The University of Illinois

Because Beckman had done university-level course work in chemistry while at University High, he was allowed to pass over the regular sequence in the Illinois chemistry curriculum and begin with the advanced courses.  One professor who made a great impact on Beckman during these formative years was his freshman-year organic chemistry teacher, Carl “Speed” Marvel (1894-1988).  Speed Marvel was to become one of the nation’s best-known and most respected organic chemists.  He mentored generations of students during his long tenure at Illinois, served as president of the American Chemical Society, made path-breaking contributions to polymer science, and played a crucial role in the synthetic rubber program during the Second World War.  When Beckman first encountered Marvel, however, he was a recent Illinois Ph.D. serving as an instructor in the department.  Just six years older than Beckman, Marvel provided the freshman with an immediate example of how someone remarkably like him could make his way in the world of academic chemistry.

Beckman respected Marvel, and the respect was mutual.  As Beckman had already studied a substantial amount of chemistry, Marvel assigned him a research project of his very own involving mercury compounds.  Beckman worked on synthesizing dialkyl mercury compounds, namely dipropyl and isopropyl mercury.  Marvel proved to be both a mentor and a guiding model for Beckman as a chemist.  In 1920, as Arnold Beckman began his syntheses in the organic chemistry laboratory, he did so in a way that would have caused shock and dismay in our more risk-conscious era.  Mercury is one of the most hazardous and toxic of the elements, ranking just behind lead and arsenic.  The smallest of exposures can cause poisoning, and even death.  While Beckman and Marvel were aware of the dangers of mercury poisoning, they had good reason to be interested in mercury compounds.  These compounds had an agricultural usefulness to match their dangers, in fungicides and preservatives, and were also key ingredients in many manufacturing processes.

Almost immediately, Beckman began to suffer from mercury exposure.  His work was progressing, however, and he stuck doggedly to his bench.  By the time that he left to return to his father’s home for the Christmas holidays, the exposure was already more than his body could bear.  At home, the symptoms of his poisoning lifted away.  The holidays lasted nearly a month, but when he returned to his experiments the mercury symptoms returned with a vengeance.  Marvel, like his freshman student, had also been afflicted by repeated mercury exposures.  He, like Arnold, developed an extreme sensitivity to the organic mercury compounds, causing him to abandon this line of research.  Marvel later remembered: “If somebody opened a bottle of mercury compound two doors down the hall [in the laboratory], I’d get a headache.”  The organic chemistry laboratory became so hazardous for Beckman that he made a dramatic change of track in his chemical studies.  He switched over from organic chemistry to physical chemistry, away from mercury and toward a whole new realm of fascinating chemical questions and puzzles.

Beckman’s association with Marvel did not end with his switch to physical chemistry.  The older man had another example to set for Arnold Beckman.  From the time of Marvel’s arrival at Illinois as a graduate student, the faculty and students of the Department of Chemistry had long had intimate connections to industrial enterprises.  Summer work was available for the brightest of its organic chemistry students at what the Department then called “organic manufactures,” the synthesis of rare and expensive fine chemicals in very limited quantities.  This enterprise served a dual purpose: students learned the concepts and craftsmanship of chemistry by making dozens and dozens of compounds, and the Department obtained compounds for itself and financed the purchase of other research materials through sale of the compounds to others.  Academic and industrial chemists alike had a growing thirst for greater quantities and varieties of exotic, pure organic compounds.  They were the raw materials with which chemists expanded the bounds of chemical knowledge and developed new industrial products and processes.  There were very few sources from which to purchase fine chemicals, and even fewer that could match Illinois’s reputation for pure product.  Marvel began working at these organic manufactures during his second summer as a graduate student and continued on through his next two academic years.  This work, which combined the educational and the practical, allowed Marvel to earn a student’s living and, in his estimation, truly become a chemist: “That’s how I learned my chemistry.”

By Arnold Beckman’s freshman year, Marvel directed the organic manufactures work.  It was he who made the decisions about which Illinois students would get the competitive positions in synthesis during the summer recess.  Marvel gave Beckman a job after his second year on the basis of his precocious grasp of chemical concepts and his skills of hand, eye, and wit at experimental chemical manipulations.

Despite the hazardous environment, Marvel provided Beckman with a powerful model.  Marvel was an academic chemist possessing rural Illinois roots, ties to Bloomington, and a real delight at the fascinations and challenges of chemistry.  Furthermore, Marvel, in partnership with a leading distributor of scientific goods, was making money and providing livelihoods through producing the basic tools with which fellow scientists could further the progress of science and technology.  Consciously or unconsciously, Beckman drew on these experiences a decade and a half later as a relatively new professor of chemistry at Caltech.

Beckman left Illinois in 1923 with a B.S. in chemical engineering and master’s degree in physical chemistry.  He left immediately for Pasadena, California to pursue a Ph.D. at the newly-formed California Institute of Technology.  His choice was based on the quality of the program at the fledgling school, its small size, and Beckman’s natural attraction to the West.  It meant moving farther from Mabel, however, which must have been a difficult decision considering that their engagement had been announced that spring.  He and his close friend William Hincke made the journey from Illinois to Pasadena in Hinke’s Model T, an arduous journey over the mountains that served to renew Beckman’s passion for the enchanting scenery of the West.

Early Education and Military Service | Off to New York: Mabel and Bell Labs
Main Menu

Order a copy of CHF's “Arnold O. Beckman: One Hundred Years of Excellence.”