Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Creating New Technologists of Research in the 1960s: The Case of the Reproduction of Automated Chromatography Specialists and Practitioners

  • Published:
Science & Education Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Chromatographic instrumentation has been really influential in shaping the modern chemical practice, and yet it has been largely overlooked by history of science.Gas chromatography in the 1960s was considered the analytical technique closer to becoming dominant, and being the first automated chromatography set the standards that all the subsequent chromatographic instrumentation had to fulfill. Networks of specialists, groups of actors, corporate strategies and the analytical practice itself, were all affected and in many ways because of the entrance of gas chromatography in the chemical laboratory and in the instrumentation market. This paper gives a view of the early history of the gas chromatography instrumentation, relates it to the broader research-technology phenomenon and discusses issues of education and group reproduction in the case of the groups of technologists of the era. The chaotic elements of knowledge transfer during the instrumentation revolution in chemistry are being highlighted and they are being connected to the observable radical innovation of the period.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Interestingly, in the important for the epistemology of instrumentation book of Baird, Thing Knowledge (University of California Press 2004), three different types of instrumentation are distinguished (p. 5): (a) models, (b) devices that create a phenomenon, and (c) measuring instruments. In order for the chromatography apparatuses to fit the third category, the meaning of the word “measurement” must be broadened. Similarly, it is unclear where should computers as scientific instruments be placed in this categorization.

  2. The term here is employed with the meaning given to it by Suzan Leigh Star and James R. Griesemer in 1989. Research instruments being tools are subjects of contextual alterations of meaning due to different uses as Heidegger would have it—that is, their meaning changes according to different uses (Heidegger in Ihde 2009). However, it could be the case that the more complicated a tool is the least the alterations of meaning from context to context.

  3. The journal L’Année Sociologique was founded by Durkheim in 1898, after he had published a manifesto (Les Règles de la Méthode Sociologique) and had founded the first sociology department at the University of Bordeaux in 1895.

  4. For Richard Kuhn, see his Nobel Prize biography online at: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1938/kuhn-bio.html (retrieval July 11th 2012); for Edgar Lederer (1983).

  5. http://shop.perkinelmer.com/Content/RelatedMaterials/nlt_lcgc50yearsofgc.pdf (retrieval September 16, 2011).

  6. For example the case of the first HPLC apparatus (see Gerontas et al. in preparation).

  7. The first HPLC was constructed by Horváth and Lipsky at the Yale University in 1965. See in detail: Ibid. Gerontas et al. (in preparation).

  8. See for example chromatography handbooks like: Hagel et al. (2008), Wu (1999) (both available as Kindle editions from Amazon).

  9. See Kenndler (2001); Kirkland (2004) and Unger (2004). For Glueckauf, see the Biographical Memoirs of the Fellows of the Royal Society (available online: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/769825).

  10. Reinhardt is making a strong case for the importance of the middleman minorities in the migration of technological knowledge in chemistry. See op. cit. Reinhardt, p. 21.

  11. The term “trading zone” is here used with the meaning that Galison gives to it. Scientists and engineers of different paradigms and functioning in different environments can agree on a given set of rules and meanings, which will allow the transfer of knowledge between their milieus despite the differences.

  12. Laboratory Instrumentation: Laboratory Automation, Separation Techniques, Chemicals, Laboratory Equipment: Contributions from American Laboratory and International Laboratory; Series II, Volumes II and IV respectively, 1977.

  13. http://www.isa.org/Content/NavigationMenu/General_Information/About_ISA1/ISAs_History/ISAs_History.htm (retrieval May 2011). The history of the early ISA is intimately connected to the history of the PITTCON.

  14. For the role of the workshops and the training centres, see: op.cit. Gerontas et al. (in preparation).

  15. The material contains slides (PE-B, B:10, FF:2, FF: 3, FF: 4), notes and brochures scattered throughout (for example PE-B, B: 10, B:11) and a whole side-collection with seminar material.

  16. More about that, and its effects in op.cit (Gerontas et al. in preparation).

  17. For the effects of advertisement (see Gerontas and Lykknes in preparation).

  18. GC Laboratory Instrumentation; Contributions from American Laboratory and International Laboratory, pp. 179–180.

  19. For the first steps of HPLC, see details in op.cit. Gerontas et al. (in preparation).

  20. See Horváth (1992). For his role in the construction of the first HPLC see: op. cit. Gerontas et al. (in preparation).

  21. http://www.molnar-institut.com, http://www.molnar-institut.com/HP/About_Us/Dr_Imre_Molnar.php.

  22. Indeed, for the majority of the seminars and workshops that were offered, either in the course centres or in other sites, there were no prerequisites concerning the educational background of the participants. Since the knowledge offered was praxical, there was something there for both the academic and the technician. When suggestions of books were given, those were more often than not manuals, corporate published handbooks and brochures (see Gerontas et al. in preparation).

References

  • Baird, D. (1993). Analytical chemistry and the “big” scientific instrumentation revolution. Annals of Science, 50(3), 267–290.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baird, D. (2002). Analytical chemistry and the “big” scientific instrumentation revolution. In P. J. T. Morris (Ed.), From classical to modern chemistry: The instrumental revolution. London: Royal Society of Chemistry.

  • Baird, D. (2004). Thing knowledge. California: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bobleter, O. (1990). Professor Erika Cremer—A pioneer in gas chromatography. Chromatographia, 30(9-10), 471–476.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chapman, A. (1996). England’s Leonardo: Robert Hooke (1635–1703) and the art of experiment in restoration England. Proceedings of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, 67, 239–275.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ettre, L. (1983). Professor Edgar Lederer 75 years old. Chromatographia, 17, 6.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ettre, L. (2003). M.S. Tswett and the invention of chromatography. LC·GC Europe. http://www.chromatographyonline.com/lcgc/data/articlestandard//lcgceurope/382003/69718/article.pdf (accessed April 21, 2012).

  • Ettre, L. (2008). Chapters in the evolution of chromatography. Covent Garden: Imperial College Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Galison, P. (1997). Image and logic: A material culture of microphysics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gerontas, A., & Lykknes, A. The first steps of the high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) instrumentation: Discussing the role of the press in the dissemination of analytical technology at the end of the 1960s and early 1970s (in preparation).

  • Gerontas, A., Lykknes, A., & Schmid, R. Birth and first steps of high performance liquid chromatography: An example of the exchanges between academia and industry in the United States of the 1960s (submitted for publication).

  • Giddings, J. C., & Keller, R. (1965). Advances in chromatography (Vol. 1). New York: Marcel Dekker.

    Google Scholar 

  • Guagnini, A. (2004). Technology. In W. Rueegg (Ed.), A history of the university in Europe (Vol. III, pp. 593–631). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • For Glueckauf. Biographical memoirs of the fellows of the Royal Society (available online: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/769825).

  • Hacking, I. (Ed.). (1981). Scientific revolutions. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hacking, I. (1983). Was there a probabilistic revolution 1800–1930? In M. Heidelberger, L. Krueger, & R. Rheinwald (Eds.), Probability since 1800: Interdisciplinary studies of scientific development. Bielefeld: B.K. Verlag GmbH.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hagel, L., Lagschies, G., & Sofer, G. (2008). Handbook of process chromatography. The Netherlands: Academic Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hesse, G., & Weil, H. (Eds.). (1954). Michael Tswett’s first paper on chromatography. Woelm: Eschwege.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heidegger, M. (1954). Die Frage nach der Technik. In M. Heidegger (Ed.), Vorträge und Aufsätze. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta.

    Google Scholar 

  • Horváth, C. (1992). A tribute to Leslie Ettre on the occasion of his seventieth birthday. Chromatographia, 34(5–8), 209–211.

    Google Scholar 

  • http://shop.perkinelmer.com/Content/RelatedMaterials/nlt_lcgc50yearsofgc.pdf (accessed September 16, 2011).

  • http://www.isa.org/Content/NavigationMenu/General_Information/About_ISA1/ISAs_History/ISAs_History.htm (accessed May 12, 2011),

  • http://durkheim.uchicago.edu/Biography.html (accessed April 07, 2012).

  • Hutchins, E. (1995). Cognition in the wild. Cambridge: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ihde, D. (2009). Postphenomenology and technoscience. Albany: State University of New York Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ihde, D. (1993). Postphenomenology: Essays in the postmodern context. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kenndler, E., & Dickert, F. (2001). Tribute to J. F. K. Huber. Fresenius Journal of Analytical Chemistry, 371(1), 2–3.

  • Kirkland, J. J. (2004). Development of some stationary phases for reversed-phase HPLC. Journal of Chromatography A, 1060(1–2), 9–21.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lederer, E., & Lederer, M. (1955). Chromatography—A review of principles and applications. Amsterdam: Elsevier.

    Google Scholar 

  • Richard Kuhn—Biography. Nobelprize.org. February 01, 2013. http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1938/kuhn-bio.html.

  • Senchenkova, E. M. (2003). Michael Tswett, the creator of chromatography. Moscow: Russian Academy of Sciences. (Originally in Russian, 1997).

    Google Scholar 

  • Shinn, T. (2004). Paradox oder Potenzial: Zur Dynamik heterogener Kooperation. In J. Struebing, I. Schulz-Schaeffer, M. Meister, & J. Glaeser (Eds.), Kooperation im Niemandsland (pp. 77–104). Opladen: Leske & Budrich.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Shinn, T. (2002). Research-technology instrumentation: The place of chemistry. In P. J. T. Morris (Ed.), From classical to modern chemistry: The instrumental revolution (pp. 95–110). London: Royal Society of Chemistry in association with the Science Museum.

  • Star, S., & Griesemer, J. (1989). Institutional ecology, ‘translations’ and boundary objects: Amateurs and professionals in Berkeley’s museum of vertebrate zoology, 1907–1939. Social Studies of Science, 19, 387–420.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smolkova-Keulemansova, E. (2002). Reminiscence of Prof. J. F. K. Huber. Journal of Chromatography A, 960, 3–5.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Szepesy, L. (1985). Sixtieth birthday of J. F. K. Huber. Chromatographia, 20(10), 581.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tala, S. (2009). Unified view of science and technology for education: Technoscience and technoscience education. Science & Education, 18(3–4), 275–298.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tarbell, D. S., & Tarbell, A. T. (1986). The instrumental revolution 1930–1955. In D. S. Tarbell & A. T. Tarbell (Eds.), Essays on the history of organic chemistry in the United States 1875–1955 (pp. 335–352). Nashville, TN: Folio Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tswett, M. (1906a). Physikalisch-Chemische Studien ueber das Chlorophyll. Die Adsorption, Berichte der Deutschen botanischen Gesellschaft, 24, 316–326.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tswett, M. (1906b). Adsorptionanalyse und chromatographische Methode. Anwendung auf die Chemie des Chlorophylls, Berichte der Deutschen botanischen Gesellschaft, 24, 384–393.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tswett, M. (1910). Kromofilly v Rastitel’nom i Zhivotnom Mire. Warsaw: Karbasnikov Publishers.

  • Tswett, M. (1911). Eine Hypothese ueber den Mechanismus der photosynthetischen Energieuebertragung. Zeitschrift fuer Physikalische Chemie, 76, 413–419.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reinhardt, C. (2006). Shifting and rearranging: Physical methods and the transformation of modern chemistry. Sagamore Beach: Science History.

    Google Scholar 

  • Unger, K. K. (2004). Scientific achievements of Jack Kirkland to the development of HPLC and in particular to HPLC silica packings—a personal perspective. Journal of Chromatography A, 1060(1–2), 1–7.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wu, C.-S. (Ed.). (1999). Column handbook for size-exclusion chromatography. The Netherlands: Academic Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zlatkis, A. (1970). 6th international symposium in advances in chromatography, Miami Beach, FL, June 2–5, 1970. Publ. chromatography symposium. Department of Chemistry, University of Houston.

Download references

Acknowledgments

The completion of this work would not be possible without the generous support of the Chemical Heritage Foundation, Philadelphia, USA. I am grateful for the financial support of my research, the access offered to most valuable archive material relating to my subject, and the license to use this material. Special thanks to Andrew Mangravite, Amanda Shields and Ashley Augustyniak of the Chemical Heritage Foundation. Thanks are also due to historians and philosophers of science who heard parts of my work in conferences and assisted to its improvement through questions, observations and comments. I also want to thank my supervisor, friends and colleagues at the Department of Chemistry of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology for their general support, comments and advice.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry, NTNU, 7491, Trondheim, Norway

    Apostolos Gerontas

Authors
  1. Apostolos Gerontas
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Apostolos Gerontas.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Gerontas, A. Creating New Technologists of Research in the 1960s: The Case of the Reproduction of Automated Chromatography Specialists and Practitioners. Sci & Educ 23, 1681–1700 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-013-9654-x

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-013-9654-x

Keywords

Search

Navigation