An unheralded beginning

A wave of euphoria was sweeping across the United States early in 1876 as the countdown to the country’s centennial continued towards July 4. Preliminary celebrations, such as the Centennial of the Battle of Bunker Hill, had already taken place a year earlier. But the keystone event in the celebration of the nation’s centennial birthday would be the massive International Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, set to open on May 10. It was a time to reflect back on a tumultuous century of political events. More importantly, it was a time for the United States to take its place on the world stage, showcasing technological achievements that indicated a bright future for American industry.

One of the more unusual events at the exposition was a demonstration by Alexander Graham Bell of a device that allowed the human voice to be transmitted over a wire. Bell had first achieved that feat on March 10, with the famous message to his assistant, Mr. Watson. A month later, as Bell was preparing his equipment for the Philadelphia exposition, a small group of chemists was quietly meeting on April 6 at the University Building of what is now New York University. In contrast to the forthcoming centennial exposition, this meeting attracted no attention from the media, and the only account of its transactions occurred in an obscure chemical journal. That night its exhausted organizer would write simply in his dairy, “Organization of Chem. Society in eveg.”

A synthesis of chemists
A few of those present at New York University that evening had caught the centennial fever several years earlier. In the summer of 1874 they made a pilgrimage to join some 70 other chemists in the small Pennsylvania town of Northumberland to pay their respects at the grave of Joseph Priestley, the English theologian and natural scientist who had discovered oxygen exactly 100 years earlier, on August 1, 1774. They also celebrated the first 100 years of modern chemistry, favorably comparing what chemists and chemistry in the United States had achieved to what had transpired in Europe, where modern chemistry was born.

Noting that chemists were not yet formally organized, the New York Daily Graphic reported that “if the chemists who were at Northumberland … had combined in certain definite proportions to accomplish what was really the obvious purpose of their merely mechanical mixture … the world would have cause to rejoice in their synthesis,” for “hitherto America had done but little for the science, each chemist being an isolated molecule giving but little show of affinity for others.”

The camaraderie of the Northumberland meeting did prompt some of those present to join the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a 28-year-old organization that included all sciences under the same umbrella. However, the explosive growth of chemistry, as demonstrated by the centennial review at Northumberland, only reinforced the notion that chemistry could no longer be contained in a general science setting. In reacting to that need, the New York group, led by Professor Charles F. Chandler of the Columbia School of Mines, founded the American Chemical Society at that April 6, 1876, meeting at New York University.

A national focus
Chandler, like many of his chemical colleagues, had received his advanced chemical education in Europe, and he came prepared to form an organization patterned after similar European societies. Chandler knew, however, that this society would be a decidedly American venture, finally giving American chemists a cause to “rejoice in their synthesis.”

The new society, Chandler said, would “prove a powerful and healthy stimulus to original research, … would awaken and develop much talent now wasting in isolation, … [bring] members of the association into closer union, and ensure a better appreciation of our science and its students on the part of the general public.”

After completing a formal vote for organization and the adoption of a constitution, the New York University participants selected of officers. To many, the obvious choice for president would have been Chandler, who was well known in New York because he served as the city’s health commissioner. The presidency would have been a reward for his guiding genius in bringing the American Chemical Society into existence. But Chandler had other ideas. Although its headquarters would be in New York, the Society was planned as a national organization. That meant it needed a president whose fame and reputation were known to the general public, would attract new members throughout the country, and would secure acceptance by established societies in Europe. In Chandler’s mind there was only one person who was known to scientist and layman alike, both in the United States and abroad. That person was New York University Professor John William Draper, who at age 65 had an impressive list of achievements.