Organic Syntheses: Past and present

HIST 7

Jeremiah P. Freeman, jfreeman@nd.edu, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556
Organic Syntheses serves as a "recipe book" for the preparation of organic compounds whose "recipes" have been tested in an independent "kitchen". Beginning from four pamphlets on Organic Chemical Reagents published by Roger Adams between 1919-1922, Organic Syntheses was begun in 1921 by Adams and Carl Marvel at Illinois together with J. B. Conant at Harvard, H. T. Clarke at Eastman Kodak, and O. Kamm at Parke Davis. At a time when there were few sources of organic research chemicals available commercially, it consisted of an annual volume of sets of directions for the preparation of organic compounds that had been tested and refined by members of the editorial board in their labs with their coworkers. The venture has continued to this day with more emphasis on the description of new methods as the commercial availability of chemicals expanded greatly. Most recently web publication has been made available without cost.