Childhood
Arnold
O. Beckman came into a town of fewer than five hundred residents at the birth
of a new century. Born April 10, 1900,
he was the third son of George Beckman, one of three blacksmiths in the town
of Cullom, Illinois. Arnold was the
first child of George Beckman’s second wife Elizabeth Jewkes Beckman, who was
a native of the small Illinois town, but soon lost his status as baby of the
family with the birth of his sister, Wilma, in 1904.
Beckman’s childhood was idyllic after the manner of Twain’s boy-heroes. At age nine, he fortuitously stumbled upon an old, dusty book that had belonged to his aunt. Fourteen Weeks in Chemistry was a basic instruction manual teaching simple home experiments for children. Beckman was captivated. From this point forward, he managed to commandeer laboratory space in each of his family’s houses, no matter how small. When the family moved to Bloomington, in 1915, Arnold set up not only a chemistry laboratory in the attic of the house, but also appropriated the basement for an electrical lab as well.
Early Education
Once enrolled at University High School, the teaching school affiliated with Illinois State University, Arnold talked his way out of Latin courses in favor of an accelerated chemistry curriculum. A professor of chemistry at Illinois State University agreed to mentor the young chemist after observing his enthusiasm and aptitude for the subject. This professor, Howard Adams, enthusiastically fostered Arnold's interest in chemistry, guiding Beckman through six courses of college chemistry and driving the teenager fifty miles to Urbana each Saturday to give him access to the more fully equipped chemistry labs of the University of Illinois. Beckman and Howard Adams also subscribed to a correspondence metallography course after Adams observed Beckman's interest in the subject. Adams himself had no particular personal interest in metallography, as Dr. Beckman recalled many years later, but, like a good mentor, he wanted to encourage his student's inclinations. If all this was not enough Adams found his student a customer to whom the young Beckman could market his skills as an analytical chemist: the Bloomington Gas Works. Arnold went so far as to have business cards printed bearing the name “Bloomington Research Laboratories” and listing Arnold Beckman as the “Chief Scientist.” The seventeen-year-old was commissioned to run periodic analyses to determine the concentration of ferric chloride in the wood chips used to remove the noxious smell from coal gas.
An exemplary student, Arnold Beckman was released from high school half a year early, in order to join the American effort in the First World War. His skills in chemistry were put to good use: Professor Adams found Beckman a position as a chemist with Keystone Steel and Iron during the spring of 1918. His job was to analyze steel samples during the manufacturing process, to determine the content of carbon and other substances in the melt. The varieties and qualities of the metal depended upon the carbon content of the steel and the presence of other materials. Moreover, the precise timing of steps in the manufacturing process, as well as subsequent procedures for shaping and handling the steel, all hinge on this same measure of the steel’s components. Arnold’s ability to carry out his chemical analyses quickly and accurately was of paramount importance to Keystone, and he rose to the challenge. Beckman and the only other analytical chemist worked in alternating ten- and fourteen-hour shifts, two weeks on the first shift, two weeks on the second. Beckman was the sole person in charge while he was on duty. Dr. Beckman later painted the scene at Keystone thus:
This was an open-hearth plant, a hundred tons of glowing hot, molten steel in each furnace. When they’re about ready to pour the melt, it is essential to know whether four elements of impurity are within acceptable limits. I’d reach into the open-hearth furnace with a long-handled ladle, get a sample of the molten iron and pour it into a mold about two inches square and six inches high. As soon as the test sample was solid-although still red hot-I’d pick it up tongs and run to the laboratory. After cooling it with water, I’d drill chips and weigh out four samples: one each for carbon, sulfur, manganese, and phosphorus analysis. On that they’d decide if they would pour that melt or refine it more. With a hundred tons of molten steel tied up, every minute costs a great many dollars; that’s why it was so important to get the results back in a hurry. I’d race against the clock. I could run all four of these analyses in less than thirty minutes. I set a record for the lab, I remember.
Arnold Beckman returned to high school for graduation after having worked at Keystone. He was valedictorian of his class in 1918, with his overall average of 89.41—the highest in University High history. Despite the sober and serious impression that these records might leave, Arnold was an exuberant young man: his class spent graduation day playing at the park, and at the ceremonies that night, valedictorian Beckman had a bright red sunburned face as he stood up to give his speech.
Though he had already had an opportunity to help the American war effort, the eighteen-year-old Beckman felt that a stint in the Marines would give him adventure outside the narrow parameters of his Illinois boyhood. He would never leave the United States while in the Marines; he made it as far as Brooklyn Navy Yard before the war ended in November 1918. That year, the young Marine found himself being served Thanksgiving dinner by a beautiful seventeen-year-old Red Cross volunteer named Mabel Meinzer. It must have been love at first sight, because Mabel Meinzer and Arnold Beckman began to correspond regularly. In Mabel, Arnold found a life-long companion and partner who he would marry almost seven years later.
Upon discharge from the Marines, Beckman very much wanted to further his education in chemistry. Too late to enroll for the spring semester of 1919, he decided to see some of the country before starting college in the fall of that year. His summer adventures, which took him all the way to Ashton, Idaho, taught the young Beckman a valuable lesson about self-reliance and an entrepreneurial spirit. A talented pianist as a result of his mother’s discipline, Arnold Beckman had begun an amateur musician career in his early teens, practicing with the Cullom band, playing piano at one of the Bloomington movie theatres, and eventually starting his own orchestra in high school. He spent the summer playing as a movie-house pianist in the Ashton theater, and through this experience he convinced himself that we was equal to whatever task was laid in front of him. The summer that he “bummed out west with a friend” was truly formative, converting his confidence in his ability into an unshakeable faith in his future: “I learned I could take care of myself no matter what. So what my future life was going to be really never was of great concern to me.” He could follow where his curiosity and his judgment where they might lead him, secure in the knowledge that he would always find his way in the world. “I thought at that time I was going to be an organic chemist,” Dr. Beckman once recalled, “I was intrigued by thoughts of making all these fancy dyes and thing of that sort.” He would later add: “Keep in mind, I was a young lad in 1919 coming from a small rural community that had no contact with the industrial world at all … I wasn’t worried about the future of the chemical industry at that time. I was interested in making some interesting chemicals, dyes, or things that smelled well.” After an entertaining summer out west, Arnold made his way back to Illinois, where he began his freshman year at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
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