Chemist-Industrialists in Germany’s Age of Scientific Philanthropy (1870s–1930s)

Time: 12:00 - 1:00 p.m.

Place: 6th Floor Conference Room, Chemical Heritage Foundation

Information: 215-873-8289 or bbl@chemheritage.org

Between German unification in the late 19th century and the Great Depression of the 1930s, a new and very unique form of social and political participation emerged within scientific and industrial circles in Germany. Inspired by the model of American private philanthropy as well as the highly successful organization of chemical research in German industry, chemists who held leadership positions in such large corporations as Bayer, BASF, and Krupp, in conjunction with scientifically trained allies in other industries and the academy, sought to reproduce these successes in many other fields in the natural sciences—from those considered to be “applied” to much “purer” ones such as astronomy.

The social and cultural origins of this movement, as well as the challenges to which German industry was exposed in the early 20th century, are crucial for understanding the development of this particular form of social, political, and scientific practice. In this talk we will see how as a result, in contrast to the American philanthropic tradition of the financial support of science, there emerged a strong preference for direct collaboration in scientific research with personnel, materials, instrumentation, and political sponsorship to guarantee these industrialized sciences’ support by the state. This practice of industrial support of science, beyond reflecting the historical context from which it emerged, had a central role in the shaping of the German form of capitalism that remained dominant throughout the 20th century.

Juan-Andres Leon is a Ph.D. candidate in the Harvard University Department of the History of Science, where he is finishing his dissertation, “Citizens of the Chemical Complex.” He is also project manager of digitalization at Harvard’s Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments. A trained physicist as well as a historian, he has previously written on the impact of the Atoms for Peace initiative on Latin America’s scientific elites. Leon is the 2011–2012 winner of the CHF/SHAC Rumford Scholarship.