Chemical Biography

Guide to Reference Sources

This guide offers a list of sources for finding biographical information on chemists, with an emphasis on historical figures. While chemistry has a rich and extensive historical record, biographical information on most individuals is often sparse and limited to brief data about birth and death dates, education, employment, and major accomplishments. It's rare to find substantial published biographical information on most chemists, unless the subject was very famous indeed. But perserverence and a little digging can often produce useful information.

General Science Biographical Sources

American men and women of science. (formerly: American men of science.): Q 141 A47; current edition in Engineering Ref.; check catalog for other editions.; This is the primary "Who's Who" of U.S. academic science, but is limited to persons who were alive and working at the time of each edition's publication. Included: basic biographical background, degrees, positions, awards, research specialties, and addresses. Revised every several years; multiple earlier editions from the 3rd (1921) forward are shelved in the Chemistry Library book stacks.
Asimov's biographical encyclopedia of science and technology. 2nd ed.: Q 141 A74 1982 Chem Ref; 1,510 biographies from ancient to modern times, arranged chronologically. List of persons covered is in front; subject index in back.
Biographical dictionary of American science: 17th through 19th centuries.: Q 141 E37 (1979): PMA, PCL Ref; Entries on 600 scientists born between 1606 and 1867.
Biographical dictionary of scientists. 3rd ed.: Q 141 B528 2000, 2 vols. Chem Ref; Hundreds of short biographies of important scientists living and dead, with bibliographies.
Biographical memoirs of fellows of the Royal Society. 1955-: Chemistry Journal Stacks (1955-90); PCL Stacks: Q 41 R9; Lengthy biographical sketches and obituaries of prominent scientists. Supersedes Obituary notices of fellows, 1932-54 (Q 41 R888O, HRC)
Biographical memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences.: Q 141 N2 PCL Stacks; This series began in 1877. The online site has hundreds of digitized memoirs listed by name.
Dictionary of scientific biography.: Q 141 M15 1980 PCL, Engin, Geol Ref; 3-volume set covering 1,100 winners of prestigious international awards since the 1920s, with topical and analytical indexes and cross references.
International women in science : a biographical dictionary to 1950.: Q 141 H2167 2001 Chem Ref; Biographical sketches of important women scientists from 1600 to 1950.
Nobelprize.org: nobelprize.org/; Official site of the Nobel Foundation, full of biographical information on prize winners and their Nobel lectures.
Who's who of Nobel Prize winners.: AS 911 N9 W53 2002 Chem Ref; Arranged by prize category, then chronologically. Indexes by name, institution, nationality, and religion.
A to Z of chemists.: QD 21 O34 2002 Chem Ref; Illustrated articles on over 150 major chemists.
American chemists and chemical engineers.: QD 21 A43, 2 vols. Chem Ref; Entries have bibliographies of obituaries and other biographical pieces.
Biographical database of the British chemical community, 1880-1970.: www5.open.ac.uk/Arts/chemists/; Drawing on a project entitled 'Studies of the British Chemical Community: the Principal Institutions, 1881-1972', this website contains biographical data on some 3,800 chemists.
Bulletin for the history of chemistry. 1988-: www.scs.uiuc.edu/~mainzv/HIST/bulletin/; Semi-annual journal published by the Chemical History division of the ACS. It has a web index searchable by keyword and author and online tables of contents.
Chemical genealogy database.: www.scs.uiuc.edu/~mainzv/Web_Genealogy/; This database provides academic genealogies for major chemists, along with brief biographical information and references, in PDF format.
Chemists.: QD 21 C435 1983 Chem Ref; Small dictionary of living and deceased chemists of historical importance, with British emphasis. Entries give name, dates, and biographical information. Glossary, illustrations, and index.
Directory of graduate research. 1957-: QD 21 D573: latest ed. in Reference, earlier vols. in stacks; dgr.rints.com/; The American Chemical Society issues this directory every two years, profiling the faculties in U.S. and Canadian departments of chemistry, biochemistry, chemical engineering, polymer and materials science, etc. that offer advanced degrees. Entries include brief contact information for each faculty member, plus a select list of recent publications. The older volumes of this series provide a useful snapshot into past faculties. Each volumes has a name index. The free web version goes back to 1999 and is fully searchable.
Great chemists.: QD 21 F35 Chem Ref; 100 extended articles on the most important chemists in history.
Luminaries of the chemical sciences.: pubs.acs.org/journals/luminaries/; PDF biographies of major figures in chemistry and the chemical industry. Online supplement to the ACS trade magazines Modern Drug Discovery and Today's Chemist at Work.
Nobel laureates in chemistry 1901-1992.: QD 21 N63 1993 Chem Ref; Biographical sketches, with extensive bibliographies.
The Nobel Prize winners: chemistry.: QD 35 N64 1990, 3 vols. Chem Ref; Articles summarize each winner's achievements and Nobel lecture, and offer both a primary and secondary bibliography, pointing to other biographical material.
Torchbearers of chemistry.: QD 21 S55 Chem Ref; Portraits of 250 famous chemists of the past, with brief biographical sketches.
Women in chemistry and physics : a biobibliographic sourcebook.: QD 21 W62 1993 Chem Ref; Chapters on 75 women, living and dead, who made important contributions to chemistry and physics. Cross-indexed by place of birth, place of work, and scientific field.
Biographies: Book-length biographies of chemists are rare and are usually limited to the most famous historical figures. Search in the library catalog using the person's name as a subject or a keyword. Look also under the subject heading: Chemists--Biography
Collected Works: Occasionally the major papers of an important chemist will be collected and republished in book form. Search the library catalog under the person's name as an author.
Memoirs: Some chemists publish their own reminiscences and autobiographies in book form. Search the library catalog using their names as an author or subject, or browse in the QD 21-22 area. During the 1990s the American Chemical Society published a series of personal memoirs titled "Profiles, Pathways, and Dreams".
Obituaries
Festschrifts: Some prominent scientists are honored with a collection of original papers by colleagues, usually on the occasion of a birthday or retirement. These volumes invariably contain a laudatory biographical essay and bibliography of the subject's major publications. Search in the library catalog using the person's name as a subject or a title keyword. Book festschrifts are not as common as they used to be. It is more typical now for festschrifts to appear as a dedicated issue of a journal. There is unfortunately no reliable way to search for special "titled" journal issues, since this issue-level information is not indexed anywhere. It helps if you know the journal and year of publication.
Histories: You can find biographical information in histories of science, chemistry, or specific subfields. Use the subheading --History with relevant subject headings, such as: Chemistry--History Chemistry, Analytic--History Also, browse the shelves in QD 20-30 for material on chemical history.
Bibliographies: One important way to study a scientist's life is to examine his or her own publications. Historical listings of articles and papers written after 1907 can be compiled searching Chemical Abstracts, but pre-20th-century papers can be harder to identify. Try these sources:
Biographisch-literarisches Handworterbuch der exakten Naturwissenschaften. (Poggendorff's): Q 141 P635 PCL Ref; Classic German biobibliographic source, each part covering particular time periods and nationalities.
Catalogue of scientific papers. (1800-1900): Q 1 R88 Chemistry Reference Stacks; 19 vols. plus 4-vol. subject index.; The best source for locating scholarly papers from the 19th century, compiled by the Royal Society of London.; See the pathfinder on Historical Literature for more information on old indexes and abstracts.
Select bibliography of chemistry. 1492-1892: QD 31 B65 1893, Chem Stacks; Covers books published in chemistry up to 1890, divided by broad topic area. Two supplements extend coverage to 1902.
News: Articles with biographical information often appear in news or trade magazines on the occasion of awards, honors, and professional society functions. A good place to start is Chemical and Engineering News, which published separate annual subject indexes until 1997.
Archives: Most historical resources are not published, but may be retained as archival collections of papers. If you're doing serious research, you must determine if an institution keeps an archive for the person in question. The best way to start is to contact the library or the department of the university or institution where the subject did significant work, and inquire about their papers or other primary resources (such as photo or clipping files, local newsletters, memorials, etc.) that might exist there. Searching that library's online catalog for the person's name is a good idea too, in case any of this unpublished material has been cataloged. Libraries specializing in the history of science can be helpful too. The Chemical Heritage Foundation's Othmer Library, located in Philadelphia, is one of the major repositories of archives on the history of chemistry. (www.chemheritage.org/)
Personal Contacts and Interviews: Contact persons who might have known your subject: colleagues, department chairs, former students, relatives and descendants, etc. This is time consuming, but can potentially yield far more than any search of the published literature, and can reveal useful unpublished sources.
SciFinder Scholar (Chemical Abstracts): SciFinder provides online access to the Chemical Abstracts family of databases, including Chemical Abstracts back to 1907. CA has generally not indexed non-technical articles in recent decades, however. Still, doing a research topic (as opposed to author) search on a person's name can turn up some interesting things.
Science Citation Index (Web of Science): This tool indexes articles and books from all time periods that have been cited by other authors. For instance, if a modern author cites a paper from the 19th century, that citation will be listed under the original author's name in the Citation Index part of SCI. This will refer you to the citing paper. This approach can tell you two things: who's currently involved in work related to the older work in question, and what older papers are considered most important today, i.e. those which are still being cited the most.
Dissertation Abstracts: Covers PhD dissertations written at U.S. universities back to 1865. In the last few years the name of the author's faculty advisor has been included. This is a way to find out where a person (in any discipline) studied, and what their early research was about.
History of Science, Technology, and Medicine: Indexes journal articles, conference proceedings, books, book reviews, and dissertations in the history of science, technology, and medicine and allied historical fields. The database integrates four bibliographies: the Isis Current Bibliography of the History of Science, the Current Bibliography in the History of Technology (Technology and Culture), the Bibliografia Italiana di Storia della Scienza and the Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine. Updated quarterly, it covers 1975 to the present.
Library Catalog: The UT-Austin online library catalog covers the book and journal holdings of all UT libraries and is searchable by keywords, title, author, and call number.
Web Search: Doing a general web search on a popular search engine like Google is always worth a try. Another idea is to visit the web site of the person's institution and do a search there -- some academic departments have web pages devoted to their history. The Sheffield ChemDex, a large general chemistry link database, contains a section on biographies with links to related web sites: www.chemdex.org.

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