Here’s some not so sophisticated, but still deadly serious, military technology we discovered while walking along the river bank this morning.
Anti-tank road block near Sunbury
Thankfully it never happened, but in 1940 there was every expectation that Britain would be invaded by Germany. One preparation for that was the building of a series of defensive lines around London and other areas of the country.
Blocks extend to the water's edge
The example here is a road block designed to slow down tanks and other armoured vehicles as they progressed in expected Blitzkrieg fashion across the green and pleasant land. The concrete cubes extend down to the water’s edge, leaving a small gap that could be plugged with a removable barrier, possibly a duplicate of the piece of bent railway track, or hairpin, still in place.
Bent railway track or 'hairpin' barricade
I did a bit of fishing around, and discovered this particular defensive position close to Sunbury-on-Thames was part of the Outer London Stop Line. Other types of defense included concrete pillboxes, minefields and trenches, plus use of natural features like the river here.
A road block like this one would likely be defended by another firing position nearby, so it wasn’t just a case of the enemy turning up and spending five minutes pulling out the barriers.
There are many similar features around UK, but I don’t think the seriousness of the threat at the time, or the extent of the defenses put in place to counter it, are widely known.
It’s also sobering to think these blocks were put down only 22 years before I was born.
Bakelite coffin at the Plasticity exhibition, London Science Museum (Photo:Tim Jones)
In one version of the illusion, an audience member stands in the coffin on a stage, and the rest of the audience watch as he gradually decays into a dancing skeleton before their eyes. In that case, the image of a brightly lit skeleton placed in a pit in front of the stage is reflected by an angled sheet of glass placed between the audience and coffin.
On similar lines, a less elaborate experiment you can try yourself with a sheet of plane glass and two tea-lights is described in this piece from the Naked Scientists.
I’ve had this picture for a while, and only noticed the Pepper’s Ghost effect when I pushed the shadow enhance slider on iPhoto. Quite scary seeing oneself encoffined. Good job I’m not superstitious….
Recipes Formulas and Processes by G.D. Hiscox (1907 edition)
I’m lucky enough to own a 1907 first edition of Hiscox’s classic work, and love the way my copy is dis-colored and bleached by chemical splashes. Not by me, I hasten to add. But this book has for sure been used for its intended purpose! Whether the former owner, a James McQueen Jr. according to the bookplate, lived long and prospered because of its secrets, or in spite of them, is a different matter.
Secrets intended for all; the preface:
In compiling this book of formulas, recipes and processes, the Editor has endeavoured to meet primarily the practical requirements of the mechanic, the manufacturer, the artisan, and the housewife.
Some of the information is innocuous enough. You can learn how your great grandmother made blackberry jam. And Celery Clam Punch or Cherry Phosphate (with real phosphoric acid, maybe the origin of cherry coke?) sound refreshing for a summer evening.
But some of the medical cures are distinctly dodgy. We worry enough today about tanning products, but Hiscox’s cure for a tan, made from bichloride of mercury, sounds lethal. Helpfully, he shares with us that:
This is not strong enough to blister and skin the face in average cases.
Phew, good job most folk are average. Responsibly, he adds:
Do not forget that this last ingredient [the mercury compound] is a powerful poison and should be kept out of the reach of children and ignorant persons.
Folk would have taken Hiscox’s Cannabis indica based cure for corns in their stride (ouch!). And concern over the pinch of cinnabar in his nail polish would be just another case of health and safety gone mad.
But surely, even by the standards of the time, Hiscox’s idea of a light-hearted party trick must have raised some eyebrows (or literally blown them off): like ‘To take boiling lead in the mouth’, ‘Biting off red hot iron’, ‘Sparks from the finger tips’. And ‘The burning banana’ doesn’t bear thinking about.
Recipes, Formulas and Processes (1907 edition)
Some recipes were probably safe, but just sound a little icky. Like a nice pomade for sir’s hair, made from vaseline oil and beef marrow. Blue hosiery dye called for some ingredients I’ve never heard of: like 4 pounds of Guatamala and 3 pounds of Beugal Indigo; and others I have heard of: like 1 pail of urine. Hiscox also contains lots of paint and ink recipes but, disappointingly, there’s no mention of the infamous Mummy Brown.
‘Solid Alcohol’ sounds quite useful, maybe as a firelighter. I made something similar as a schoolboy, by dissolving soap in methylated spirit.
There’s nothing in Hiscox to separate the domestic from the industrial. Content is alphabetically indexed, but otherwise all mixed up. The section on glass includes industrial formulas for making different glass types and colourings in the furnace, but also includes instructions for a home-made glass grinding device.
Interestingly, Recipes, Formulas And Processes was republished through many revisions and editions into at least the 1930s. But I’m sure today there is nothing quite like it – unless we include the internet as a whole.
On another tack, it’s worth remembering that when Hiscox was published, the welfare and commercial infrastructure we take for granted today (some of us) was much less developed or non-existent. No popping down to the mall for a ready-made solution to every task. Folk just did more of their own stuff.
And should you decide to do more of your own stuff, don’t do it from Hiscox! He’s academically interesting to browse, but clearly some of his recipes and ideas are best left well alone.
Watching the last episode of Tony Robinson’s ‘Blitz Street’ on Channel 4 this week has prompted a few thoughts and surprising memories.
Children made homeless in the London Blitz (Wikimedia Commons)
The four-part series revisited the intensive ‘Blitz’ bombing of Britain during the Second World War by recreating a wartime street and subjecting it to progressively larger explosions, simulating the range of bombs and missiles delivered by the Nazis. The real Blitz bombing was focused on London, but also other cities including: Liverpool, Hull, Coventry, and the city where I was later raised – Leicester.
The show was framed as a serious science experiment that would, as well as being entertaining, generate new data for historians. To that end, the houses were wired with pressure sensors to measure the intensity of the blasts, and the associated destruction was captured with high speed photography.
For example, readings taken inside a recreated domestic Anderson Shelter, constructed from corrugated steel and earth, revealed how under certain bombing conditions the pressure wave would be sufficient to kill the occupants, consistent with contemporary reports of whole families being found externally unscathed but dead from internal injuries. Under other conditions, the test explosions suggested that simply hiding under the stairs had offered adequate protection.
Amazingly, a bottle of milk parked outside one of the houses survived the entire simulated campaign, ranging from the explosion of a 50kg High Explosive (HE) bomb, right through to a simulated V2 rocket impact.
Well, what can you say? Great television. And that surviving bottle of milk was a gift to the producers. For sure, some will criticise various points of historic content and scientific accuracy. Viewers have commented on the under-representation of Hull as the second most bombed city after London; and I was bemused at the placement of the V2 simulated charge behind an earth bank that seemed to guarantee it wouldn’t totally obliterate the set. Others might find the whole thing an unnecessary waste of building materials and explosives.
However the popular verdict washes out, I thought the show’s mix of social history with science and technology successfully outweighed any failings. Here we saw one of the more negative applications of science and technology in context: Science Communication, right? But more so, a graphic raising of awareness that war isn’t just something that happens to others on CNN.
Beyond the politically incorrect schoolboy/girl appeal of blowing things up, Blitz Street got me digging deeper into the science behind the show, looking out my old university notes on flow simulation, super-sonic pressure wave propagation and nozzle design (re the V2).
On a completely different tack, the show reminded me of the many happy (formative?) hours I’d spent as a teenager inside an air-raid shelter.
How come? I may be old enough to have benefited from real chemistry sets and the relaxed authority that accommodated them, but I certainly wasn’t around in the Second World War. I did however grow up assuming everyone had a WWII surface air-raid shelter in their back garden, like this one at my parents home in Leicester.
Second World War surface air-raid shelter
I’ve always known this cube, with its 14 inch thick brick walls and reinforced concrete ceiling as simply ‘The Shelter’.
Walls are about 14" thick
When the family moved here in the seventies, the interior was still in immediate post-war condition, including wooden bunk supports for two, maybe four max, persons. To protect from lime, the concrete ceiling had been lined with fascinating newspapers of the period, discovered when I converted The Shelter to a photographic darkroom, re-papering it with pages from Amateur Photographer Magazine.
At the age of twelve or so, The Shelter became my first chemistry laboratory. Minimal ventilation via perforated bricks at the top of each thick wall meant that reactions that were exothermic or likely to generate noxious gases were relegated to the annexed greenhouse. For example, anything where chlorine or oxides of nitrogen were produced, or compounds were combined with acids or oxidants; and anything involving organic compounds. All these were better suited to the fume-cupboard environment of the greenhouse.
Concrete lintel above entrance
An interesting design feature in the wall at right-angles to the main entrance, is a sort of escape hatch comprising a two foot square of bricks where the cement has been replaced with plain sand. The idea, I presume, was that if the house got bombed and fell onto the shelter, the occupants, safe inside, could kick out the bricks on the adjacent wall. It’s been mortared up since, but you can still see the outline in the photo. Originally, an iron bar extended out from the hatch that an external rescuer could pull on to release the brickwork.
Now of course I’m keen to know how my Shelter would have fared against Tony Robinson’s bombs – something to be investigated when I find an appropriate (=free) fluid dynamics package.
And from a social history perspective, I’m intrigued as to why the house had it’s own surface air-raid shelter in the first place. A scan of GoogleEarth suggests none of the neighbours have anything similar; and it’s not the sort of structure that could be easily or inexpensively removed. So more research needed there.
The house wasn’t situated next to a munitions factory or similar target; it’s just one house in a row of similar suburban dwellings. Maybe the owner was just nervous enough, and had the cash, to go one better than the standard Anderson shelter. I’ve heard of similar domestic shelters associated with homes where military personnel were billeted. A US Airborne division was stationed in the city, so maybe that’s the reason. Either way, it was more than paranoia. According to The Leicester Chronicler, two hundred and fifty homes in Leicester were completely destroyed by bombing. A map of all bombs dropped on Leicester during WWII is here at Wartimeleicestershire.com.
Anyhow, looks like Channel 4 at least succeeded in inspiring a nostalgic ramble; make of it what you will.
Gee, I spoil you guys: a blog about a broken screwdriver.
Disintegrating nitrocellulose screwdriver (Photo: Tim Jones)
Not just any old screwdriver though, because the handle of this one is made from nitrocellulose, and they don’t do that anymore – not since the 1940s. I found the remains in a garage I’ve been clearing out over the past couple of days.
Nitrocellulose is an interesting material on many levels; its tendency for spontaneous disintegration is only one of the reasons you’ll no longer find it in tool handles, movie film, guitar pick guards, billiard balls, and dice. Its flammability made early nitrocellulose film stock a safety liability; even today the UK Health & Safety Executive publish guidance on its handling (downloadable pdf file).
My first encounter with nitrocellulose came as a 12 year old schoolboy, when in the school library I learnt from a popular science book, ‘The Oddities of Heat’, how to apply nitrocellulose as gun-cotton to the blowing up of bridges. There was even a diagram showing how to position the charge. Ah, the innocent diversions of less troubled times.
More recently, on a visit to the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles (don’t ask, I’m going to write that visit up in due course), I saw an exhibition featuring magician Ricky Jay’s collection of disintegrating nitrocellulose dice (you’re already gauging the character of this museum – right?).
A pair of magician Ricky Jay's disintegrating nitrocellulose dice (photo: Tim Jones; taken at the Museum of Jurassic Technology, Los Angeles)
So what’s the science behind this fun stuff. And why the spontaneous disintegration?
Nitrocellulose
Nitrocellulose is made by treating cellulose, a natural organic compound found in the cell walls of plants such as cotton, with chemicals containing nitrogen – normally nitric acid. Some hydrogen atoms in the cellulose polymer [C6H7O(OH)3]n are replaced with nitrogen in the form of the nitryl group NO2. The exact properties of the resulting nitrocellulose depend on how much of the hydrogen is replaced with nitrogen.
The fully nitrated and highly explosive gun-cotton version of nitrocellulose thus has the formula [C6H7O(ONO2)3]n. Nitrocellulose with less nitrogen in the chemical structure, known as pyroxylin or (with camphor added to reduce brittleness) celluloid. This is the variety used in old film stock, and is probably what my screwdriver handle is made of. It certainly burns well; I tested it.
Spontaneous Disintegration
Googling this topic yielded a few examples akin to my screwdriver scenario: knife handles, film restoration sites and such like. But a convincing explanation of the spontaneous failure mechanism was more elusive. There are several academic papers in the literature dealing with the reaction chemistry and kinetics (speed) of nitrocellulose breakdown in the laboratory, with more practical discussions focusing on movie film conservation.
In all cases, the disintegration appears to happen in two stages: an initial phase where NO2 groups in gaseous form come free from the nitrocellulose structure, to combine with any water present to form nitric acid. The acid then auto-catalyses the same reaction but at a much higher rate.
It seems fair to hypothesize from this that the release of gases in the surface layers of the screwdriver handle create micro-cracks that transmit the decomposition reaction into the body of the material, the increasing pressure driving the reaction harder. It certainly looks like that’s what has happened.
Yet I still don’t really understand what triggers the timing of the initial decomposition.
I took this short sequence in the garden this afternoon. No photo-shopping, just a nice illustration of the splitting of sunlight into it’s component colors by refraction through a water drop – shuddering in the breeze after a storm.
The simplest of things, it put me in mind of John Keats’s supposed lament that Isaac Newton had destroyed the beauty of the rainbow by explaining the science behind it, the underlying sentiment of which he included in the poem Lamia. I say supposed, because I can’t find a primary reference to Keats actually ‘having a go’ at Newton over his prism or whatever. Lamia however speaks for itself (see below).
Richard Dawkins gives an alternative view in his book, Unweaving the Rainbow, where he argues scientific understanding enhances rather than diminishes beauty. I’m with Dawkins on this one. And while those going through life without a scientific education (for whatever reason) experience it in a way that is different, I believe they are also simply missing out.
Keats’s rainbow reference appears in his poem Lamia Part II:
What wreath for Lamia? What for Lycius? What for the sage, old Apollonius? Upon her aching forehead be there hung The leaves of willow and of adder’s tongue; And for the youth, quick, let us strip for him The thyrsus, that his watching eyes may swim Into forgetfulness; and, for the sage, Let spear-grass and the spiteful thistle wage War on his temples. Do not all charms fly At the mere touch of cold philosophy? There was an awful rainbow once in heaven: We know her woof, her texture; she is given In the dull catalogue of common things. Philosophy will clip an Angel’s wings, Conquer all mysteries by rule and line, Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mine— Unweave a rainbow, as it erewhile made The tender-person’d Lamia melt into a shade.
Just a short note to share with you one of the many wonders I stumbled upon at the British Museum yesterday. This is an Inuit Lance Head, displayed in the Enlightenment Gallery (in the King’s Library). It was collected in Greenland in 1811 by John Ross while searching for the North West Passage.
Inuit meteorite-tipped spear (British Museum Enlightenment Gallery)
What’s significant about this is the metal tip, which is formed not from man-made iron or steel, but from meteorite material that dropped from the sky. The whole story is here in more detail at the British Museum website.
I hadn’t thought about this rather obvious application, so the piece was doubly impressive and, while the lance tip is relatively young, much earlier examples have been found around the world that pre-date iron-making technology. The rarity of the source ensured knives and other objects fashioned from meteorites carried special value and were likely reserved for ceremonial use.
If you fancy one of these, the modern equivalent is still being made today.
Modern meteorite knife (Credit: Arizonaskiesmeteorites.com)
Aspects of the lives of famous people inevitably get magnified, diminished, distorted or simply lost with the passing years.
That’s why we need respected scholars with the learning and gravitas of Professor William Shea who, speaking recently at the Royal Geological Society, took us – somewhat teasingly but with due respect – beyond the accepted caricature of Galileo’s genius.
Professor William R Shea, University of Padua; speaking at Burlington House on 26th October 2009 (photo thanks Sven Klinge)
And Shea, who holds the Galileo Chair of the History of Science at the University of Padua (where Galileo himself taught for 18 years), did indeed illustrate Galileo’s discomfort with the optical theory behind his own telescope.
In the body of the talk, working through the popularly accepted seven great achievements of Galileo, Prof. Shea used a sequence of lunar drawings to illustrate the critical role of sci-art collaboration in marrying draughting skills with observational expertise – in the days before photography and Charge Coupled Devices.
The New World of Galileo, at the Geological Society, Burlington House, London (photo thanks Sven Klinge)
In a Q&A that was as revealing as the main lecture, Shea explained how the early astronomer’s belief in the divine appointment of his scientific mission was a key driver for his intellectual ambition, as well as representing an important influence over his relationships with academic colleagues and the establishment.
Overall, this was an expertly and engagingly presented lecture which everyone with an interest in science, and for that matter art and history, should see. And they can; because the whole smash is available courtesy of the Royal Geological Society via this link to a videocast of the event , complete with slides and the candid Q&A. Check it out !
The film Creation went on general release in the UK today, and as I’m just back from a lunchtime viewing, here are a few thoughts on the movie while it’s still fresh in my mind.
Finch with fig, California (Tim Jones)
To cut to the chase: enjoyable film, with great performances from Paul Bettany as Charles Darwin and Jennifer Connelly as his wife Emma. I’m giving it 4 out of 5 stars.
Very odd start though. I arrived at 12.10 for a 12.15 showing and had the theatre entirely to myself. By 12.30 ish, when the ads were over, the final audience had grown to six people. I know most folk can’t just knock off for the afternoon, but I found it surprising all the same; clearly not one for the pensioners.
I’ve made a point of not reading most of the Creation reviews already out there; just one or two quickly once over. So I’m relatively untainted but sufficiently informed to pick up on some of the obvious criticisms.
One of those criticisms has concerned the film’s factual accuracy. But as few viewers will have read the various biographies and letters, it strikes me that the emphasis should be more on identifying only serious material misrepresentations – and overall I don’t believe there are any (an exception is Huxley’s character – read on).
I was pleased to see certain events included: the failure to ‘civilise’ the Fuegan kids, the water cures, the influence of Hooker & Huxley, Darwin’s animosity with his local church, and Wallace’s letter.
At times though, I felt some incidents and issues had been slotted in because they had to be there – as if the director had a check list of ‘leave that out and the Darwin aficionados will play hell’. That’s how I felt about Huxley’s appearance anyhow. Arguably, Huxley came in to his own in the affairs of the Origin only after its publication – exactly the point at which this film ends. But the filmmakers have done T.H. an injustice all the same; the take-away impression of the man is just wrong. Richard Dawkins wasn’t overjoyed with the portrayal, and I can see why; the character is out of kilter with the historic record, and may as well have worn a ‘new atheist’ sash. (I find New Atheist a silly term; what is an old atheist? – Quiet?). Intellectually, the portrayal is overly one-dimensional and aggressive. Physically, Toby Jones is too short to portray a man whose height and presence in reality matched his intellect. They got Hooker’s whiskers down to a tee, so why not Huxley?
The core narrative revolves around Charles’s relationship with, and thoughts about, his daughter Annie. I don’t know the actor who played Annie, but she has an obvious future in Hollywood. We don’t get to know the other children anything like so closely as we do Annie; and the intellectual, as well as emotional, bond between Annie and Darwin is particularly well developed. There is something of the co-conspirator about Annie – a sense of allegiance lacking in Emma until a reluctant appearance in the final scenes.
The various ghost sequences have been criticised, but again, I just saw these as a device to illustrate Darwin’s pre-occupation. I don’t think he actually ran about the streets chasing his dead daughter (but please correct me if you know different).
All the themes in the movie ultimately link back to the Origin and what it stands for. One of the more human incarnations of that influence is the Emma – Charles relationship. Here I’d liked to have seen Emma’s philosophy explored a little more – even if the detailed story-line were credibly fabricated (biographers do this all the time). I guess we can never know someone’s innermost thoughts on life, the universe, and everything – no matter how many letters we read; but I felt the middle ground that our two protagonists must have found could have stood a little more exploration.
And never mind the movie, I find this theme of different fundamental philosophies within a relationship fascinating. I wonder how many couples today mirror Charles and Emma? This is a personal blog, so I can say that I would, for example, find it challenging at best to live with a partner who I knew was going to hell. That said, I have friends in atheist/Christian marriages who appear to get on just fine.
Which brings us to the big issue: is there a conflict between science and religion? Back to Huxley, I suspect the director intentionally set him up as the fall guy on this score; he can safely be hated for his total lack of religious accommodation early on in the film. Hooker does pop up now and again to reinforce the atheist line (the word is not used – nor is Huxley’s later derived ‘agnostic’), but never with Huxley’s brand of enthusiastic venom.
So what will a religious person make of this movie? After all, wasn’t it the possible religious reaction, and associated reduction in box-office $, that was behind the recent stink over US distribution (the film now has a US distributor).
There is nothing in Creation more offensive than a portrayal of the facts of evolution as they were understood in Darwin’s day. And Darwin’s encounter with Jenny the orangutan, which is beautifully represented in the film (well it’s not really acting is it) leaves little more to be said on the question of our own evolution. I’m not about to dive into a lengthy science-religion debate, suffice to say my position is that there are elements of religion as defined by some that are – on the evidence – incompatible with some definitions of science; and that the science-religion debate is an important one with practical consequences for us all.
God’s official in Creation, the local vicar, is played by Jeremy Northam. In one memorable scene, Northam tries to comfort Darwin in his torn anguish, which only sparks a sarcastic tirade from Darwin on the delights of the God-designed parasitic wasp larvae and the burrowing habits of intestinal worms. Northam’s sincerity and Bettany’s losing his temper are both convincing.
I live within an hour’s drive of the real Down House, and know it pretty well. While the house in the movie was not Down, the exterior feel – with large bay windows and patio doors opening to the garden captures the right flavour.
Down House - rear from the garden (photo Tim Jones)
The study has a similar feel to English Heritage’s reproduction of the real thing at Down – even down to Darwin’s screened-off privy. Likewise, the lounge and dining room, while never visible in wide-shot, have an attractive homely ambiance. The village road and church scenes are consistent with the feel of the real Down.
It’s not the end of the world, but a sandwalk scene was noticeable by its absence. The sandwalk for those who don’t know it is a gravelly path leading into the woods near Down House. I tend to imagine Darwin pacing down the sandwalk, under the trees or sheltering from the rain; to be sure – it’s a nice spot for thinking.
Interesting angle on the sandwalk (photo tks Sven klinge)
To wind up, this movie contains all the main factual, scientific, cultural, and emotional elements I associate with Darwin in this important period in his life. Issues around the compatibility of science and religion are met head on through illustration (if a little caricatured) rather than tedious debate, and we get to see the human, sensitive and fragile side of a scientist.
There is plenty here to enjoy in the theatre, but also much to take home and mull over – with your partner perhaps :-).
This post is a little different from anything I’ve put up before. It’s a sort of blog-ised version of an academic semiotic analysis I made earlier in the year as part of my Science Communication endeavours at Imperial College. It’s here thanks to a posting on Twitter earlier tonight by Chris Anderson (of TED fame) of an alert to David Hoffman’s film now on YouTube: ‘The Sputnik Moment – the Year America Changed its Schools’. It’s all about how Sputnik, launched on October 4th 1957, shocked the USA into massive investment in, and reform of, the education system. I’ve embedded the vid at the end of this post.
What follows is not directly linked to Sputnik; it refers to the previous year – 1956, but does perhaps remind us that the wheels were already turning towards a golden age of science. And I guess that made the advent of Sputnik all the more shocking.
If you’re not familiar with the techniques of semiotic analysis (I certainly wasn’t), it can look a little contrived. But be assured, there are folk out there right now using it to design stuff that will subtly manipulate you. It’s not evil – but I think it’s useful and fun to practice deconstructing these things. Anyhow, if you get bored, just skip to Hoffman’s vid :-). So…
Home Chemistry in the Golden Age of American Science
“And so each citizen plays an indispensable role. The productivity of our heads, our hands, and our hearts is the source of all the strength we can command, for both the enrichment of our lives and the winning of the peace.”
So proclaimed U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower in his First Inaugural Address of 1953[1] – emboldening a populace who, through the experience of science and technology at war, knew the peaceful role it might play in delivering America’s future.
And it’s to this background ethos of goal achievement and individual contribution that we’ll learn in this short essay how the innocuous chemistry set punched above its weight in preparing the nation’s youth for the golden age of American science.
For a deeper insight into what that meant in 1950s’ America, I’m going to look beyond the obvious, and pass a semiotician’s eye over, or maybe under, the cover-art of an instruction manual to a 1956 A.C.Gilbert Experiment Lab.
The idea is to start with a review of what the picture denotes – what is explicitly shown. The aim of the semiotic approach is then to explore the less obvious and wider connotations of the picture, treating it as a ‘text’ that tells a certain story – to which the embedded and inter-related vignettes also contribute. We need to remember this is a story of, and in, its time – and it’s only going to make sense in the cultural context of the period. Likewise, any connotations need to be interpreted in terms of the meanings and ideologies that might have engaged a contemporary reader.
That’s the approach – so what next? Every good semiotic analysis needs a formal argument if it’s not to fly totally off the tracks. So, I’m going to argue that:
‘marketing texts accompanying 1950’s American chemistry sets were consciously designed to support the myth of American progress achievable through an ideology of military and industrial global leadership; and contributed to an environment, the underlying ideology of which Eisenhower would in 1961 articulate as the ‘military-industrial complex’[2]’.
(some folk have found my double reference to Eisenhower’s speeches confusing – so to clarify: The first reference is to his inaugural speech, the second is to his statement in his farewell address, where he first mentions the (in)famous ‘military-industrial-complex’. The point is that the MIC wasn’t something Eisenhower set out intentionally to put in place; rather it was something he realised had pretty much evolved by the end of his term – and was something to be concerned about.)
On with the analysis of the picture….
With reference to popular images from the great American telescopes of the day[3], a hazy nebular against a dark blue sky forms the backdrop to iconic representations of the Rutherford-model atom whirl and a cartoon electric thunderbolt. Two boys, maybe 10 and 14 years of age, do chemistry experiments at a bench. Six small graphic vignettes arc around the boys, each denoting a real or imagined scene from one of: space exploration, chemical engineering, aviation, medicine, nuclear physics, and electronics. A white capitalised title banner: ‘FUN WITH CHEMISTRY’, and a more reserved strap line: ‘today’sadventures in science willcreate tomorrow’s America’, frame the page top and bottom. A small maker’s logo and red safety shield complete the picture.
First Impressions
The eye immediately tracks to the boys, particularly the elder boy. We’re helped by his central positioning; and the electric thunderbolt, symbolic as pointer in one direction and megaphone in the other, placed contiguous with his mouth. The presence of two boys connotes camaraderie, but also hints at paternalistic leadership by the elder – a theme enhanced by their dress and respective positions (smaller boy leans forward, elder stands) and engagements (younger boy stirs, older boy analyses).
More perhaps from the parents’ viewpoint, the scene connotes an ideal of family life, reminding the reader of the vulnerability of a harmony so recently recovered from the disruption of war (US engagement in Korea until 1953). From the child’s perspective, domestic clutter has been erased – leaving a brave future world in which the boys are abstractly suspended between deep space and the exciting promise of the vignettes – the whole entangled with the modernity of the atom whirl.
A Golden Career
Qualifying traits to enter this world are symbolised by the boy’s trim haircut and white vest – connoting military order, responsible self-discipline, and an appeal to conformity in an America struggling with McCarthian legacy[4]. The manual itself is symbolic of instruction and procedure; worry not – there is a plan.
Correctly, the boys do not laugh stupidly over their toy, but exude a serene dignity and confidence in the handling of their equipment; imagery that would endear any paying parent to Gilbert’s product. And where the parent approves, the young owner idolises – the elder boy: god-like before nebulae, proclaiming through lightning, holding forth with test-tube as sceptre.
The ideals put upon the boys are echoed and reinforced by the white coated, neck-tied exemplars of the medical and electronics vignettes, their adjustments and measurements further connoting values of care and precision. (The absence of personal protective equipment for the boys reminds us they are not yet professionals.)
For the world of the vignettes is where Gilbert Experiment Lab owners are destined to go. In his mind, the contemporary teenager leaves home through this text’s imagery, entering an educational way-station toward an ordained industrial career in ‘tomorrow’s America’ and the Golden Age of Science. A golden age, defined by exponential consumerism, a highways programme that would drive automobile and refinery demand for the next twenty years, and an age of popular successes in American chemistry (DDT) and medicine (Jonas’s polio vaccine).
Gilbert and his main competitor, Porter Chemcraft, reinforced the career message to both parent and child through explicit statements in associated texts[5] ; for example, the rear box cover of the Experiment Lab displayed the banner:
“Another Gilbert Career-Building Science Set”
While Porter Chemcraft’s box banner pulled no punches with:
“Porter Science Prepares Young America for World Leadership”
The Vignettes – Windows on the Military-Industrial Complex?
Given their importance to the whole, the vignettes warrant closer examination. Taken individually they denote aspects, both realistic (submarine) and speculative (space station), of their respective industries -but achieve more as elements of the greater text. For example, collectively they reference the shear pervasiveness of chemistry as a discipline across mankind’s endeavours. And (core to my argument), they variously reference the repeating themes of American dominance in the military, industrial, and aerospace fields – politically prescribed activities for the ‘enrichment of lives and winning of peace’[6].
On a technical level we can acknowledge the clever use of white borders around the vignettes, signifying them as real photographs, fooling us that even obviously speculative scenes represent real life captured.
For a contemporary reader, the wheel-like space station of the space exploration vignette provokes a strong reference to Wernher Von Braun’s 1952 conception of a navigation-military platform [7].
Von Braun's Wheel 1952
The scene would also be familiar from science fiction texts, both print and film, and space programme news items anticipating the first US earth-orbiting satellites (Explorer I launched in 1958).
The station dominates the globe of earth. A globe which itself is dominated by an American continental outline – a reference to the ideological exaggeration seen in the nation-flattering Rand McNally Mercator projections and consumer advertising copy of the period.[8]
Rand McNally Mercator projection with USA at centre
The combined effect is to establish a concept of an America that, projected into space, is positioned to both dominate the earth in one direction and explore the cosmos in the other.
Beside the romance of space exploration, we might today frame as pedestrian the industrial world of chemical engineering; not so in 1956 America. Cropped of peripheral clutter, the spherical white pressure vessels become molecules – uniting with the boys’ glassware, the analytics of the medicine vignette, and the chemistry set itself, as icons of professional chemistry. Reference to the boys’ large flask is enhanced by that vessel’s exaggeration beyond anything actually found in the set, the parallel rendered complete by the rubber tubing imitating pipe and gantry.
1950s advertisement for piston rings
The aviation and nuclear physics vignettes both denote forms of transport. The swept delta wing and compact size of the jet aircraft signifies a military product, while the streaming contrails index for progress, movement, speed – and power. The choice of submarine as nuclear physics exemplar, against the option of a civilian reactor or a particle physics laboratory, reinforces the military imperative. Directly referencing the recent launch of the first nuclear powered submarine Nautilus [9], the image flatters the reader’s knowledge of this event.
Nautilus in 1954 – first nuclear powered submarine
The vessel is large and dark, with whale-like power, its speed helpfully indexed by the artist as turbulence in the ocean streamlines. Like America, it is unstoppable and, as the scattering fish signify, all must make way before it.
A further subtle, yet reinforcing, reference to the defensive aspects of militarism can be read in the use of the red shield icon to frame the words ‘Safety-Tested’, whereby feelings of comfort and reassurance are induced on the twin planes of home and national security.
Military references are absent from the medical and electronic vignettes, these rather providing a visual link with the boys’ home activity. The medical scientist’s equipment mirrors the boys’ rig – right down to the colour of liquid in the flask. The electronic laboratory’s blackboard is an iconic reference to scientific intellectualism and progressive theory, but also a familiar reference to the boys’ schoolroom blackboard. The inclusion of medicine as a theme is a calculated reference to improvements in health and quality of life – the ultimate public justification for industrial and military progress.
The predominant portrayal of individual human actors in the vignettes promotes an inaccurate myth of scientist as lone worker, at a time when the power of teamwork, recently exemplified by the Manhattan Project, was widely recognised. A more realistic representation may simply have been viewed as overcomplicating or jeopardising of the text structures used to link home and career.
Other Features – Stereotyping
The apparent gender and racial stereotyping through omission is alerting to our modern eye, but typical of the day. A fairer representation of gender, but never balance, is evident in later texts such as the 1960 Golden Book of Chemistry[10] – itself an icon of the genre – where boys and girls are seen working together both at home and in the professional laboratory.
An icon of the genre
Race would certainly be the basis for an oppositional reading of this text. Despite the Immigration & Naturalisation Act of 1952, supposedly removing racial and ethnic barriers to citizenship, and the banning of racial segregation in schools in 1954, a black readership would likely receive Gilbert’s racially exclusive offering as just another slam of the door to white privilege.
Conclusion
Gibson could have produced his chemistry manuals with plain covers; they would certainly have appeared business like and practical. Yet that would disallow, as this analysis has shown, an induction into, and repeated reminders of, the world of work and modern America to which the set promised entry. A world of progress, Gilbert’s artwork tells us – with its speeding aircraft and submarines, and the restless whirl of the electron.
We have revealed evidence of Gilbert’s subscription to an ideology of American global leadership. And how, by integrating military and industrial images, and linking them through themes of progress and the pervasiveness of chemistry, he expertly references the whole to the domestic life and career ambition of his customer. In doing so, Gilbert, representing a substantial share of the 1950s chemistry set market, endorses my core argument.
[1] Dwight D. Eisenhower First Inaugural Address, (January 20, 1953)
[2] Dwight D. Eisenhower, Farewell Address (January 17, 1961)
[3] The Hale 200 inch telescope was first operated in 1948; eight years earlier. See: Florence, Ronald. The perfect machine: building the Palomar telescope, Harper Perrenial 1995
[4] Although McCarthy was ostracised two years earlier in1954, the threat of communist conspiracy and suspicion of outsiders or the unusual remained
[5] Nicholls, Henry. The chemistry set generation, Chemistry World Dec. 2007
[7] Von Braun’s Wheel. NASA Archives. http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap960302.html
[8] A schoolroom series of maps by Rand McNally placed America centrally on the globe and split the former soviet union in two. See: George Simmons, ‘Training with map power’ in Cultural Detective at http://www.culturaldetective.com/worldmaps.html
[9] U.S. Navy Submarine Force Museum, http://www.ussnautilus.org/index.html
[10] Brent, Robert. The Golden Book of Chemistry, Golden Press New York, 1960
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