{"id":47396,"date":"2025-10-28T10:29:04","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T14:29:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/?p=47396"},"modified":"2025-10-28T10:56:57","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T14:56:57","slug":"new-online-collection-features-caricatures-of-famous-chemists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/2025\/10\/new-online-collection-features-caricatures-of-famous-chemists\/","title":{"rendered":"New online collection features caricatures of notable scientists"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When William B. Jensen (1948-2024), the Ralph E. Oesper Professor of the History of Chemistry at the University of Cincinnati from 1986-2024, was a student at the University of Madison-Wisconsin taking the History of Chemistry class, he sketched caricatures of the chemists he was learning about. While Aaron Ihde lectured, Jensen would select a chemist and caricature them based on the portraits found in Ihde\u2019s textbook, “The Development of Modern Chemistry” (1964).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald, Baltic German chemist and philosopher. Caricature by Dr. William Jensen, Courtesy Oesper Collections in the History of Chemistry, University of Cincinnati Libraries.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Now available online via JSTOR<\/a>, the UC Libraries online collection contains the 33 original, hand-drawn caricatures of notable chemists and physicists Jensen penned between 1970 and 1974. They are held by the Oesper Collections in the History of Chemistry<\/a>. The collection was scanned and digitized by the UC Libraries Digital Initiatives Team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Swiss chemist Alfred Werner. Caricature by Dr. William Jensen, Courtesy Oesper Collections in the History of Chemistry, University of Cincinnati Libraries.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Throughout the years, Jensen would submit the caricatures to appear in scientific journals and publications, and reported that there was interest in reproducing them on t-shirts, coffee mugs and even an album cover. Jensen eventually published the caricatures in a 2010 booklet, “Chymists: That strange class of of mortals: Caricatures of famous chemists with a few physicists and biologists<\/a>,” which was recently published digitally. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Upon Jensen’s death in 2024, the collection was acquired by the Oesper Collection in April 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Albert Einstein. Caricature by Dr. William Jensen, Courtesy Oesper Collections in the History of Chemistry, University of Cincinnati Libraries.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Oesper Collections in the History of Chemistry<\/a> is a nationally recognized<\/a> collection of scientific artifacts, books, journals, photos and prints related to the history of chemistry. They are a joint venture of the University of Cincinnati Libraries<\/a> and the UC Department of Chemistry<\/a>. They were founded in 1986 by William B. Jensen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When William B. Jensen (1948-2024), the Ralph E. Oesper Professor of the History of Chemistry at the University of Cincinnati from 1986-2024, was a student at the University of Madison-Wisconsin taking the History of Chemistry class, he sketched caricatures of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68,2607,600,31,13],"tags":[1821,2369,37,430,2189,36],"class_list":["post-47396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-digital-collections","category-science-library","category-special-collections-2","category-uc","category-uclibraries","tag-digital-collections","tag-enrich-our-collections","tag-library-news","tag-oesper","tag-oesper-collections","tag-uc-libraries"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47396"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47410,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47396\/revisions\/47410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}