Science, celebrity, diplomacy: The Marcellin Berthelot centenary, 1927

Abstract

The centenary of the birth of Marcellin Berthelot was celebrated in 1927 with an extravagance that reflected the importance and multiplicity of the interests at work. For Jean Gerard, who master-minded the event in his capacity as general secretary of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry and the French Societe de chimie industrielle, the goal was not simply to honour a great chemist. It was also to establish a Maison de la Chimie that would offer services, notably in documentation, to chemists everywhere and, in doing so, promote Paris as a leading world-centre for the discipline. It was essential to Gerard’s meticulously executed plan that the celebration should be a high-profile event with a strongly international character. Latin American countries and European states that had achieved independence in the wake of the First World War were especially supportive, the USA and Britain rather less so. Despite these diverse levels of enthusiasm, the laying of a foundation stone for the Maison de la Chimie was a highlight of the centenary programme, although it was not until 1934 that permanent premises were finally inaugurated in the rue Saint-Dominique. In the planning, as in the celebration itself, Germany’s re-emergence as a major force in chemistry, after the country’s post-war exclusion from international science, weighed heavily. A relatively modest level of German participation in the centenary and the delay (until 1930) in Germany’s admission to IUPAC convey the difficulty of the process of reintegration.