UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO The New Prophet: Harold C. Urey, Scientist, Atheist, and Defender of Religion A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in History (Science Studies) by Matthew Benjamin Shindell Committee in charge: Professor Naomi Oreskes, Chair Professor Robert Edelman Professor Martha Lampland Professor Charles Thorpe Professor Robert Westman 2011 Copyright Matthew Benjamin Shindell, 2011 All rights reserved. The Dissertation of Matthew Benjamin Shindell is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm and electronically: ___________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________ Chair University of California, San Diego 2011 iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Signature Page……………………………………………………………………...... iii Table of Contents……………………………………………………………………. iv Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………….. v Vita…………………………………………………………………………………... xi Abstract………………………………………………………………………………. xii Introduction………………………………………………………………………….. 1 Chapter 1, The Making and Remaking of an American Chemist: From a Country Boyhood to World War I………………………………… 25 Chapter 2, Farm Life and Scientific Stardom: From the Barrett Chemical Company to World War II……………………………………. 94 Chapter 3, Atomic Trauma and New Territory: The Rise of Nuclear Geochemistry in Chicago……………………………………… 162 Chapter 4, Calling for the New Prophet: A Skeptic Argues for the Importance of Religion………………………………………………. 213 Chapter 5, To Hell with the Moon: The Cosmochemist’s Failed Quest for a Rosetta Stone……………………………... 262 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………… 312 Works Cited………………………………………………………………………….. 316 iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Although I am the sole author of this dissertation, it could never have been written without the help of many individuals. First and foremost, I must thank the chair of my committee and my adviser for the last seven years, Naomi Oreskes. Although I first appeared in Professor Oreskes’s office declaring that my intention was to write a dissertation on the history of planetary geology, she has supported every turn that my research has taken and has provided invaluable support and feedback. My understanding of Cold War science and my emphasis of Cold War causality are both due to Professor Oreskes’s guidance and encouragement. I might never have imagined writing a dissertation related to the problem of science and religion during the Cold War if not for another member of my committee, Robert Westman. It was in Professor Westman’s science and religion research seminar that I first approached the Urey papers. Chapter 4 of this dissertation is a revised version of my initial entry into this question in this seminar. As an instructor, Professor Westman also introduced me to the history of the field of science studies and encouraged me to believe that history might have a unique role to play in this field in the years to come. Two other members of my committee – both members of the Science Studies Program – have helped to form my understanding of the social, cultural, and political nature of science: Martha Lampland and Charles Thorpe. I was fortunate enough to enjoy Professor Lampland as an instructor in multiple science studies courses. She is probably the most reflexive and honest social scientist I have ever met, and I have always appreciated her advice on methods and argumentation. Professor Thorpe, although he joined the faculty after I had already finished my coursework, provided in his social v biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer a wonderful model for my analysis of Urey as a Cold War figure. In revisiting my training in science studies, I must also mention two faculty members who, although they have since left the Science Studies Program, advised me during my science studies minor field work: Andrew Lakoff and Steven Epstein. I have Professors Lakoff and Epstein to thank for my understanding of the intellectual foundations of the sociological and anthropological study of science. My final committee member, Robert Edelman, advised me in my study of Russian and Soviet history. It seemed unreasonable to study the Cold War from only the US perspective, and Professor Edelman allowed me to define a course of study that combined the social and cultural history of the Soviet Union with the history of Russian and Soviet science. This work was of course helpful in the ways that I had hoped, but it also gave me a much better grasp of the use of social and cultural methods in history than I would otherwise possess. I also have our discussions to thank for my understanding of the construction and evolution of the American intellectual critique of totalitarianism, an early prewar version of which appears in this dissertation. I would like to thank the UCSD Science Studies Program for providing an incredible intellectual atmosphere within which to train, and also for providing financial support at various times throughout my time at UCSD. Some of this money was provided to the Science Studies Program and came originally from a private endowment from the estate of Rik and Flo Henrikson. I am grateful for the Henrikson’s original decision to support research at UCSD, and also to the current trustee of the estate, Tony Dimitroff, for taking an interest in the Science Studies Program. I would also like to thank the UC Humanities Network for having me as one of its predoctoral Humanities Research vi Fellows. UCSD’s Kenneth and Dorothy Hill Fellowship funded the final year of my research in the Urey papers. Thanks to the support of a National Science Foundation Dissertation Improvement Grant, I was able to afford necessary research materials, travel, and spend time in several relevant archives. For one year during my research for this dissertation, I was a Haas Predoctoral Fellow at the Chemical Heritage Foundation in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Thanks also go to the History of Science Society and the Society for the Social Studies of Science for providing travel funding that made it possible for me to present my research at conferences during my graduate training. Finally, thanks to the UCSD Friends of the International Center and the UCSD Department of History for helping to fund a research trip to Russia. Outside of my professors, there are also many librarians and archivists to thank. My primary archive for this research project has been the Mandeville Special Collections Library (MSCL) here at UCSD, where the papers of Urey and his La Jolla colleagues are deposited. Lynda Claassen, the department head of MSCL, has been an invaluable resource in navigating the Urey papers, as has her incomparable staff. I have probably gotten to know them better than most researchers over the past several years, and have even supported myself during some summers by assisting them. This has only made me appreciate what they do and how essential they are all the more. Urey’s career was spent at multiple institutions on the East and West Coasts. In New York I visited Columbia University where I had the assistance of Gerald Cloud in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library and Courtney Smith in the Oral History Research Office. Thank you to Harriet Zuckerman for granting me permission to use the oral history interview that she conducted with Urey. While in New York I also visited the vii Jewish Theological Seminary of America, where Sarah Diamant assisted me with the papers of the Conference on Science, Philosophy, and Religion. At the University of Chicago’s Special Collections Research Center, directed by Alice Schreyer, I was happy to have the knowledgeable guidance of Julia Gardner. Also in Chicago, discussions with two of Urey’s younger colleagues at the Institute for Nuclear Studies (now known as the Enrico Fermi Institute), Roger Hildebrand and Robert N. Clayton, helped me to understand the structure and atmosphere of the Institute during its early years. It was Clayton who first emphasized to me the importance of mass spectrometer development in the immediate postwar years, and encouraged me to take a closer look at Samuel Epstein’s papers at Caltech. At the Caltech Archives, headed by Shelley Erwin, I was assisted primarily by Loma Karklins. In Washington DC, I spent time at NASA’s History Division with its then Director Steven J. Dick and his knowledgeable staff of historians and archivists. In the Ava Helen and Linus Pauling Papers, held at Oregon State University, I enjoyed the assistance of the Head of Special Collections, Cliff Mead, and Faculty Research Assistant Chris Petersen. The American Institute of Physics Center for the History of Physics has been very helpful in providing Urey’s oral history interview, conducted by John Heilbron, as well as transcripts of Ian I. Mitroff’s interviews with Urey during NASA’s Apollo program. At the AIP I wish to thank Scott Prouty and Mark Matienzo. During my year in Philadelphia at the Chemical Heritage Foundation, I benefited from the CHF’s very knowledgeable staff, and was able to make use of the CHF’s Othmer Library, Oral History Program, and Archives. I wish to thank the entire CHF staff, especially Ronald Brashear, Anke Timmerman, James Voelkel, David Caruso, viii Hilary Domush, Sarah Hunter, Andrew Mangravite, Elsa Atson, Ashley Augustyniak, Hyungsub