Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
mise, at straddling the middle ground. The images and ideas chosen by
its writers during the 1930s thus reflect well what the marketplace -
Thone's 'Agora' - was buying.
This chapter summarizes conclusions from my on-going research on
the news values promoted and adopted by Science Service from the
1920s through the 1940s, and how negotiation of those values influenced
print and broadcast images of science.
2
After a brief summary of the or-
ganization's founding, I discuss its initial approach to how (and by
whom) science news should be constructed. With emphasis on images of
chemistry, I then describe three representative examples of content from
the 1930s -
Daily Mail Report
news stories, 'Adventures in Science' ra-
dio programs, and a 1939-40 project called 'Fabrics for the Future' in
which a traveling department store window display was coordinated with
local newspaper publication of articles about synthetic textiles.
Research on the history of Science Service has, to some extent, con-
firmed my previous conclusions about popular science, although the edi-
torial files have also revealed new aspects of the cultural negotiations af-
fecting it. The news stories and radio broadcasts of Science Service
during the 1930s echoed patterns of assimilation, celebration, and prag-
matic appraisal found in other popularization venues (LaFollette 1990).
Science Service defined 'science news' broadly to include medicine, en-
gineering, economics, and invention, an inclusiveness typical of the time.
The messages promoted science's practicality and usefulness, or outlined
how research was contributing to economic recovery during the Great
Depression; the writers promised a brighter future through research and
then borrowed images of alchemy and magic from popular fiction and
motion pictures. Stories focused more on conveying factual information,
with little attention to controversy or conflict among scientists. Toward
the decade's end, Science Service gave increased attention to textile and
pharmaceutical products and to chemistry's contributions to national
self-sufficiency, and the editorial staff cooperated with the chemical in-
2
Based on the author's research in Smithsonian Institution Archives manuscript col-
lections, especially Record Units 45, 46, 83, 7183, and 7091 and Accession 90-105;
materials housed in collections of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American
History; 'Cavalcade of America' Collection at the Hagley Library; and Papers of
James McKeen Cattell (MSS15412) at the Library of Congress.
