CHF is entering its award season (Innovation Day brings together medals and their winners, and other awards seem to congregate around the fall, too). Red carpet, celebrities, haute couture, and ditto cuisine—or at least the chemistry universe’s equivalents of all of the above—make for good cheer, much applause, and excellent entertainment. And, quite appropriately, our long-term fellows start their fellowships at the beginning of September, too!

Admittedly, a fellowship is not quite akin to a medal. For one, fellowships look awful in a vitrine (in case you did not know: fellowships are almost indistinguishable from the philosophers’ stone—see what I mean?); and then they are taken up in a quiet manner, without ceremony, pomp, or even circumstance.

But what a magnificent thing a fellowship award ceremony would be! Picture the scene: “And the 2009-10 Allington fellowship goes to . . . Dr. Peter Forshaw!” Camera zoom, surprise, then unabashed joy and pride, the winner stands up, high-fives/hugs/kisses the random non-fellow sitting beside him, strides to the podium, is visibly moved, steadies himself, and starts the acceptance speech while elevator music is playing in the background.

“I would like to thank . . . ”—well, whom?

Factoid: Our fellowships are financed by a variety of donors: kind individuals who agree with us that funding researchers in the history of chemistry makes a lot of sense. In this particular case Robert W. Allington is the benevolent benefactor. Who? you ask me. Well, here goes:

Robert W. Allington was born in Madison, Wisconsin. He developed an early interest in chemistry and electronics, building his first radio when he was thirteen years old and designing many other gadgets, including record players and a set of night-vision goggles, before entering the University of Nebraska–Lincoln at the age of sixteen. By 1961 Allington completed his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering, despite being stricken with paralyzing polio in 1955. In 1957 he and a partner, Jake Schafer, started a part-time business repairing and building scientific instruments. An order for a fraction collector for liquid chromatography—an apparatus that collected sequentially separated chemicals from a chromatographic column into test tubes—convinced Allington and Schafer to form a full-time business manufacturing these and other instruments.

There is much more happening in his life, but suffice to say he built a global enterprise; published extensively on instrumentation and measurement methods; and was granted more than 100 U.S. patents and over 160 foreign-registered patents. And, quite appropriately, he received the 2005 Pittcon Heritage Award. Find his full biography here.

Meanwhile, our fellows will have their own introduction to the chemical-historical world, with some glamour and sparkle, in our very own Fellows Reception  on 23 September. Join us for the event!

Oh, I’d also like to thank my tinker, tailor, and sailor for their unwavering support . . .

In the spirit of introducing new fellows, I raise a glass (mug? keg? what-do-you-call-it?)* of virtual beer to local researcher John Ceccatti, who will be the Postdoctoral John C. Haas Fellow for this academic year. Cheers!

CHF museum pieces relating to beer, standing proudly beside John Ceccatti.

Why beer? Well, John is famous (and perhaps infamous) for his research on that bubbly beverage or, rather, the history and chemistry thereof. While with us, he will investigate “The Development of Pure Yeast Culture in the Brewing Industry and Its Influence on Practices and Instruments of Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology”—and (proving he is not a one-trick pony) he will also start on a new project relating to science policy.

Want to hear more about the beer? Well, John will be giving a Brown Bag Lunch Lecture entitled “Vital Forces: Yeast, Fermentation, and the Practice of Brewing,” featuring many pretty pictures from CHF’s rare book collections. John will lead us through the fascinating world of 19th-century traditional brewing practices and how they were transformed by new scientific theories and laboratory techniques concerning yeast and fermentation.

In short:

Brown Bag Lunch Lecture with John Ceccatti, September 29, 12 noon, at the Chemical Heritage Foundation. Join us!

Sigismund Friedrich Hermbstädt, Chemische Grundsätze der Kunst Bier zu brauen (1814)

Too lazy to hurl your beer belly (I’m just guessing here) down to CHF that day? You’re in luck: John Ceccatti is a radio podcast celebrity and has spoken eloquently about beer, Philadelphia, and the connection between the two in an enjoyable and downloadable podcast.

So, once more, Sláinte to John—it’s great to have you with us!

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* Although being German, the Fearless Fellowship Leader does not drink beer (it’s just not on her radar) and therefore fails miserably to use proper beer terminology in any context.

. . . is not like The Other Woman in an unfortunate relationship: rather, it’s a catchy title to a blog post (oh, the post-modern self-referentiality!) about Other Fellows at CHF.

You see, the fellows I mother and scold are the Beckman Center fellows. They are chosen in an open competition into which anyone working on any aspect of the history of chemistry in any of its current or past forms may enter. But there is also other new blood in the building in the summer, in the shape of, well, people—let me start this sentence again: the Center for Contemporary History and Policy at CHF has summer fellows, fabulous people working on topics related to the Center’s concerns, who help my colleagues work on a specific project—in this case one entitled “controlling chemicals.”

And before I take this experiment of writing a blog post in one long breath, without editing, any further (it is a bit like tightrope walking, since you ask), I refer to my colleague Jody Roberts’s post on the Center’s blog, called The Center, where you can find out more about these summer fellows.

Incidentally, The Center is a good blog to check for all your environmental info needs. Happy reading!

Perfect Bakelite. Photo by Gregory Tobias

If you have ever cooked a sumptuous meal and your guests appreciated it with that inner glow that comes from absolute contentment; if you have ever helped a friend write a book and she found the perfect phrase to thank you in the acknowledgments; or even if you just let another pedestrian pass in front of your walking self and get a nod and smile as acknowledgment, you know the feeling. What a luxury to feel it at work!

Imagine my delight, then, when our fellows submit end-of-year-reports and I find appreciation (the real deal) between the lines. This post is dedicated to those perfect fits and their kind words (which constitute the remainder of this post).

 “CHF provides invaluable structure and  community.”

 “I really had a wonderful and incredibly productive year at CHF—surrounded by interesting staff members and an engaging and exciting group of scholars.”

“CHF has helped me become a better scholar.”

 “The community serves as a center of intellectual life in the organization, giving Ph.D.-level staff in CCHP, the Beckman Center, and the Roy Eddleman Institute a ready way to participate regularly in scholarly discourse.”

“There is now a charming fellowship director, where once there was darkness and confusion.” (ok, just checking if you’re still reading—but a fellow actually wrote that!)

“Regular Brown Bag Lunch Lectures and the CALCIUM (work-in-progress) group create occasions for fellows to share their work, and help them set concrete writing goals.”

“The community […] is a resource for scholars who need advice, guidance, and simply models for how to take the next step in their careers.”

Here’s to you, fellowship alumni! We miss you.

———

On a related yet completely different note, a new, incoming fellow, Roger Horowitz of the Hagley Museum, has used up 2 of his 15 minutes of fame on Fox News. See him be scholarly and fellow-y here.

. . . would smell – - – well, let’s stick with the words.

I am often asked whether it is politically correct to call our female fellows “fellows.” On those occasions I call them “fellas and gals.” Let me tell you, though, that in academic circles the term fellow is gender neutral in modern use, much like its fellow-terms reader, lecturer, and professor. Glad we cleared that up.

Still, why do we call researchers who are sponsored to do their research “fellows,” not plain old scholars? And how come our funding program is called a “fellowship”? I’m so glad you asked. Fasten your seatbelts – you are in for a bumpy ride on the road of the English language and the history of universities.

(Incidentally, taken together, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) entries for fellow and fellowship amass to 20 pages. I’ll try to keep it short . . .)

Fellowship

Eight hundred years ago, when the University of Cambridge was a small crowd of men with a plan who had been kicked out of Oxford, fellowship mostly meant companionship; much like in Lord of the Rings (the Fellowship of the Ring, remember?). Fellows were people, both men and women, who formed a community, with overtones of friendliness (hence the “jolly good fellow”). They could belong to a guild of fraternity or just be hanging out together regularly (I wonder what that looked like in medieval times?). Or, indeed, they could be the group of begowned, learned men that made up the critical academic body of the universities.

Calling CHF’s funding for scholars “fellowships” is therefore an evolution from the original term. We are not a university, and we do not have any teaching staff or students. The OED informs us that “fellowships in this sense have been founded in the Scottish Universities, in the University of Durham and the Victoria University; and in some universities and colleges in the U.S.” – mystery solved! And the companionship and the learnedness are still very similar to the original sense of the word, anyway. So far, so straightforward.

Fellow

This is where things get funny: originally, according to the OED, a fellow was “one who lays down money in a joint undertaking with others.” Our fellows do not bring money; they take it.

Another early sense of the term was “an accomplice.” That we can understand: our fellows are always up to something, other, or no good.

In the 14th century fellow was also a mild, condescending, yet polite insult – something Shakespeare used to great effect when he had his characters call each other “my dear fellow.” I think I might revive that . . .

So, why does the OED need 20 pages for fellow and fellowship? Because, as you can certainly tell by now, a fellow is a complex thing. And, ideally, a fragrant rather than smelly one.