Atom Model Kit
date: label: date made
content: 1942
notes: label: Description
content: This “Fisher Hirschfelder Taylor Atom Model Kit” was designed for creating models of organic molecules. The story began with Joseph Oakland Hirschfelder (1911-1990), a young University of Wisconsin chemist who, in 1937, was studying intermolecular forces in small molecules. Since the German molecular models on the market were expensive, Hirschfelder and the machine shop mechanic in his department created their own models. The Fisher Scientific Co. was selling models of this sort by 1939. An important improvement came a few years later when Hugh Stott Taylor (1890-1974), a professor of chemistry at Princeton University—where Hirschfelder had done his PhD—designed a new snap connector to hold the atoms in place.
label: Description
content: Ref: Hugh S. Taylor, “Construction of Molecular Models,” U.S. Patent 2,308,402 (Jan. 12, 1943), assigned to Research Corporation of New York.
label: Description
content: Eric Francoeur, “The Forgotten Tool: The Design and Use of Molecular Models,” <i>Social Studies of Science</i> 27 (1997): 7-40.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Medicine
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: MG.M-05019
label: catalog number
content: M-05019
label: accession number
content: 162879
objectType: label: Object Name
content: atom model kit
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 2 1/4 in x 12 in x 13 3/8 in; 5.715 cm x 30.48 cm x 33.9725 cm