). Hannah Elizabeth reflects how our object of the issue, the AIDS and YOU GAME, introduced interactiv- ity to children’s sex education (8-9). “Dangerous Toys.” Life Magazine, November 12, 1971. I owe an enormous thank you to all who have read the magazine over the past five years, as well as to all who have contrib- uted to it. Your unstinting generosity and Blowing up the Basement extraordinarily kind words have made this task a pleasure to undertake. Rebecca Onion revists the joys and hazards of home experiments I wish my successor, Alice White, the in 20th-century America very best in the role: I leave the magazine in extremely capable hands and I am When I talk about my research into chemistry always says, to the kind of laughter that greets sure she will do an outstanding job! For a sets in the American interwar period, especial- a story so common that it’s clichéd. Likewise, glimpse into just one part of her research, ly at history of science conferences, I inevita- it’s fashionable in the press to mention the see her article on playground psychology bly hear from at least one audience member stripped-down chemistry set as a sad sign of (5). Contributions to her first issue should bemoaning the state of home laboratories these nervous times, and a major contribu- be sent to [email protected] by 15th and science play in today’s age of supervi- tor to children’s apparent disinterest in the December 2014. sion and safety. “I almost blew up my parents’ sciences. Melanie Keene, Editor [basement, attic, whole house],” somebody 2 Viewpoint No. 105 “Chemcraft, the Chemical Outfit,” n.d. Chemical Heritage Foundation, Object Collections, 2005.001. Some of the most entertaining stories who stuffed a carbon dioxide cartridge and experiments into a larger context of changing in scientific biographies have to do with matchheads into a compartment destined to perceptions of children’s level of risk from the the messiness and transgression of child- propel a homemade rocket. Tait was tight- material world. The formal equipment of childhood experiments gone wrong. In his Uncle ening the device in a vice in his basement hood experimentation - the chemistry set, the Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood, workshop when it exploded, hitting him in model rocket - were part of a larger array of Oliver Sacks recounts an episode in which he the stomach. Tait’s younger brother, Terry, toys that were packaged and marketed as aids and a friend, left at home while his friend’s who had been sleeping upstairs, ran down to a child’s natural exploration of the world, parents travelled, gathered a mass of cuttle- and found his wounded sibling in a chair by from the 1910s to the 1950s. fish, which they intended to give to a favourite the telephone, where he had been trying In the 1960s, the easy ride these toys had teacher to use for in-class experimentation. to call for help. Tait died in the hospital. His been given for being associated with the The 13-year-olds didn’t know how to preserve father, a chemist for the J.W. Mortell paint magic word “Science” vanished. The regula- the fish, however, and the vats of it fermented manufacturer in Kankakee, had forbidden him tion of chemistry sets and other science toys and then exploded in the basement of Sacks’ to experiment with that type of rocket fuel; emerged (ironically enough) from a century- friend’s home. Faced with a basement draped the story’s headline read “Father’s Warning long movement enabled by the growth of with bits of fish carcass, the two cleaned up as Ignored; Blast Kills Rocket Fan, 13.” scientific expertise in government. Regulation best they could, and then used a large bottle Stories like John Tait’s, or those of the many came from the rise of public health profes- of coconut essence to try to cover up the other children who lost fingers, eyes, or skin sionals, advocacy groups, and the codifica- smell. This method, Sacks writes in laughing to chemistry sets in the mid-century period, tion of injury epidemiology as a profession. memory, created concentric rings of odour, show what a grip the humorous, light-hearted Worries about children’s physical safety in emanating out from the basement’s blast tale of childhood experimentation has on our the home grew steadily throughout the 20th zone: fish, coconut, fish, coconut. The family imagination. Why do we love a tale like Oliver century, as childhood accidents (slips, falls, had to move out of the house temporarily Sacks’ so much? I think that these stories of punctures, poisonings, burns) came to be per- while a better clean-up was effected. comic experiments reinforce a wistful, nostal- ceived as preventable, rather than acts of God. As a thought experiment, I like to com- gic sense that children of the past were better The attention of public-health professionals pare this “all’s well that ends well” story with at experimentation: smarter, with more fertile turned to accidental injury as more and more another mid-century tale of unsupervised imaginations, and more curious. childhood diseases came under control; for experimentation: the 1960 tragedy of John This picture is complicated if we put the example, thousands of poison-control centres Tait, a teenage student in Kankakee, Illinois, perceived hyper-regulation of children’s were opened around the United States in the Viewpoint No. 105 3 1950s and 1960s: the period after the polio ruled out,” the anonymous author wrote. “Only vaccine gave hope that the scariest threats to under the direct guidance of a person with a children’s bodies could be contained. competent knowledge of chemistry, should The postwar emphasis on accidental injury, a child be permitted to design and carry out BSHS Prizes whether from toys or other household items, his own experiments—and thus be exposed was tied up with a growing perception that to the undeniable fascinations of empirical BSHS Dingle Prize the expanding material world of consumerism inquiry.” In a 1970 article about dangerous was psychologically and physically danger- toys in LIFE magazine, the gap between a par- The Dingle Prize, of £300, is awarded eve- ous. Parents began to perceive the marketing ent’s and a child’s knowledge of the chemistry ry two years to the best book in the his- of toys and children’s items as predatory, and set’s function was presented as a problem, tory of science, technology, and medicine, the objects themselves as unnecessary, ugly, not an attractive feature. “My mother doesn’t published in English, which is accessible and damaging to children’s imaginations. know it, but I can make nitroglycerine or stink to a wide audience of non-specialists. The The American toy safety movement in the bombs,” a “12-year-old chemist” boasts. BSHS is delighted that the 2015 judging late 1960s and early 1970s, which culminated While chemistry sets received an exemp- panel will be chaired by Professor Gowan in the passage (if not consistent funding or tion from regulation under the Toy Safety Dawson (University of Leicester). enforcement) of the Child Protection and Act, given their educational value, companies Toy Safety Act of 1969, was part of a set of reacted to the new climate with self-regula- The winning book should present some rear-guard actions, including regulation of tion, omitting glass alcohol lamps (some of aspect of the field in an engaging and children’s television, meant to separate child- which had been known to explode, prompt- comprehensible manner and should also hood from the marketplace. ing lawsuits) and some acids, and including show proper regard for historical methods This was a significant shift from the prewar more explicit safety warnings in their manuals, and the results of historical research: for years, when toy manufacturers voluntarily aimed at parents. Chemistry sets of today example, it might re-examine a well- self-regulated. The attitude toward children tend to be less wide-reaching and serious in known historical incident or achievement, as consumers in the early 20th century and their coverage, emphasising things that are or bring new perspective to previously the interwar years was a tempered one, with “gross” or “cool,” in the vein of Horrible Science. neglected figures or fields in the past. experts optimistic that children could learn (Though, to be sure, we should remember how to be informed and conscious in their that many interwar chemistry sets featured The winner will also have the opportunity consumer choices. Some such even argued “Chemical Magic” experiments that were not to give a public lecture, organised by the that boys, in particular, might know more very serious at all. One interwar A.C. Gilbert BSHS, on the subject of their book.

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