UC’s chemistry museum dates back to days of alchemy

Rudy Thomas plucked a leatherbound book off a shelf and opened its crinkled cover.

“Elemens de Chymie,” French for “Elements of Chemistry,” was published in 1624 — just eight years after England mourned the death of William Shakespeare. Today, the book is among hundreds of rarities in the University of Cincinnati’s chemistry library and museum known as the Oesper Collection.

“Even by our standards, this book is old — very old,” said Thomas, a research associate in UC’s College of Arts and Sciences. “Everything is relative. I come from a geochemistry background as an inorganic chemist. Some of the minerals I study date back 600 million years.”

Besides rare books, the collection on the fifth floor of Rieveschl Hall houses laboratory equipment dating back two centuries. Its odd instruments, custom glassware and bottles of inert compounds would look at home in a Harry Potter movie.

The chemistry museum recognizes the foundations of science even as UC researchers lead advances in the field as part of UC's strategic direction called Next Lives Here.

UC is one of the few universities in the United States with its own dedicated museum to chemistry. But embracing the past is important to understanding the foundations of research, department head Thomas Beck said.

“I think it gives students context of where things came from. It also teaches you modern technology is important but not essential to good science. Great experiments were done 100 years ago,” he said. “Just to get that context of historical development is really important.”

Near the entrance to the museum library, a framed letter on White House stationery reads, “To the Browsers in the Chemistry Library of the University of Cincinnati, cordial greetings!” It was signed by President Herbert Hoover and his wife, Lou Henry Hoover, both of whom worked as geologists.

The couple in 1912 worked together to translate a Latin chemistry text from 1556 called “De Re Metallica” (“On the Nature of Metals”) by German metallurgist Georgius Agricola. When Hoover was campaigning for federal office in 1928, the UC museum’s curator at the time and now its namesake, Ralph Oesper, scrambled to obtain copies of Hoover’s translation, bound in white calfskin.

Today, it’s Thomas’ favorite book in the entire collection.

“It’s a goodie. I’m an inorganic chemist so I deal with the periodic table. I have a huge interest in geochemistry,” he said.

UC professor emeritus William Jensen for years has worked as the museum’s curator. Like Oesper before him, Jensen has been on a lifelong quest for rare chemistry texts and unusual equipment. 

“I would travel from Georgia to Minnesota to give talks on the history of chemistry and chemistry equipment,” Jensen said. “Invariably, there were always people willing to take me down into some basement or show me old storerooms.They were happy to see this old equipment find a home rather than go in the trash bin.”

Like many chemists, Jensen loves books. He has two dozen just on chemical thermodynamics.

“Why would anyone want 24 books on the same topic?” Jensen asked. “Each book approaches the topic differently. And when you look at the different ways people have tried to grasp the subject, it enhances your own understanding.”

Featured image at top: UC professor emeritus William Jensen poses in front of a display case in UC's chemistry museum, which contains rare books, portraits of scientists and historical laboratory equipment. Photo/Joseph Fuqua II/UC Creative Services