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The chemistry set generation Thinking about buying a chemistry set for someone this Christmas? Henry Nicholls takes a nostalgic look at this inspirational toy and finds out if it could be on the verge of a comeback

42 | Chemistry World | December 2007 www.chemistryworld.org

CW12.07.Chemistry Sets.indd 42 21/11/2007 11:24:04 Chemistry sets just aren’t what and medical students all standing to Chemcraft and A C Gilbert – came to In short they used to be. The days of stinks benefit from this mobile, must-have dominate the story of the chemistry in sinks and bangs in basements are ● The earliest chemistry laboratory. And as the price for a set from around 1920 right up until well and truly gone, but are certainly sets date back to the 18th portable chest began to tumble, a new 1960. Indeed, if you owned a set in not forgotten. Just take a look at century and the first sets and impressionable kind of consumer this period, there’s a very good chance the biographies of distinguished to be targeted at children stepped forward and dug a youthful it was made by one or other of these chemists: more often than not, their appeared in the 1830s hand into its pocket. manufacturers, says John Tyler, a fond memories of childhood are ● Early chemistry set The first chemistry sets targeted retired science teacher, keen collector strewn with broken glass, tinted manufacturers drew exclusively at children appeared of chemistry sets and author of The with spectacular colours and reek of parallels between in the 1830s, says Salim Al-Gailani, Chemcraft Story: The Legacy of Harold sulfurous smells (see box, p44). chemistry and magic to a graduate historian of science at Porter. A personal experience of chemical inspire children Cambridge University, UK. ‘As soon Both companies employed reactions is crucial to get children ● The chemistry set’s as chemical manufacturers began sophisticated marketing techniques interested in science, argues author heyday was during the marketing towards children they had to push their products on children and and neurologist Oliver Sacks, whose 1940s and 1950s but to invent ways to make chemicals parents alike. ‘Experimenter today, ‘Uncle Tungsten’, the owner of a they rapidly went out of more appealing.’ A good way to do scientist tomorrow,’ promised Porter lightbulb factory, introduced him fashion after the 1960s this was to draw on the Victorian Chemcraft right up to the 1950s, to the wonders of experimentation obsession with magic, he says. when its slogan became even more at an early age. ‘I do not think that Chemistry and conjuring were aspirational: ‘Porter Science prepares there can be any adequate substitute so closely bound up that an 1881 young America for world leadership.’ for having a chemistry set or a little copy of Boy’s Own Paper went so far This shift is reflected in the images chemistry lab and doing experiments as to suggest that ‘most so-called used on the boxes. Early on, most sets oneself,’ says Sacks, ‘thinking them magical illusions are chemistry showed a stereotypical laboratory out, taking responsibility for them and experiments,’ says Al-Gailani. With scene, often with a boy holding up a occasionally facing risks too.’ children desperate to make their test tube. By the late 1950s, however, But in these safety-conscious and own fireworks, experiment with this domestic setting had been litigious times, this is far from easy. disappearing inks and perform replaced by distant horizons, rocket ‘There are “chemistry sets” on sale colour-changing tricks, publishers ships and nuclear symbols. today that simply don’t contain any began to cash in. Towards the end Harold Porter set up clubs for the chemicals,’ says Rosanne DiVernieri, of the century, a rash of handbooks, owners of Porter Chemcraft sets, Collections Coordinator at the manuals and penny pamphlets giving members fancy certificates, Chemical Heritage Foundation in appeared that taught children sending out monthly newsletters and Philadelphia, US and curator of an ‘chemical magic’ of the sort taking publishing experiments the children ongoing exhibition on chemistry sets. place in the music halls around had designed, says Tyler. ‘It was clever There is just no comparison between Britain, he says. stuff.’ Alfred Carlton Gilbert, who modern sets and those from the became known as ‘the man who saved 1940s and 1950s – the heyday of the Flashes and bangs Christmas’, also encouraged children chemistry set. But the outbreak of the First World to undertake their own experiments ‘Back then, children were War took its toll on this kind of and in 1937 launched a $100 prize for experimenting with everything they Traditional chemistry recreational chemistry, particularly the ‘boy chemist of the year’. could get their hands on, they were sets were aimed almost in Europe. This might explain how This focus on boys is pretty typical given free rein of their garages and exclusively at boys two American companies – Porter of the early sets, says DiVernieri. ‘They basements and occasionally blew were almost exclusively aimed at them up,’ she says. So popular was the chemistry set during this period set, that manufacturers frequently boasted there was one in ‘every house on every street in America’.

Austere beginnings The origin of this quintessentially 20th century phenomenon can be traced back to the chemical chest, a beautifully crafted and exorbitantly expensive piece of portable kit manufactured from the early 18th century onwards. At first, these chests, which held everything from complex glassware and ceramic vessels to pre-packaged chemical preparations and reagents, were aimed at a serious and seriously niche market: as one early manufacturer put it in 1730, ‘to facilitate and promote the Practice of Chemistry by putting a commodious Laboratory into the hands of Gentlemen’. But new markets soon emerged,

with mineralogists, metallurgists US FOUNDATION, HERITAGE CHEMICAL

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CW12.07.Chemistry Sets.indd 43 22/11/2007 10:32:08 Chemistry sets Nobel laureates remember… and buy 100 feet of dynamite fuse, and the clerk would just smile and say, “What are you

Science, Nature, Space, & Technology IMAGES GETTY kids going to do? Blow up the Advertisement toys, kits, and gifts vetted for scienti c bank?”’ integrity by our helpful & friendly ex- Mario Molina (1995) ‘I still remember my excitement NASA/ESA Hubble sta . when I first glanced at paramecia and amoebae Call 01594 546 296 for service between 9:15 am through a rather primitive toy Experimenter today, scientist microscope. I then converted - 4:45 pm weekdays. tomorrow a bathroom, seldom used by Nikolay Semenov (1956) the family, into a laboratory We go the extra light-year for you! ‘It was the greatest puzzle that and spent hours playing with sodium, this flammable and chemistry sets.’  malleable metal, and chlorine, Robert Curl (1996) Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry, Earth, Physics, this extremely reactive gas, ‘When I was nine years old, my Technology, Instruments, Gifts, Science kits formed innocent table salt. parents gave me a chemistry To check this out, I bought a set. Within a week, I had  Competitive prices & shipping rates piece of sodium, burned it in decided to become a chemist  Bank card, Paypal, cheque, gold bars, etc chlorine gas, and re-crystalised and never wavered from that the precipitate. It was a white choice.’  Science stu for curious minds of all ages powder which I poured over Harold Kroto (1996)  Same/next day dispatch worldwide a big slice of bread and it was ‘I really got a kick out of table salt indeed, the best kind.’ growing crystals. That did destinations George Porter (1967) seem quite magical. However  Friendly, cheerful, helpful support ‘It was at the age of nine or ten my main memory is of distilling that I was given a chemistry formaldehyde with a school  Purchase Orders accepted set. I am a great believer in friend. The pungent aroma got chemistry sets….There was in our eyes and had us running  Call for volume discounts the magic of colour changes out into the back yard.’ and bangs…. We chemists, Paul Boyer (1997) aged 10, used to make our own ‘I received a chemistry set fireworks. But you can’t do that when I was about 10. now.’ I remember playing with it in the William Lipscomb (1976) basement of my parents’ house ‘When I was 11 years old my and it may have interested me mother bought me one of those more than I realised.’ chemistry sets and I stayed Ahmed Zewail (1999) with it. I discovered that I could ‘I set up some scientific buy additional apparatus and experiments at home in chemicals using my father’s my room. I had some test privilege at the drug store. tubes and would heat some I began building up a home substances, such as wood in laboratory.’ them. I could have created an Rudolph Marcus (1992) explosion, but I didn’t–I was ‘My interest in the sciences lucky. started with mathematics in I was intrigued by these the very beginning, and later experiments, especially when with chemistry in early high observing the substance school and the proverbial home changing from solid to a chemistry set.’ burning gas.’ Kary Mullis (1993) Richard Schrock (2005) ‘Something about tubes filled ‘My older brother Theodore… with things with exotic names presented me with the intrigued me. My objective proverbial chemistry set on my with that set was to figure eighth birthday….I was hooked. out what things I might put I created a small laboratory at together to cause an explosion. the end of a storage area for I discovered that whatever canned goods and used my chemicals might be missing budding woodworking skills from the set could be bought at to build shelves for the ever the local drugstore. …We could expanding collection of test- CuriousMinds.co.uk/RSC go down to the hardware store tubes, beakers, and flasks.’

44 | Chemistry World | December 2007 www.chemistryworld.org

CW12.07.Chemistry Sets.indd 44 22/11/2007 15:56:03 young boys in an effort to get them ‘By the late interested in science,’ she says. Girls did eventually get their own dedicated 1950s the sets in the late 1960s and early 1970s. stereotypical But with pink packaging and contents that nudged girls towards careers as laboratory lab technicians rather than scientists, scene on the Advertisement they were clearly products of their time. boxes had been

The messy aftermath replaced by As science began to contend with the rocket ships sinister side of its image, chemistry and nuclear sets fell from grace. ‘A greater focus on safety and the emergence of symbols’ environmental and anti-nuclear movements in the 1960s, caused people to question whether free- range science should be marketed towards children,’ says DiVernieri. The deaths of Gilbert and Harold Porter in 1961 and 1963, respectively, also had an impact. ‘When the principals were gone, there was no real drive or direction to their companies,’ says Tyler. A series of high-profile lawsuits in the 1970s only made matters worse. In spite of safety warnings plastered all over the boxes, accidents were bound to happen. ‘There was nothing dangerous about the chemicals themselves,’ says Tyler. ‘It’s how they were used – put anything into a test-tube, stick a cork stopper on top, apply heat et voila you’ve got a potential lawsuit.’ It’s hard to see how the chemistry set can return from this low point. ‘Not in America,’ says Sacks, ‘where there is a sort of nursery atmosphere, and a hysteria about risks and insurance.’ Conceivably, he says, a virtual set courtesy of the internet or a ‘nano set’ containing minute quantities of reagents could give children a safe introduction to chemistry. ‘But if chemistry sets or something equivalent cannot come back, a certain realm of childhood may be lost forever.’ DiVernieri is more upbeat. ‘We’re going to see a resurgence of the kind of sets produced in the 1950s,’ she predicts. ‘With the rise of home- Porter Chemcraft and schooling and the emergence of A C Gilbert dominated alternative schools, particularly in the chemistry set market the US, more and more people will demand sets that can be used at home, but that don’t [disadvantage] their children when it comes to science education.’ If chemistry sets are about to reinvent themselves for the 21st century, they will almost certainly be coupled up with some kind of web-based interactive element, she suggests. Let’s hope she’s right.

Henry Nicholls is a science writer

CHEMICAL HERITAGE FOUNDATION, US FOUNDATION, HERITAGE CHEMICAL based in London, UK

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