James L. Crenshaw papers

The James L. Crenshaw papers contain the laboratory notebooks of James L. Crenshaw, Bryn Mawr College professor of Chemistry. The collection, which ranges from 1911-1929, is comprised of notes, experiments, and papers on sulphides and pyrrhotite.

The collection is housed in one oversized box containing 17 laboratory notebooks and 9 folders containing loose papers removed from the notebooks in March 1986.

Crenshaw’s lab notebooks contain abstracts from his papers on copper sulphides, chalcopyrite, and zinc sulphides. The collection has three notebooks on pyrrhotite, from 1910-11, and four notebooks entitled Sulphides, from 1912-1926. Additionally, there are notebooks entitled Calibration of Elements, 1910; Ferrous Silicate, 1911; Low Temperatures, 1928-29; Reduction of Weighing…, 1927; Solubilities and Last Half FeS2 Experiments, 1911-14; Theory of Analytical Chemistry and Major Chemistry, 1916; and Untitled. The folders in this collection consist of loose papers pulled from the following folders: Abstracts and Experiments; Abstracts of Papers on Sulphides; Low Temperatures; Solubilities; Pyrrhotite; Sulphides #3-5; and Untitled.

Crenshaw was a Bryn Mawr professor of Chemistry for 25 years in the first half of the 20th century. These notebooks illuminate the early 20th century scientific understanding of sulphides and evidence some of Crenshaw’s experiments. The collection might be of use to chemistry students and researchers or those with an interest in the history of science.