Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
scientists and workers for those industries, and potentially for future
wars. While it would be difficult to establish the degree to which
Morrison's book independently influenced people, and even more diffi-
cult to isolate the effect of Söderston's illustrations on the image of the
chemist, their work was part of the establishment of a powerful met-
onym. The exoteric visual metonym of the scientist as a man in a white
lab coat has been established so strongly that it has moved beyond
metonym to stereotype and even the object of humor. For example, F.E.
Warburton (1960) playfully suggested that characteristic stains on a lab
coat should be used to identify the field of science of the wearer -
blackish-brown (mud) for a geologist or greenish yellow and scarlet
(sulphuric acid and bichromate) for chemists, and so on.
Although it would be impossible to prove that
Man in a Chemical
World
by itself changed the public conception of chemistry or chemists,
Morrison and Söderston's work, produced at the behest of the ACS (a
large and increasingly powerful organization) represents a significant ef-
fort to influence public perception. It attempted to link the image of the
chemist to the divine, promote the utility of science, and to redraw chem-
istry as an American endeavor. To the extent that we continue to associ-
ate the white lab coat with the practice and utility of science, this aspect
of the project was successful.
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Morrison's more specific attempt to link
chemistry to nationalism and to a solely positive image of science was
less successful. The white lab coat is now as likely to be associated with
mad scientists in the Hollywood tradition of Frankenstein as it is with
Morrison's benevolent defender of humanity. Further, the lab coat was
too widely used to be taken over as a solely American uniform. Even in
1937, the lab coat was international.
Metonyms (both visual and textual) are an innate part of human
communication and have been used to attempt to influence public think-
ing throughout history, ranging from medieval heraldry and corporate lo-
gos to campaign slogans. The metonyms in
Man in a Chemical World
represent one of the more overt attempts to construct a public image of
science. Morrison's aim may have been to convince the American public
16
For examples of modern investigations of the image of scientists, see Barman 2004
and Dalgety & Coll 2004.
