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The issues of The Ladies Birthday Almanac and Hostetter's Almanac shown here come from our archives and date from 1905-1912. Both contain advertising for various patent medicines, including the Wine of Cardui which was billed as the cure-all for all “womanly pains and troubles” associated with menstruation.
Five annual almanacs, 1905-1912
"I have had one goal in my life, that of playing some role in making life a little easier for the persons who come after me." - Dr. Percy Julian
Happy Birthday, Dr. Percy Lavon Julian! Julian was born on April 11, 1899, and went on to become a preeminent research chemist and entrepreneur, holding over 130 patents for his work. Julian’s many achievements include the synthesis of the drug physostigmine in 1935 for the treatment of glaucoma; a process for producing progesterone and testosterone from soybean sterols on an industrial scale; the development of a fire-retardant foam used widely during World War II; and the synthesis of both cortisone and hydrocortisone. He received 19 honorary degrees and 18 academic and civic honors. Julian died of liver cancer on April 19, 1975.
The images in this post highlight some material in our archives, specifically material from The Ray Dawson - Percy Julian Collection, 1938-1993. The collection consists of only 2 boxes, but its contents are rich, containing detailed business and professional correspondence related to Julian's project to cultivate and harvest Dioscorea in Guatemala for medicinal uses.
American biochemist Melvin Calvin was born on this day (April 8th) in 1911 in St. Paul, Minnesota. Calvin was awarded the 1961 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his research into the path of carbon during photosynthesis.
Photo credit: Signed portrait of Melvin Calvin presented to Charles C. Price, March 17, 1955. Charles C. Price Photograph Collection, CHF Archives (object ID 2004.505.060).
The Pope Pius Prius. Pope Francis is into green energy so he might like one of these for getting around Philly. In 1914 Chicago Electric Motorcar Company built Pope Pius X an electric car, though there’s no sign it ever made it to the Vatican.
This article is from The Horseless Age; Richard Schallenberg had this page clipping in his archives to research his book Bottled energy: electrical engineering and the evolution of chemical energy storage.
In need of a gift for that summer party you were invited to, but not sure what to get? May I suggest a pencil sharpener? All of the individuals in this vintage ad look pretty happy with theirs.
Papers of Walter O. Snelling, CHF Archives
Happy Birthday, Alfred Bader!
Alfred was born on April 28th, 1924, in Vienna, Austria. He has been a chemist, entrepreneur and philanthropist. This is a notebook from his student years at Harvard in about 1949.
From the CHF Archives, The Aldrich Chemical Company Collection.
From the Williams - Miles Reprint Collection in the CHF Archives.
For Women’s History Month we’re showing off our chemistry notebooks from female students. Two are from High School Chemistry courses and two at the college level, spanning the years 1862 to 1907.
The notebook kept by Amanda Shanklin is labelled “ChemistryLectures” and is of the lectures that she attended at Oxford Female College in Oxford, Ohio. It is dated “Thursday evening, Nov. 6th, 1862,” though it seems unlikely that Amanda took all those notes in the course of a single evening!
Clara Esther Hartley’s notebook is a record of her laboratory experiments conducted in 1895 and 1896 while attending Troy High School and includes such useful tasks as analyses of water from local wells.
“Quantitative Chemical Analysis” was the course taken by Chelsea Atwood in Hanover, New Hampshire during the spring semester in the year 1900, and her notes are the most fragmentary, more a series of technical observations.
Lastly, we have the high school notebook of Rose Brabenec in 1907. The notebook begins mid-way through the course at Chapter XI and seems to consist of a combination of lecture notes and laboratory work.
