Hendrixson, Walter S.

HENDRIXSON, BRADLEY

Posted By: Phil Penny (email)
Date: 7/15/2008 at 05:25:47

Walter Scott Hendrixson, Pioneer Iowa Chemist
By W. C. Oelke, Presented before the Division of the History of Chemistry
Sep 13, 1967 meeting, Chicago

From a small tobacco farm in the backwoods of Southern Ohio came a man of character and decision who, for thirty-five years, exerted forceful leadership in chemistry at Grinnell College and in the State of Iowa; a man who left his mark on the chemical profession that persists to this day.

Walter Scott Hendrixson was born near Felicity, Ohio in 1859. His forbearers, of English-German stock had emigrated to this country in the early 19th century and his parents had settled near that southern Ohio pioneer village only four miles from the Ohio River. His father died during Walter’s late teens and the modest estate was divided. His two sisters and brother stayed on the farm while Walter used his portion for his education.

He attended Union Christian College, Merom, Indiana from which he graduated in 1881. From 1882 to 1890 he was first instructor and then professor of chemistry, physics and botany at Antioch College. Obtaining leave from Antioch in 1888 he became assistant at Harvard, received the A.M. from Harvard College in 1889 and continued his graduate studies the following year.

In 1890 he became professor and head of the chemistry department at Grinnell College, but continued working toward his Ph.D. which he received in 1893. The Harvard library contains his doctoral thesis on Chlorosulphopyromucic Acid, with an Historical Sketch of Pyromucic Acid and Its Derivatives. This was published as Henry B. Hill and Walter S. Hendrixson, Proc. Of Am. Acad. Of Arts and Sciences 26, 283, 1891 “On Chlorosulphopyromucic Acids.”

In 1898 he was elected president of the Iowa Academy of Science. He remained a frequent contributor to the Proceedings and an active participant in the business affairs of the Academy throughout his lifetime.

After establishing himself at Grinnell, he obtained leave for study at Berlin and Gottingen. From slides remaining, he must have traveled widely through England and Europe, but the only published evidence of his work during this period is that with Nernst. He writes, and I translate from the German: “As student of Prof. Walther Nernst in Gottingen in the summer semester of 1895, I undertook, as his suggestion, the further investigation of the distribution of materials between two solvents.” This research resulted in the extension of Nernst’s famous distribution law of 1891 to systems undergoing association and dissociation in the different solvents.

Systems studied were of benzoic acid and of salicylic acid between water and benzene and water and chloroform. This classic paper: W. S. Hendrixson, Zeit. Anorg. Chemie 13, 73, 1897 is still quoted in present day physical chemistry texts.

Active research at Grinnell, upon his return from Germany, resulted in papers published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society in 1903 and 1904 on “Silver as a Reducing Agent”, “The Action of Chloric Acid on Metals”, and “A Method for the Determination of Chloric Acid”.

Dr. Hendrixson always enjoyed the out of doors. On a summer vacation in Colorado the horses on the tourist coach ran away upsetting the vehicle and injuring, among others, a pretty young school teacher, Miss Bessie Bradley. The gallant professor Hendrixson rendered first aid to the young lady’s broken ankle and carried her down the mountain side in his arms. Romance blossomed and they were married in 1906. To this union were born two children, Ellen in 1911 and Philip in 1914. Ellen is now a successful commercial artist and Philip a chemical salesman with Dupont. Although Mrs. Hendrixson outlived her husband many years, and served the college graciously as hostess and housemother, she always retained a limp from the Colorado accident. Philip writes of their relationship: “Harvard made father a Unitarian and his marriage made him a Congregationalist”. Dr. Hendrixson had a keen enthusiasm for many activities, yet devoted much of himself to his family, teaching his children fishing, tennis, bicycling, hiking and carpentry. He was also interested, but not dedicated to, classical music and literature.

During the period following his marriage he continued his work on the halogen acids, including a paper in 1912 on “Perchloric Acid in Electrochemical Analysis”. He also became interested in ground waters as a result of deep well problems of the city of Grinnell. He worked with Prof. W. A. Norton of Cornell College, a geologist, surveying the deep wells of the state and doing much of the analyses of these wells for the U. S. Geological Survey.

In 1915, following a suggestion of Frances E. Dodge, Dr. Hendrixson began a rigorous investigation of acid potassium and acid sodium phthalates as standards for alkalimetry. This work, followed by determinations of the solubilities of these salts, and a later paper in 1920 established potassium bithalate as probably the best standard for solutions of sodium hydroxide. The wide use of this standard substance today and its endorsement by the National Bureau of Standards indicates the far-sighted quality of Hendrixson’s research.

As a teacher, Professor Hendrixson was enthusiastic and forceful. He left a collection of over 150 slides of industrial processes and equipment, as well as a number on food and nutrition, and over 50 slides of famous chemists and their laboratories gleaned from various sources and prepared himself in the basement darkroom of Blair Hall. He also wrote brief tests on “Qualitative Analysis” and “Quantitative Analysis”, and a “Laboratory Manual of Inorganic Chemistry”. He believed in lecture demonstrations which were often of the pop-bang variety that occasionally singed his long mustaches. I had the privilege of sitting as a freshman in his inorganic chemistry class the year before he died, and can testify to his infectious enthusiasm and color as a lecturer. The text was Inorganic Chemistry by Alexander Smith, which, with Dr. Hendrixson’s incisive comments and illustrations, gave a sound knowledge of inorganic reactions and processes.

The laboratory, in charge of Dr. Leo P. Sherman, used Dr. Hendrixson’s laboratory manual then in its 4th edition. We not only did the usual experiments, but also prepared and distilled bromine, made bleaching powder, HCl, HI, HNO3, H2SO4 in usable quantities, studied the reactions of a large number of elements and their compounds, did some volumetric quantitative analysis and an electrolysis; all this in 1924.

Hendrixson was not only a hard worker himself, often arriving at the laboratory at five in the morning to get in some research before class time, but expected equally devoted work from his associates. Dr. Sherman relates that Hendrixson refused to waste money on expensive factory indicator papers but had his assistants dip filter paper in decotions of litmus and turmeric, festooning the laboratory with the large paper sheets until they dried. Later they were cut up in the customary strips and bottled. I, myself, can remember using these homemade indicator papers. He also had made and used iron test tubes for coal distillations and copper jackets for condensers which cut down the breakage of the then soft glass used in organic laboratory.

Nor was he devoid of humor. On the old wooden laboratory table the gas and air cocks were side by side. It was a favorite trick of us students to connect his Bunsen burner to the air outlet so that when turned on, the tube would blow off with a great bang and hiss of air. I am now sure that he must have been aware of this each time, but he always went along with the joke, jumping and simulating surprise to the delight of the class. Yet in spite of this, and a tendency to tell anecdotes of his period in Europe, business was business and little time was wasted.

Dr. Hendrixson’s later research, from 1920 until his death was a study of potentiometric titrations, some with the assistance of Luther Verbeck of Grinnell. During the year 1920-21 he was Grafflin Research Assistant at John Hopkins University which resulted in two papers, “The Determination of Iodic Acid and Silver by Elecometric Titration”, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 43, 858, 1921, and “Electrometric Determination of Bromate, Dichromate, Nitrite, and Chloride Ions” J. Am. Chem. Soc. 43, 1309, 1921. There is also an earlier paper from Grinnell College and five later papers on potentiometry.

Although a Leeds Northrup potentiometer was used for calibration and checking, Dr. Hendrixson preferred to use, as a potentiometer, a calibrated slide wire rheostat having a beam graduated in millimeters by a local tool company. With an additional fixed resistance this gave a calibration of 1mm equal 2mv. Since his primary interest was in the position and sharpness of the rise in voltage at the equivalent point, use of this apparatus resulted in much saving of time. He used a damped mirror galvanometer with this as well as the usual calomel and platinum electrodes. His titration vessels were three necked Woulff bottles with a hole bored in the top for the tip of the weight burets used for the titrations. This equipment will be shown from an original slide.

Not solely a laboratory man, Dr. Hendrixson personally designed and built a cottage at Portage Point near Manistee, Michigan at which he and his family spent part of each summer. His skill as a fisherman is attested by several slides preserved among his memoirs. Following commencement in 1925, Dr. Hendrixson went up alone to the cottage to prepare it for occupancy. On arrival he wrote to Mrs. Hendrixson mentioning that he was not feeling well. On not receiving further word, a search was made and he was found dead of cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 66.

During his lifetime, in addition to the activities already mentioned he was president of the Iowa Association of Colleges, a member of Sigma Xi, of the American Chemical Society, a fellow of the A. A. A. S. and Grinnell Chapter of Sigma Delta Chi. He also lectured summers at the University of Illinois and University of Iowa.

A most touching tribute at his death was made by Professor Dr. H. W. Norris of biology, a man not given to overblown encomiums. “I never knew Professor Hendrixson to show the faintest signs of jealousy or envy of colleagues or fellow citizens. I never knew him to show bitterness at any disappointment or failure. Whatever honors others received, whatever rewards others gained, whatever creditable work others were able to accomplish, with him it was Godspeed! He had little use for the man of capacity, who did not use it; but for him, whether colleague or pupil, who did his best, however mediocre he might be, he had nothing but approval, whether he personally liked him or not. He was sparing in verbal compliments, he was unsparing in doing little unannounced, unpublished deeds of friendship and kindness. Summing up his qualities as colleague were, orderly thoroughness; honest progressive scholarship; loyal cooperation; unbiased, unprejudiced liberality.”

To such a testimony by a man who worked with him for thirty-four years, little can be added. His solid achievements represented by 33 publications will remain a part of the literature and history of science. His personal influence is extended in the lives of his students, many of whom have gone on to make their own place as teachers and professional chemists.