#beckmanlegacy

[othmeralia]

No pockets to carry your pH meter? No worries. Just get one of these stylish carrying cases. 

[mhpmiller]

Conference presentation post-mortem

I finally did a presentation as part of a conference panel.1 I kind of feel like I am too old to be hitting this very modest professional milestone, but I also feel like I ought to mark it because it is a Thing I did, and it’s not like I’m the only career-changer out there.2 So I have my little speaker ribbon, I did a Thing, and now I never again have to do that Thing for the first time. This was…

[miniaturela]

The architectural model of Caltech’s Court of Man which features Beckman Auditorium. On April 5, 2018, Caltech Archives is hosting an event that explores the scientific legacy of chemist & inventor Arnold Beckman. Image comes from Caltech Archives.

Update: According to Joseph Klett (during the talk at Caltech), Arnold Beckman considered the Court of Man one of the best investments he ever made.

[othmeralia]

Invader Zim(m) viscometer.

Invader Zim is infiltrating the human race, a necessary first step on the path to world domination. 

Zimm viscometers measure the viscosity of liquids---thickness, as expressed by resistance to flow or stress.

Beckman Historical Collection

[othmeralia]

Our digital repository includes only one creepy clown image from the Beckman Historical Collection. However, this is a great opportunity to discuss the ways in which the digitized material represents only a small percentage of the collection, and researchers interested in the history of scientific instrumentation and/or creepy clowns are invited to delve more deeply into the materials available on site in the archives.

In-house publications offer insight into the frequency with which clowns were deployed. For some reason, the sad, shuffling clown in the first image was considered a thematically appropriate addition to the company’s Christmas Wonderland. The captions of other images make it clear that at least some clowns were volunteers, spreading strange mid-winter emotions without even the dubious justification of a paycheck.

A second image accompanies an article about the annual company picnic. It features a clown with a large bow tie, staring into the camera with flat, soulless eyes, shattering the fourth wall and the viewer’s sense of well-being. A small girl attempts to escape, but is restrained by the clown’s feather-light touch and, perhaps, some eldritch snare defined by a downward-pointing finger and a cursed coin.

In other words, please enjoy the bounty of the digital repository, a curated collection of material that may fill random online passers-by with delight and offer useful information to researchers. But remember that even more material waits quiescnet upon shelves in darkened stacks, waiting to be summoned forth by the curious.

[othmeralia]

“Instrumental in your future.”

The slogan appears a lot throughout the Beckman Historical Collection (including in this advertisement). A half-page story in the in-house publication, Feedback, reveals that the slogan was the winning entry in a contest. Joyce Vilder, a secretary in the Helipot Division, received $100 for her winning entry. The prize came in the form of silver dollars, hence the sack.

(The runners up---”Instrumenting Progress Since 1935″ and “Masters of Measurement since 1935″---just don’t trip off the tongue, in my humble opinion.)

[othmeralia]

In 1967, Beckman’s Feedback profiled engineer Otto Haunold, whose dramatic escape from Hungary with his fiancée, Maria, was the subject of an earlier post. This short article provides details about Otto Haunold’s career with Beckman Instruments and also notes that the couple had three children in their first decade in the U.S.

Beckman Historical Collection

[othmeralia]

I love these in-house publications produced by Beckman Instruments. They can help clarify the copyright status of photographs in the Beckman Historical Collection, but they also provide useful context and description.

In this case, the date of the publication narrows down the date of the photograph a bit. (Photographs, actually; we have several copies and angles.) Even better, we now have a name for the nurse: Mary Finlay.

Six decades ago, she worked at Los Angeles County General Hospital, caring for premature infants. In this picture, she checks the oxygen concentration in an incubator.

On behalf of all parents of preemies, former preemies, and everyone who wants infants to receive the best medical care possible, I’d just like to shout out to the universe: Thank you, Mary Finlay!

[othmeralia]

“Nailed it.”

In this photograph, Beckman’s Medical Director, Alan Kahn, inspects an unusually sensitive electrode designed for use in surgery and research.

He seems very satisfied.

Beckman Historical Collection

[othmeralia]

The angry bird is back.

First seen in a 1972 poster, the angry bird appears again in a 1977 issue of Communicator, an in-house publication of Beckman’s Advanced Technology Operations.

Beckman Historical Collection

[othmeralia]

We really dig the artwork in this Beckman Polarographic Oxygen Sensor brochure (1960). Good for all your underwater, outer space, and toxic environment needs! 

Click here to see the image in high-res in our digital collections.

[othmeralia]

The decades referenced in this manuscript by Noel B. Brayman (we think? But who am I to criticize? The handwriting’s better than mine) refer to changes in hydrogen ion concentration.

Hydrogen ion concentration is another way of saying pH. Arnold Beckman’s pH meter was the beginning of his long career as a maker of scientific instruments.  (Fun fact: the Library of Congress Subject Headings do not include the relatively straightforward term “pH meter.” That is why, in our digital repository, pH meters are given rather less wieldy subjects, like “Hydrogen-ion concentration--Measurement--Instruments.”)

This manuscript is doubtless of use to scholars of the history of science. I also think it makes for a great writing prompt. Brayman has covered the pH nonfiction genre. But doesn’t “The Three Missing Decades” sound like a tale of angst and psychological torment amidst redlined post-war suburbs? Or maybe a harrowing science fictional musing on the nature of identity and memory? Go for it, Tumblr. Bonus points if you can work hydrogen ions into your magnum opus.

[othmeralia]

The guy in the sweater vest is very at ease with himself.

At ease.

Because it’s an EASE manual? 

Electronic Analog Simulating Equipment...?

...I’ll let myself out.

[othmeralia]

Being GBBO fans here at the Othmer Library, we know that the male judge likes to be contrary, but we’re pretty sure even he can’t disagree with the science behind the pH of baking. And he would have to be charmed by the little loaf graphic closing out this 1960 Bakers Digest article, “The Significance of pH in Baking.” 

[From the Beckman Historical Collection.]

[othmeralia]

On Tuesday, March 20th, we’ll be screening The Instrumental Chemist: The Incredible Curiosity of Arnold O. Beckman. If you’re in Philadelphia (and not, say, reading this in a 2020 reblog---and you without your time machine), you should join us! There’ll be researchers and filmmakers to chat with, and a couple archivists with a selection of fun and interesting items from the Beckman Historical Collection. 

Materials digitized for our new digital repository appear throughout the film. The ones above are just a few that show up in the trailer. (See if you can spot them on Vimeo or YouTube.)

[othmeralia]

At first glance, this appears to be a Cold War goodwill gesture and photo opportunity. But with a little digging, we can flesh out the people in the picture.

The Los Angeles Times provides additional context. In a story that ran January 19, 1957, the paper reported that Otto and Maria Haunold (née Kaszas) had fled Hungary the previous November, following the Hungarian Revolution, and planned to marry in Whittier, California.

The story is a generally upbeat tale of anti-communists overcoming obstacles, escaping Soviet forces, crawling through swamps, cutting through red tape, and living happily ever after in the United States. The newspaper noted that the Haunolds were engaged before the Revolution. Minus that hopefully-true fact, the newspaper report skews skeevy: Maria Kaszas, a decade younger than her fiancé, was young enough that she needed the consent of a legal guardian to marry. The man who acted in that capacity did not share a language with Kaszas, but could converse with Otto Haunold in German. This is...perhaps not the ideal scenario for the man tasked with acting in loco parentis.

Following up on the Whittier connection, one stumbles across an Otto Haunold in Google Patents whose inventions were assigned to Beckman Instruments from the 1960s through the early 1980s. Thirty-five thousand refugees were given asylum in the United States after the Hungarian Revolution; a bit of research provides insight into why this particular couple received attention from Beckman Instruments.