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Joseph Priestley: Radical Thinker Joseph Priestley: Radical Thinker Chemical Heritage Foundation’s Exhibit on Joseph Priestley Includes (1774), open to its dedication page, acknowledges the patronage from Rare Instruments and Papers 1773 to 1780 of another politician, William Petty, Earl of Shelburne. by Mary Ellen Bowden Great political thinkers were among Priestley’s sparring partners, includ- isiting Philadelphia before the end of July ing Edmund Burke and Thomas 2005? The Chemical Heritage Foundation is Paine, who, as different as their the- Vholding an exhibit, Joseph Priestley, Radical ories were from each other, were Thinker, that chemists should not miss. once Priestley’s admirers but even- tually became his foes. Jeremy Although Joseph Priestley (1733–1804) is best Bentham, another political theorist, remembered for his contributions to chemistry, his once wrote that he owed to many pursuits included theology, politics, education, Priestley the famous phrase “the and several areas of scientific inquiry. At the entrance greatest happiness of the greatest to the exhibit, an air pump (on loan from the Franklin number.” Institute) that belonged to Priestley when he lived in Priestley’s fame and influence in America preceded Northumberland, Pennsylvania, from 1794 to 1804, his arrival there by decades. He maintained personal serves as a reminder of his fame as a natural philoso- friendships with both Benjamin Franklin and John pher. But nearby representations of a dozen or so of Adams from the days when those men were American Priestley’s friends and foes give the visitor an early diplomats in London (though his relationship with indication of Priestley’s importance in eighteenth-cen- Adams soured over time). Priestley’s writings on reli- tury politics and religion as well. gion, politics, education, and natural philosophy were A portrait of Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier, one of the well known to many more Americans, including two other contenders for title of “discoverer” of oxy- Thomas Jefferson and various ministers leaning gen, is mounted on a wall near images and items towards Unitarianism, as well as those religious lead- related to members of the Lunar Society of ers who were scandalized by doubts raised by Birmingham and founders of the Industrial Revolution. Priestley concerning the divinity of Jesus. Their ranks include Matthew Boulton and James Watt In the main exhibit area beckon the brass and glass as well as Josiah Wedgwood, who is represented by of Priestley’s career as a natural philosopher. On loan his famous jasperware plaques and a commemorative from Dickinson College, a reflecting telescope, micro- plate. scope, surveyor’s compass, and voltaic pile (thought A portrait of King George III’s prime minister, to be a gift from Alessandro Volta to Priestley) imme- William Pitt the Younger, is included because he was diately alert the viewer that Priestley thoroughly pur- one of Priestley’s most resolute political foes. In one sued several sciences other than chemistry. His display case, Priestley’s Experiments and History and Present State of Electricity (1767), inspired Observations on Different Kinds of Air, volume I by Benjamin Franklin, was Priestley’s first book in the sciences. The exhibit’s most eye-catching apparatus is the Smithsonian Institution’s reproduction of one of Priestley’s burning glasses, used to focus sunlight through lenses as a relatively clean way of heating substances to high temperatures. Magnificent original glassware (also from the Smithsonian) from Priestley’s Northumberland laboratory shines in a nearby exhibit cabinet. After his arrival in Northumberland—a 130- Photograph by Douglas Lockart. mile wagon ride over bumpy roads from Philadelphia —Priestley continued to obtain the bulk of his glass- ware from England. The pneumatic trough that is most emblematic of Priestley’s research on “airs” (gases) is The exhibition entrance at the Chemical 4 CHEMISTRY International May-June 2005 Heritage Foundation. depicted in blown-up oxygen explanations seemed to work pretty well on illustrations from Experi- the whole, if not in every circumstance. ments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air. “Yours is one of the few lives precious to Modern chemists mankind, and for the continuance of Photograph by Gregory Tobias. might be interested to follow the details of how which every thinking man is solicitous . .” Priestley originally dis- Thomas Jefferson to Joseph Priestley, 21 March 1801 covered oxygen, which did not actually take place on the oft-cited Two items in the exhibit bracket Priestley’s long date of 1 August 1774. On fight with the oxygen chemists. One is a manuscript that date he thought he copy of Priestley’s “Experiments Relating to had produced “phlogisti- Phlogiston and the Conversion of Water into Air” cated nitrous air” (N2O) (read before the Royal Society in 1783), in which from mercury calx (MgO) Priestley responded formally for the first time to Engraving from Expériences heated in a vessel set in a Lavoisier’s attacks on phlogiston. The first presenta- et Observations sur differ- trough of mercury, since tion of Priestley’s research to the American entes espèces d’Air; Roy G. a lighted candle flared in Philosophical Society was a reading by Samuel Neville Historical Chemical Library; Chemical Heritage the air so produced. It Vaughan in 1784 of this manuscript. An inscribed copy Foundation. was in March 1775— of Priestley’s final chemical work, The Doctrine of months after his return Phlogiston Established, and that of the Composition of from France, where he had mentioned this experiment Water Refuted (Northumberland, 1800), demon- to Lavoisier—that Priestley resumed his experimenta- strates poignantly that tion with mercury calx. This time, he carried out a suc- Priestley never gave up. cession of tests on the air produced. He observed that The exhibit also delves into when he conducted his “nitrous air” (NO) test for the Priestley’s religion and politics. “goodness” of “common” or atmospheric air (the red As a Dissenter, he vigorously fumes generated [NO2] indicated in reality the pres- argued in books, pamphlets, ence of oxygen), a candle would burn or a mouse and sermons that established could breathe in the remains of a sample of this air. churches, such as the Church Reiteration of the tests led him to the conclusion that of England, had corrupted he had produced an air five times better than atmos- Christianity, that all people pheric air. He named this new substance “dephlogisti- should enjoy religious free- cated air.” dom, and that the ideals of The exhibit attempts to give a sympathetic account both the American and French of the appeal of “phlogiston” to Priestley, Scheele, revolutions should be Lavoisier (initially), and virtually all their chemical con- applauded. As a consequence temporaries. As a substance that could be transferred of these views, Priestley was from one compound to another and dramatically made public enemy number changed the properties of the substances to which it one by political and religious united, phlogiston explained a number of important leaders in Birmingham, where reactions. Despite Priestley’s frequently proclaimed he served as minister of New distrust of the role of theories in natural philosophy Meeting from 1780 to 1791. and his declared willingness to give up the theory of Forewarned of possible vio- Double-lens burning glass phlogiston should it be disproved, he clung to it until lence, Priestley did not attend replica. Image courtesy of his dying day. Contributing to that obstinacy may well a dinner held 14 July 1791 to the Smithsonian Institution, have been his astuteness as an observer. Repeatedly commemorate the second National Museum of he produced results that Lavoisier and other oxygen anniversary of the storming of American History, Behring chemists could not explain—disregarding the fact that the Bastille. Disappointed at Center. CHEMISTRY International May-June 2005 5 Joseph Priestley: Radical Thinker not finding Priestley among the diners, the rioters set Philadelphia, only the Universalists—who like the fire to New Meeting, Priestley’s home and laboratory, Unitarians believed in universal salvation—permitted and a score of other buildings belonging to other him to preach from their pulpit. His preaching was so Birmingham Dissenters. effective that it inspired the founding in 1796 of the This stretch of the exhibit is particularly enriched by First Unitarian Church in Philadelphia. Off in the hin- a dozen eighteenth-century political cartoons given terlands of Pennsylvania, Priestley’s supposed sympa- some years ago to the Chemical Heritage Foundation thies with efforts to entangle the United States in an by Derek Davenport, professor emeritus of chemistry alliance with France against Britain almost landed him at Purdue University. In one cartoon, Priestley—with in prison under the terms of the Alien and Sedition characteristic pointy nose and curly wig—breathes fire Acts of 1798. from a pulpit occupied by three Unitarian ministers. In The exhibit also includes a corner with some of the another, he leads a toast with a chalice and calls for textbooks written by Priestley. He spent many years King George’s head to be placed on the empty as a teacher and educational adviser, usually combin- Communion plate that he bears. In still another, he ing such activities with preaching. Perhaps the most consoles the king, who is about to be beheaded, that radical aspect of his pedagogy was his insistence that by his execution he is the study of modern his- doing a great service to tory be part of the curricu- the nation. lum intended for young Like today’s political men preparing to become buttons, here, too, are merchants or members of medals lent by Roy the gentry or for young Olofson, professor emeri- women preparing to be tus of chemistry at their wives. In the United Pennsylvania State Uni- States, Priestley continued versity. Commissioned by to enjoy a reputation as a friends and foes, these great educator.
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