Editorial: A busy summer at C&EN

Far from being a quiet and relaxing period, these summer months have been extremely busy for C&EN. Many of us are preparing to travel to the ACS Fall 2022 meeting in Chicago, where we’ll attend and participate in many events and symposia. The C&EN-themed events at the fall meeting center on honoring C&EN’s Talented 12. If you are in attendance, don’t miss our Q&A at the ACS Theater with Talented 12 alumni Jessica Ray, Alaaeddin Alsbaiee, and Frank Leibfarth. We’ll hear how receiving the Talented 12 recognition has influenced their careers.

For those not going to Chicago, fret not, you can register for the Sept. 19–21 virtual symposium featuring C&EN’s Talented 12 class of 2022 at cenm.ag/t12symposium.

One other activity keeping us busy this summer is brainstorming for C&EN’s 100th anniversary, which we’ll be celebrating next year. C&EN, or Industrial & Engineering Chemistry News Edition, as it was originally called, was launched on Jan. 10, 1923. ACS had been publishing a monthly journal called the Journal of Industrial & Engineering Chemistry (I&EC) since 1909, but according to a story by reporter David J. Hanson for C&EN’s 75th anniversary, “it became evident that the monthly I&EC was too slow to pass along timely news and information,” and I&EC’s editor in chief at the time—Harrison E. Howe—successfully made the case that “a more frequent and separate news publication was warranted.” Hanson’s story tells us that C&EN started as a 12-page, twice-monthly publication that covered personal news as well as information about industry, local sections, legislation, international events, and trade.

In Howe’s first editorial for the new publication, he briefly explained some of his—and the American Chemical Society’s—goals for the launch, including the expectation that the staff of four would “fill the News Edition with human interest to make it attractive to chemists everywhere, and particularly to readers on duty somewhat off the beaten path and unable to meet frequently with their fellows in Local Sections.” C&EN still holds many of these goals, and we are proud to serve chemists everywhere. Interestingly, Howe added that he hoped the News Edition would “serve a useful purpose in knitting more closely together the various interests represented in the Society membership.” C&EN has definitely fulfilled those hopes, as ACS and its members today refer to C&EN as “the official organ of ACS” and “the glue that holds the society together.”

Going through the archives has been enlightening, and we have made many discoveries about C&EN’s history. I now know, for example, that the current name, Chemical & Engineering News, was first introduced in 1942. If you have time, check out the 50th anniversary issue, published in 1973. The issue has a compelling review of chemistry through the decades of the middle part of the 20th century: the ’20s, “Roaring Twenties Set the Stage for a Chemical Era”; the ’30s, “Chemistry Meets Depression and Survives in Style”; the ’40s, “World War II Comes, Goes, and a Chemical Heyday Arrives”; the ’50s, “The Atomic Age Matures and the Space Ages Begins”; and the ’60s, “Soaring Sixties Takes Off Fine, Lands with Thud.”

For C&EN’s centennial, we are considering a special issue, events at the ACS meetings, a specially designed logo, and more. But C&EN is your publication, so we welcome any suggestions you may have to commemorate this special occasion. Please send them to cenfeedback@acs.org.

Views expressed on this page are those of the author and not necessarily those of ACS.