The Chemistry Set: From Toy to Icon

A Porter Chemcraft chemistry set. CHF Collections. Photo by Gregory Tobias.

By Rosie DiVernieri

Almost every profession has an icon; most have three or four. If you asked those working with chemistry to name icons of their profession, you would get a variety of answers—molecular structures, emblematic glassware, analytical apparatus—but one item would appear on almost every list: the chemistry set.

In the 1940s companies began selling chemistry laboratories, kits, and sets in department and toy stores as educational items aimed mainly at young boys. Billed as the perfect birthday or Christmas gift, a chemistry set promised magic for its user and, at least in the minds of his parents, a potential career. Staring out from the covers of attention-getting bright red, blue, and yellow boxes were smart-looking, welldressed young boys, exuding the confidence that the field of chemistry was feeling at the time. By the mid-1950s—the height of chemistry sets’ popularity—there was hardly a boy in the United States who did not own or want one. Later, female faces would sometimes grace the covers, and there were even kits made especially for girls (though, as CHF’s traveling exhibit Her Lab in Your Life reminds us, some were labeled for “lab technicians”).

Most chemists today remember their first chemistry set, even the manufacturer’s name—Gilbert, Porter Chemcraft, Lionel, Skil Craft, Merit, or Lott’s—and what the box looked like. They talk about doing experiments in the living room and catching the rug on fire with an alcohol lamp, or about making their sister’s room smell like
rotten eggs. They recall waiting anxiously for the mail, expecting not a decoder ring but the newest copy of the Chemcraft magazine or Science Club newsletter. One retired chemist even told me about how he “borrowed” some calcium carbide from a nearby railroad to see what he could do with it.

Many credit these toys with starting and fueling their interest in chemistry. In 2003 CHF had around 10 complete chemistry sets in its collection. Today CHF holds one of the best public collections of chemistry sets, with approximately 90 sets from a variety of manufacturers in the United States, England, and Australia, dating from
the early 1910s to the 1970s. This growth shows the dedication of CHF and its collections staff to preserving all aspects of the history of chemistry, including its popular culture.

The chemistry set is an important icon for the chemical field because for many chemists it represents the genesis of their interest in chemistry. It is also a reminder in the age of computerized interactive “learning aids” that sometimes the best way to learn is to hold that glass test tube with one hand and put in the chemical with the other, just to see what might happen—all while wearing safety glasses and gloves, of course.