Christine Nawa
Chemical Heritage Foundation, Brown Bag Lecture
Time: 12:00 - 1:00 p.m.
Place: 6th Floor Conference Room, Chemical Heritage Foundation
Information: 215-873-8289 or bbl@chemheritage.org
From the 1840s onwards large groups of US-American students made their way to Europe, and especially to Germany, to become acquainted with the latest trends and methods in chemistry.
One of the major places of attraction was the University of Heidelberg that became an unparalleled hotspot for the development of the natural sciences in the second half of the nineteenth century. Right in the centre of this development was Robert Wilhelm Bunsen (1811-1899) with his newly built laboratory that counted for the best equipped one in Europe. Between 1852 and 1888 – Bunsen’s active time of teaching in Heidelberg – more than 180 Americans passed his training, first and foremost to learn methods developed and mastered by Bunsen, such as gas analytics and spectral analysis.
Nawa will discuss the motivation of the American students to join Bunsen’s Heidelberg laboratory and their reception and transmission of Bunsen’s style of teaching and research after their return to the United States.
Christine Nawa is a Ph.D. candidate in history of science at the Universität Regensburg, Germany. Her dissertation work connects university history and the history of chemistry by focusing on Robert Wilhelm Bunsen’s research style and his teaching in his Heidelberg period (1852–1889).