Models Used in Teaching Crystallography at Yale University
date: label: date made
content: ca 1920
notes: label: Description
content: The largest of the thirty-four wooden models is 6.5 cm. w. x 3.3 cm. d. x 2.8 cm. h. Each model is cut in the shape of a different crystal and stamped with a number. These numbers range 11 to 122. Another model is marked: 4. There are no maker marks.
label: Description
content: NMAH carpenters identify the wood as a fruitwood such as pearwood.
label: Description
content: A few models are doweled and divide into two parts. According to the donor, these are meant to illustrate twin crystals.
label: Description
content: Reporting on the history of the models, Gordon wrote in 1991 that "I salvaged them from the trash twenty years ago when Hammond Laboratory was closed. They had been used by Professor Champion H. Mathewson in the 1920s and 1930s." Mathewson lived from 1881 to 1972. He attended Yale, worked as a chemist in industry and taught chemistry at MIT, obtained his PhD from Goettingen in 1906, He then returned to the U.S. to teach chemistry and metallurgy at Yale, becoming chair of a separate metallurgy department there in 1919. Hence the rough date assigned to the models.Mathewson retired in 1950, the department would remain in operationat Hammond Hall until 1964.
label: Description
content: It is possible that the models were produced by a German firm headed by mineralogist Friedrich Krantz.
label: Description
content: References:
label: Description
content: Accession File.
label: Description
content: "C.H. Mathewson, Metallurgist, 90,:" <I>New York Times</I>, July 6, 1972, p. 41.
label: Description
content: Robert Gordon, <I>American Iron</I>, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001, p. x.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
topic: label: Subject
content: Mathematics
label: Subject
content: Crystallography
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Mathematics
label: See more items in
content: Science & Mathematics
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Prof. Robert Gordon
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1991.0868.01
label: accession number
content: 1991.0868
label: catalog number
content: 1991.0868.01
objectType: label: Object Name
content: geometric models, set of
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: wood (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 3.4 cm x 26.6 cm x 26 cm; 1 11/32 in x 10 15/32 in x 10 1/4 in