Kids' Chemistry Sets: KABOOM!

A surprising number of Nobel Prize winners credit their childhood chemistry set for sparking their interest in science. But most kids just used them to make stuff explode. Compared to the originals, today’s versions are super safe, pale shadows. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 1:03Speaker 03

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.

• 1:13Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck. Jerry's here, too, floating around somewhere out there, and that makes the Stuff You Should Know.

• 1:21Speaker 02

  That's right. You thought of this one, and Dave helped us out with the research on chemistry sets. I will go ahead and just say that I never had a chemistry set, but you know darn well that somebody in my family did.

• 1:37Josh Clark?

  Was it Scott?

• 1:39Speaker 02

  Oh, of course he did. He was voted most likely to have a chemistry set in preschool.

• 1:45Josh Clark?

  That's awesome. Did he do anything magical with it?

• 1:49Speaker 02

  No, I mean, I just remember him having it and it being around the house. And, you know, he's just always had a more scientifically-minded brain than me and has always been smarter than me from the drop. So he was into chemistry sets and I was into, you know, baseball cards.

• 2:05Josh Clark?

  Well, I was into baseball cards, too. I was gonna say, don't feel bad, because I didn't have a chemistry set either, but I did have like an electrical set, like the electrical version of a chemistry set.

• 2:15Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:16Josh Clark?

  You can do all sorts of stuff.

• 2:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:18Josh Clark?

  And I distinctly remember just hitting it with a hammer, because I had no idea what was going on with that thing.

• 2:24Speaker 02

  You can't build a circuit?

• 2:26Josh Clark?

  No. You could put a gun to my head and be like, build a circuit, and I'd just start hitting it with a hammer, I think.

• 2:32Speaker 02

  You know who got good at that is a friend of the show and pal of ours in real life, David Rees.

• 2:39Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah?

• 2:39Speaker 02

  Uh, he got into circuitry and like, building and refurbishing old like, uh, musical electronics and pedals and stuff like that.

• 2:48Josh Clark?

  What an interesting dude. If you don't know who Dave Rees is?

• 2:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:51Josh Clark?

  Go look up, what's the name of his book about artisanal pencil sharpening?

• 2:55Speaker 02

  I think it's how to sharpen pencils. He also had a great TV show that, I'm not sure if you can find it, but you can try, called Going Deep with David Rees.

• 3:02Josh Clark?

  Man, it's so good.

• 3:03Speaker 02

  Um, but, you know, it's like how to shake someone's hand, stuff like that. Seems very intuitive, but not through David's odd point of view.

• 3:11Josh Clark?

  He also was on Dick Town with Hodgman, right?

• 3:14Speaker 02

  That's right. And he can build the heck out of a circuit. I bet you had a chemistry set, too.

• 3:19Josh Clark?

  Very nice. Um, I know that, uh, Dave Rees, who helps us with this, said that he had one of those electronics sets, too. Dave's pretty sharp, so I'm presuming he didn't hit it with a hammer.

• 3:30Speaker 02

  Uh, but this is a pretty fun one. We're gonna talk about the history of chemistry sets, which, believe it or not, go back to the 18th century, when they were called chemical chests. Uh, but this was pre, uh, let's make this a toy for kids. It was like, hey, if you're a university student, or a professional or amateur young chemist, budding chemist, uh...

• 3:54Josh Clark?

  Do you like to wear capes?

• 3:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. You like a smock? Get a chemistry set.

• 3:59Josh Clark?

  Right. Uh, so the first one, actually, they traced it back to a guy named, you're gonna make me say his name, huh? Watch this.

• 4:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:05Josh Clark?

  Johann Friedrich August Gutling.

• 4:08Speaker 02

  Hey, not bad.

• 4:09Josh Clark?

  What do you mean, not bad? That was dead on the nose.

• 4:12Speaker 02

  I think it was perfect.

• 4:14Josh Clark?

  I think I can hear our German listeners giving me a standing ovation right now.

• 4:18Speaker 02

  Ah, wunderbar.

• 4:19Josh Clark?

  He, uh, came up with a chemistry chest, uh, in, I think, 1789, if I didn't say that already. And it was called, get ready for this, "A Portable Chest of Chemistry, or a Complete Collection of Chemical Tests for the Use of Chemists, Physicians, Mineralogists, Metallurgists, Scientific Artists, Manufacturers, Farmers, and Cultivators of Natural Philosophy, and Party Boys."

• 4:45Speaker 02

  And again, this thing wasn't a toy. It had 35 chemicals, had a very robust balance, you know, like a balance for weighing things, had a mortar and pestle, of course. It had a book, and this is kind of, as you'll see, a key with all chemistry sets, is they come with a book of experiments. Otherwise, you're just gonna be dangerous. You might be anyway, but this one had about 150 experiments. And interestingly, it had this platinum foil included that they would not include now because this stuff was very valuable. I believe in today's dollars, it'd be worth about a thousand bucks.

• 5:23Josh Clark?

  Wow. If the price is right.

• 5:26Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 5:27Josh Clark?

  And the reason they include platinum foil is platinum is a really valuable and useful catalyst in a lot of chemical reactions. It wasn't just to like, show off.

• 5:35Speaker 02

  No, of course not.

• 5:36Josh Clark?

  So, there were other early chemistry sets, too. Like you said, they were for grownups. They were for chemistry professionals. And people used to train to be chemistry professionals and go to college for it, still do. But there was a guy at the University of Pennsylvania's medical school, all the way back in 1797, named James Woodhouse. And he was a professor of chemistry. And he also had a nice little sideline, selling chemistry chests to his students and being like, "You really won't get an A, or even maybe pass this class if you don't buy my chemistry set."

• 6:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, not bad. It's like when the professor wrote the book, that your textbook. One little, just sort of fun fact that Dave threw in here was, this was pre-test tube. They didn't have test tubes yet. So in both of these early 18th century chemistry chests, they said to use wine glasses.

• 6:29Josh Clark?

  Very nice. Very swanky.

• 6:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:33Josh Clark?

  So, there was also, even back then, well, maybe not back in the 1700s, but certainly very quickly after that. No, I'm gonna go ahead and say the 1700s included. There that everybody was like, this is not just like interesting and you can do stuff with it. This can be kind of fun, too.

• 6:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:53Josh Clark?

  It's fun to take two chemicals and suddenly make this, these two clear things turn blue. Who doesn't love that kind of thing? And so there was always like a certain element of magic to chemistry and in particular, chemistry sets. And, and eventually people started like selling them as that, not just as that, but there was a transition from just for chemical professionals, chemists, to for chemists, but also for chemists who'd like to have a good time.

• 7:25Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, there were, and we've talked about this before, like scientific demonstrations in the, you know, 19th century could be everything from just like straight up science to a little, little magic, a little showmanship involved, a little flair. People like Faraday were doing stuff like this in public. There was a chemist named Frederick Accum, I guess, A C C U M, who would do these big public demonstrations that were, you know, kind of part magic show, part science, and you could even buy one of his sets. He had a chemistry set, I don't think they were called chests at this point, called Accum's. Oh, it was still called the chest? Oh, yeah, there it is in the title.

• 8:06Speaker 02

  Accum's Chest of Chemical Amusement. Again, which, you know, lends itself to amusement. I think there was, the booklet was called Chemical Amusement, Colon, A Series of Curious and Instructive Experiments in Chemistry Which Are Easily Performed and Unattended by Danger.

• 8:24Josh Clark?

  That's important right there.

• 8:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:25Josh Clark?

  Because one of the things that kind of got all over chemistry sets over the years was safety. And this was even like back in the early 19th century that they were like, this can be dangerous. So, um, yeah, that was a big, a big thing that he included that in the title of the booklet that came with it.

• 8:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. And all of this, you know, talk of sort of magic and fun is a, is a long way to get to the fact that by the sort of earlyish 1800s and like 1835, they started saying, hey,

• 8:59Speaker 02

  These, like, we should sell these to kids. These are fun.

• 9:02Josh Clark?

  You know who's trustworthy?

• 9:03Speaker 02

  Kids. Exactly. There's one called the Edes Youth Laboratory from 1835. A few years later was Statham Students Chemical Laboratory. And then by 1856, they had one called Pike's Youth Chemical Cabinet.

• 9:17Josh Clark?

  Wow. Chemical cabinet sounds amazing.

• 9:20Speaker 02

  It does.

• 9:21Josh Clark?

  And then by the time the 20th century rolled around, so they were making these things here or there for centuries by now. Finally, they were like, okay, our market is young people who are enthusiastic about chemistry. But also, again, wear capes because they like magic. And one of the, the good examples that Dave turned up about this was, it came out in 1900. It was Kingsley's Primus Chemical Magic and Practical Chemistry Cabinet. And it had everything you needed to carry out like these serious chemistry experiments. And it came with a booklet too, that had plenty of instructions.

• 10:01Josh Clark?

  But it also had a lot of stuff to set things on fire and instructions on how to essentially make fireworks and things like that.

• 10:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, I would love to see a Venn diagram of Gen X kids who had chemistry sets.

• 10:19Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 10:19Speaker 02

  Who, who could pull a rabbit out of a hat. Or a card out of somebody's ear.

• 10:24Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 10:25Speaker 02

  And like, knew how to do the Rubik's Cube and draw a flip book.

• 10:29Josh Clark?

  That's the trifecta.

• 10:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was my brother in a nutshell.

• 10:34Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 10:34Speaker 02

  It's like, oh, Rubik's Cube? Sure. You want to see how to solve it?

• 10:37Josh Clark?

  But he wouldn't even say, watch this. He'd be like, here, let me help you.

• 10:40Speaker 02

  Right, exactly.

• 10:43Josh Clark?

  I also, just as a little side note, I'm like, why do they call that a Primus Chemistry Cabinet? So it turns out Primus, one of the definitions of it is a small stove that burns paraffin. So presumably that was included in the kit as like a Bunsen burner. And it went a little deeper. I was like, okay, why is the band Primus called Primus? And it turns out they were originally called the Primates. There was another band called the Primates that said, we will sue the pants off of you if you call yourself the Primates. So Les Claypool and friends looked up primate definitions and words and found out that Primus is the root word for primate. So they went with Primus instead.

• 11:21Speaker 02

  Look at that. One of, one of my most hated bands of all time.

• 11:26Josh Clark?

  Really?

• 11:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, I hate Primus. And you know what? I'm gonna hear from Primus fans.

• 11:31Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah, you are.

• 11:32Speaker 02

  Not yucking your yum. I love for you to love what you love. But I've got to be able to hate Primus as well.

• 11:39Josh Clark?

  Sure. They can't yum your yuck.

• 11:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:42Josh Clark?

  Like, everybody. It's not like you're telling them not to listen or that they suck for listening.

• 11:46Speaker 02

  No, I'm sure they're great for certain ears. It's just not mine.

• 11:51Josh Clark?

  They have some good songs, though, Chuck. "Jerry Was A Race Car Driver," you honestly don't like that song.

• 11:57Speaker 02

  No.

• 11:58Josh Clark?

  Okay, all right.

• 11:59Speaker 02

  They all sound the same to me. They all sound like... His bass just all sounds like...

• 12:06Josh Clark?

  That was a really good impression, actually.

• 12:08Speaker 02

  And all the singing and just...

• 12:11Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's definitely true, too. Yeah, you don't like Primus.

• 12:14Speaker 02

  No, it checks out. One of my very best friends loves Primus, and so, you know, we can all coexist.

• 12:21Josh Clark?

  You're like, so I can say that?

• 12:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. A lot of my friends are Primus fans.

• 12:28Speaker 02

  All right, let's take a break and we'll enter the 20th... 20th? 20th century, right after this.

• 12:33Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 12:47Josh Clark?

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• 12:56Speaker 02

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• 13:09Josh Clark?

  Or discover Toyota's off-road lineup, including the iconic 4Runner and Land Cruiser, designed to go beyond the everyday. And with Toyota's proven reputation for quality and reliability, plus hybrid power on many models, you can get more for every mile and drive for less along the way.

• 13:25Speaker 02

  That's right. And long after you leave the lot, your Toyota keeps delivering with great resale value. So you can trade in for more when you're ready for your next Toyota. From a great deal today to a great value tomorrow, a Toyota is right for you. Shop toyota.com for deals and details, or stop by your local Toyota dealer today. Toyota, let's go places.

• 13:49Speaker 02

  Here's a question for all you curious people. What's one thing you wish there was an app for? With Base44, you can build it yourself. It might be something simple, like a tool for a task your team does every week. You want the steps, useful links, and everyone's progress in one place.

• 14:03Josh Clark?

  Well, with Base44, describe that in your own words. You don't need to know coding or programming. Then you just keep editing and refining it until it works exactly the way you want. Your build comes headache-free with built-in login, data storage backend, and hosting. So what's the app you wish existed?

• 14:21Speaker 02

  Try it free and upgrade when you're ready. Go to base44.com to get started.

• 14:32Josh Clark?

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• 14:49Speaker 02

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• 15:04Josh Clark?

  Yeah, plus, everything at Quince is priced 50% to 80% less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen, so you can give luxury-quality pieces without the luxury price tag.

• 15:17Speaker 02

  So give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers, or go to quince.com, where you can get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK as well. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know it was stuff you should know. It's the best way to support the show.

• 15:53Josh Clark?

  Okay, so I think like I said, in the early 20th century, they were like, yep, young boys who are interested in chemistry, and let's go back and emphasize this, boys, that's who we're going to market these things to. This is who chemistry sets belong to, like little boy scientists who have an interest in chemistry. And the thing that went basically throughout the 20th century, at least up until like the 60s, if you bought a chemistry set for your kid, like that was their first step toward being a professional chemist as they grew up.

• 16:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, and you were guaranteed to have a little boy on the front box.

• 16:32Josh Clark?

  100%.

• 16:33Speaker 02

  That's just the way it was back then. And we'll get to more of that sort of weird sexism in science that still continues today in a little bit. But one of the big players, there were a couple of big ones. The first one was the Chemcraft Company. Chemcraft Chemistry Set in 1916 was the first really sort of popular toy chemistry set produced by the Porter Chemical Company out of Maryland. And it was about a buck 50 to maybe 10 bucks if you were pretty well-heeled, because that's about 40 to 300 bucks today. So some pretty decent money you'd have to throw down on the high-end chemistry set back then. These had test tubes by this point. You had an alcohol lamp. Of course, you had your

• 17:16Speaker 02

  weights and balances, and you had lots of chemicals.

• 17:19Josh Clark?

  Yeah, this is like a serious chemistry set. It had like all the stuff you needed, and it was substantial in form, right?

• 17:29Josh Clark?

  The manual also was like, we're going to do some serious stuff. One of the first experiments from this manual came from 1919, that edition. It's called Combination of Elements. And basically, you put powdered zinc and sulfur on a metal spoon and start heating it. Be sure to quote, "Keep your face at a little distance." And then, as the mass becomes hot, the sulfur takes fire and burns. And then the mixture starts to swell to a bulky porous mass while on fire. And then suddenly, there's a flash. And sulfur and zinc unite chemically, forming zinc sulfide. And hopefully, you have your eyebrows left afterward.

• 18:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's funny, like, the literal quote was, "Keeping your face at a little distance." And the first three times I read that, I read it as, "Keeping your little face at a distance."

• 18:16Josh Clark?

  Oh, I wish they'd said that. That's adorable.

• 18:19Speaker 02

  It was, it should have been, "Keep your little face at a great distance." Because that was dangerous. There was also something called "fire ink," which is exactly what you think is, you would combine, well, you may not know what you combine, but you know what the result probably is. You combine potassium nitrate and water in a test tube, and then write on a piece of paper and light that on fire. And it, you know, what you have spelled out is now on fire.

• 18:44Josh Clark?

  Yeah, so the potassium nitrate and water is the ink, the fire ink, as it were. Which sounds pretty cool, man. Imagine being like, "Hello, how are you?" Suddenly on fire on a piece of paper. Your friend's gonna think you're pretty cool. I literally wrote "neat" with an exclamation point after that one.

• 19:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, but you would also probably be more likely to write "butthole" or something like that than, "Hey, how are you?"

• 19:06Josh Clark?

  That's true.

• 19:07Speaker 02

  You know?

• 19:08Josh Clark?

  That's totally true. Also, I want to take back the word "literally." I'm really trying hard to abandon that, even when it's properly used. It's just so, so wrong these days.

• 19:19Speaker 02

  Well, good for you.

• 19:21Josh Clark?

  Thank you.

• 19:21Speaker 02

  Literally, good for you.

• 19:23Josh Clark?

  So, what else?

• 19:25Speaker 02

  Well, there was another experiment called, this is so fun. It's called "making a fuse." And that's basically all you need to know. It's like, you know, you can, you can probably make things that'll blow up, so you're gonna need a fuse.

• 19:37Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and that went really well with the manufacture of colored fire, which was homemade fireworks. It was genuinely and sincerely a flash in a pan. Because you would put these different metals in and make for you make gunpowder. The little kid would make gunpowder and then depending on the chemical or metal that they added, it would burn a different color in a pan as a flash genuinely.

• 20:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, you've you found another some cool research on like just how dangerous some of these chemicals were. Right?

• 20:09Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah, let's talk about those.

• 20:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, what else was in there?

• 20:13Josh Clark?

  In some of these sets that came out in the 20th century, there was iodine solution, which sounds kind of innocuous, but they figured out over time that you could use that to make meth with.

• 20:24Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 20:25Josh Clark?

  You could also, if you ate two grams of it or more, you would probably die.

• 20:31Josh Clark?

  I think ammonium nitrate was in that, which is frequently used to make bombs.

• 20:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:36Josh Clark?

  What else?

• 20:37Speaker 02

  Well, one thing you could do that was fun is you could make smoke bombs.

• 20:40Josh Clark?

  Right?

• 20:41Speaker 02

  With that potassium nitrate, which is, I don't know if you mentioned, it's also in gunpowder.

• 20:46Josh Clark?

  True.

• 20:46Speaker 02

  So a lot of these experiments were like, watch it flame, spark or boom in a in a small way.

• 20:53Josh Clark?

  Another one used to show up was sodium cyanide, which is more commonly referred to as cyanide. And you would bind to metals like like make essentially dissolve gold into water or metals into water. It's pretty neat. That's what it's used for, but it's also a rapidly acting toxin that can kill you dead pretty easily. And this was one of those chemicals in the glass vials that arrived in the chemistry sets for kids back then.

• 21:21Speaker 02

  Yeah. And speaking of glass, there are even some chemistry sets that had the material and instruction for blowing glass, which is no doubt a super cool, awesome thing to learn, but it's, you know, it's not something a kid should be trying in their bedroom.

• 21:37Josh Clark?

  No, I mean, it has to get really hot to melt glass enough to blow it. One of my favorites is calcium hypochlorite, which is one of the main ingredients for chlorine gas, which was, I think, the first chemical weapon to ever be banned by the world. So you could make a chemical weapon in your bedroom if you knew what you were doing.

• 22:00Speaker 02

  And as we're saying all this, we should point out that these early kits and sets did not offer things like eye protection, like not even a little pair of like fun goggles, you know, like, hey, kid, these are cute and fun. You'll look like a real scientist if you wear these, like, just didn't come with them.

• 22:17Josh Clark?

  No.

• 22:18Speaker 02

  And the whole thing with, you know, that we tied it into earlier with magic, a lot of them had like, here's your, like, you know, your science experiments you can do, but also here's some just really fun, like, sort of literal magic tricks you can do.

• 22:30Josh Clark?

  Right. There was one that's called the Magic Handkerchief. And you take a handkerchief and you put, I think, blue cobalt on it. And as you dry it out, I think it turns white, no, blue. And you can change it to white magically by, instructs you to ball it up and rub it in your hands for a few minutes. Any magic trick that takes a few minutes of repetitive motion is not a magic trick worth doing. But what was great is it said, now here's where you have some fun. And then it went on to the next instruction. So these were really mid-century written instruction booklets that really captured the time, if you think about it.

• 23:12Speaker 02

  Shall we take a break?

• 23:13Josh Clark?

  Oh, my. You bet.

• 23:18Speaker 02

  All right. That was very insured, but we're doing it anyway. We'll be right back.

• 23:21Speaker 04

  We learned so much stuff from Josh and Chuck. Stuff you should know.

• 23:34Josh Clark?

  Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability. And it all starts with a great deal on a truck from your local Toyota dealer.

• 23:44Speaker 02

  That's right. Make a smart buy on the off-road Ready Tacoma or Half-Ton Tundra, two of Toyota's most capable and longest-lasting trucks, built with the strength for the tough jobs, the tech to power your next big adventure, and the rugged style for everything in between.

• 23:57Josh Clark?

  Or discover Toyota's off-road lineup, including the iconic 4Runner and Land Cruiser, designed to go beyond the everyday. And with Toyota's proven reputation for quality and reliability, plus hybrid power on many models, you can You can get more for every mile and drive for less along the way.

• 24:13Speaker 02

  That's right. And long after you leave the lot, your Toyota keeps delivering with great resale value. So you could trade in for more when you're ready for your next Toyota. From a great deal today to a great value tomorrow, a Toyota is right for you. Shop toyota.com for deals and details, or stop by your local Toyota dealer today. Toyota, let's go places.

• 24:37Speaker 02

  Here's a question for all you curious people. What's one thing you wish there was an app for? With Base44, you can build it yourself. It might be something simple like a tool for a task your team does every week. You want the steps, useful links, and everyone's progress in one place.

• 24:51Josh Clark?

  Well, with Base44, describe that in your own words. You don't need to know coding or programming. Then you just keep editing and refining it until it works exactly the way you want. Your build comes headache-free with built-in login, data storage backend, and hosting. So what's the app you wish existed?

• 25:09Speaker 02

  Try it free and upgrade when you're ready. Go to base44.com to get started.

• 25:20Josh Clark?

  Hey, everybody. The best pieces in your closet are the ones you can count on, whether you're heading to work or going out or keeping things casual. And this time of year, Quince makes finding something great for everyone else just as easy. This holiday season, it's where you want to shop for yourself and everyone on your list.

• 25:37Speaker 02

  That's right. And you know what? Quince focuses on high-quality staples made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, 14-karat gold, and Italian leather. All timeless, versatile pieces that feel special to unwrap and become everyday favorites long after the holidays.

• 25:52Josh Clark?

  Yeah, plus, everything at Quince is priced 50% to 80% less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen so you can give luxury-quality pieces without the luxury price tag.

• 26:05Speaker 02

  So give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com, where you can get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns, now available in Canada and the UK as well. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know it was stuff you should know. It's the best way to support the show.

• 26:41Speaker 02

  All right, so you're getting these chemistry sets. Another big part of the whole branding thing for these companies making these, and this was just big back in those days, in the 1950s, was like clubs, like kids' clubs. So if you got a chemistry set, it was a pretty good chance it would come with like a membership in a science club. And there could be local chapters that you get together with your friends and things you could mail in for. Probably a magazine is involved, like a quarterly magazine. Certainly in the case of ChemCraft, they had the science club. And the ChemCraft chemist was their rag that they sent out, which was usually just ads for more stuff to buy. But they were like kind of fun little stories,

• 27:24Speaker 02

  like where a kid would save the day through some cool chemistry experiment.

• 27:28Josh Clark?

  Yeah, they seem very Mark Trail-esque.

• 27:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure.

• 27:32Josh Clark?

  So in addition to ChemCraft, Gilbert was essentially ChemCraft's rival. And Gilbert was the company of Alfred Carlton Gilbert, who had invented the original Erector set in 1913. That originally debuted as an engineer's chemistry set. That's what Erectors were sold as. But so Gilbert was like, well, it's getting to chemistry too. So they came up with the Gilbert Chemistry Outfit for Boys. So the name of the product literally specifies that it's just for boys.

• 28:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it had a little asterisk. And at the very bottom, it said, "Must have penis."

• 28:12Josh Clark?

  On the label too, like the picture on the box, had a little boy with his shirt sleeves rolled up, wearing a tie, doing his chemistry stuff. Like an eight-year-old wearing a tie.

• 28:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is 1920.

• 28:26Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 28:27Speaker 02

  So they found an instruction manual, not from the 1920 edition, but from 1936. And this one finally did have a warning here, and we should read this because it's pretty fun. Gilbert chemistry sets are not intended for children who cannot read and understand the accompanying instruction books. The sets do not contain dangerous poisons and the chemicals mentioned in this manual are not embraced under the term "poisons." They're perfectly safe to use if handled carefully and intelligently. They're not intended to be taken by mouth or swallowed, and no intelligent person would be expected to use them for such purposes. So they're shaming at the same time. It is necessary, however, to emphasize the fact that carelessness on the part of the

• 29:12Speaker 02

  experimenter can always lead to trouble.

• 29:14Josh Clark?

  Yes, and if you ever signed up for Disney+, you can't sue us if you blow up and burn your house down.

• 29:19Speaker 02

  Exactly, and then they have a few tips at the end, like, you know, never point the open end of a test tube that you're heating at anybody. Never just put your nose at the end of one while heating to smell it, or put your face, your little face, near it.

• 29:33Josh Clark?

  Yep, exactly. So at least Gilbert's, this is the 30s, mid 30s, where Gilbert's like, okay, we need to let kids know, like, you need to be responsible with this. And that was actually, I read, one of the expectations of chemistry sets in the middle of the 20th century, that it went to a home populated by a boy who had parents that taught that kid responsible stuff, how to be responsible, how to handle chemicals correctly, how to be safe, how to be smart. That that was kind of part and parcel with buying a chemistry set. You, the parent, didn't just hand it to your kid and say, like, "Leave me alone for a while." Like, you were supposed to be involved at least initially.

• 30:14Speaker 02

  Yeah. At least looking over a shoulder with your pipe in your mouth.

• 30:19Josh Clark?

  And knocking on the door and being like, "Still alive in there?"

• 30:21Speaker 02

  Right. "Mom, I told you to always knock."

• 30:27Speaker 02

  So we talked a little bit about the sexism involved with all this stuff is only marketed to boys. Pictures of boys, literally on the package for boys, in some cases. That was just the deal, was like, boys were scientists, girls were not considered for science. That is still a problem. There are so many initiatives these days to get young girls into science at a young age, very successfully, in a lot of cases, but it's still a challenge to be a woman in the world of science. I think we've heard from plenty of listeners who have verified that. But, in the 1920s, they did, the Porter Chemical Company did, say, "Hey, we're selling these things to boys, what about the girls?"

• 31:11Speaker 02

  And they were like, "Oh, how about Sachetcraft? The girls' sachet outfit." Which was chemistry in that it was a way to mix perfumes.

• 31:19Josh Clark?

  Yeah, making flowery smells from aromatic powders.

• 31:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was basically a perfume set.

• 31:26Josh Clark?

  Right, exactly. And they're still in use today in Who Do Love potions. And I was looking at some of these, and the names of the ones that I could find were Confusion, Destroy Everything is one of the potions, Follow Me Gal was another one.

• 31:44Speaker 02

  No, I'll have that.

• 31:46Josh Clark?

  So you want to steer clear of people using Who Do Love potions on you because there's no telling what they'll make you do, is essentially the thinking behind it. But they're made from sachet powders as well, that's why I say that. I don't know if that was clear.

• 32:01Speaker 02

  Eventually, in the 1960s, Gilbert finally was like, "All right, let's make a four-girls' chemistry set." But even then, in the books and stuff, it was like, so you too can become a lab technician.

• 32:14Josh Clark?

  A lab technician?

• 32:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, like, not, you know, they weren't encouraging you to, like, reach for the stars and become a scientist.

• 32:21Josh Clark?

  No, it was like, so you could learn what you're doing and go assist boy chemists, the real kind.

• 32:28Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 32:28Josh Clark?

  It's so nuts.

• 32:29Speaker 02

  Boo.

• 32:30Josh Clark?

  So, this was in the 60s, you said, that at least the chemistry sets for girls came out, even if they were still derogatory. That was the golden era of chemistry sets, the 50s to the 60s, usually about the early to mid 60s, they say.

• 32:45Speaker 02

  We love a golden age.

• 32:46Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and this was definitely it. And I've seen in multiple places that the reason why this was the golden age of chemistry sets was because this was a time when America in particular was feeling pretty good about science. Not only had America been the first to come up with the bomb, we were also making things like nylon, we were making more durable goods out of plastics. Like, science was improving people's lives, and at the heart of this was chemistry. So there was a real desire to keep the party going by creating the next generation of chemists,

• 33:26Josh Clark?

  by really going all in on the chemistry sets. And so they started selling even better than they ever had before.

• 33:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, the two slogans changed in the 50s and 60s. For Kim Craft, they changed it to Porter, "Science prepares young America for world leadership." And Gilbert responded in kind with, "Today's adventures in science will create tomorrow's America." And it was this idea, like, I think even A.C. Gilbert, the founder, like, included a note that said, "Hello, boys." It said, "Hello, boys." "The need for chemists is greater now than at any point in our country's history. This Gilbert chemistry set may well be the means of launching you on a useful and well-paying career." So, it was like, hey, this is a toy, but if you're interested in science, just wait, because there's a career out there waiting for you.

• 34:14Josh Clark?

  Yeah. If you like making things catch on fire, wait until they pay you money to make things catch on fire. You're gonna really like it. And so things just kind of started to get, like, anything they could throw at the wall, because they were selling so many of these, they were willing to try a lot more than just the standard chemistry set. And one of the ones that came out, Chuck, in, I think, 1950, is widely considered, at least by some, the world's most dangerous toy.

• 34:43Speaker 02

  Was it Bag of Glass?

• 34:45Josh Clark?

  It was even worse than that, although, I don't know, at the end of the day, I think Bag of Glass might be worse.

• 34:51Speaker 02

  Uh, that of course was from the great Saturday Night Live, uh, from the 70s, I think, Dan Aykroyd, but we did, or maybe you did, back in the day when we were tasked with doing, uh, what were they called, what did we call them, image galleries?

• 35:04Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 35:05Speaker 02

  And you did something on dangerous toys, and I think I remember, like, this was in there, because I remember we-

• 35:10Josh Clark?

  Had to be.

• 35:11Speaker 02

  We talked about it either there, or in a, maybe a podcast, or one of the videos we used to do, about the Atomic Energy Lab.

• 35:18Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 35:19Speaker 02

  It had real uranium in it.

• 35:20Josh Clark?

  It did. Not only did it have four vials of actual uranium ore, super radioactive uranium ore, well, I should say, actual radioactive uranium ore, there were also three different sources of alpha, beta, and gamma particle radiation, too. So this box was, like, quite radioactive. Uh, it was a legit, real deal, science box. Um, it had a Geiger counter in it.

• 35:47Speaker 02

  Thank God.

• 35:48Josh Clark?

  It had something called a spintheroscope, which you could look through, it was almost like a, um, a, a seeing eyeglass, now? What are they called? Like, that, like-

• 35:58Speaker 02

  Like a loop?

• 35:59Josh Clark?

  A captain would, like, pull out the, not a telescope.

• 36:01Speaker 02

  Like a sextant?

• 36:04Josh Clark?

  No, it's like that telescope that's small and pocket-sized, that telescopes into a smaller version of itself.

• 36:11Speaker 02

  I mean, I think it's called a telescope, isn't it?

• 36:13Josh Clark?

  All right, whatever. So, it's like that. Um, but you can actually watch, um, radioactive isotopes decaying under this thing. There was also a cloud chamber in there, which is really impressive that they had cloud chambers.

• 36:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, is this the thing you sent?

• 36:31Josh Clark?

  Yes.

• 36:32Speaker 02

  I did not get a chance to look over this, so feel free.

• 36:35Josh Clark?

  Okay, so a cloud chamber is, um, a specific kind of, like, flask or vial that's set up to hold alcohol vapor that, in some way, shape, or form, I guess through magic, um, you can see the trails of radioactive particles moving through the alcohol vapor, very similar to like a, um, a contrail from an airplane, if you believe that those are actually contrails.

• 37:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:01Josh Clark?

  And the particles, the lower lesser active radioactive particles would kind of zigzag and make little cute lines, but that's because they were actually being slowed down by the alcohol vapor. The really strong ones would make a nice bold straight line through there. And you could just see all these little trails of radioactive particles show up in your own personal cloud chamber that came in this playset.

• 37:24Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 37:25Josh Clark?

  I know, it was really impressive.

• 37:28Speaker 02

  Well, the ones that came with uranium, they had, you know, booklets. One was called "Prospecting for Uranium" that taught you how to mine radioactive ore.

• 37:39Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 37:40Speaker 02

  So you're thinking like, alright, like how, literally how dangerous was this? There had been modern calculations about, you know, what was contained in these boxes. And supposedly, the amount of radiation from the uranium in one of these sets equaled about a day of UV exposure from the sun.

• 37:57Josh Clark?

  Hmm.

• 37:58Speaker 02

  So, it's not the most dangerous thing in the world, but it is pretty funny that it came with like, actual uranium.

• 38:03Josh Clark?

  Right. I couldn't find an answer, though. Like, over what period of time was it

• 38:08Speaker 02

  Right.

• 38:08Josh Clark?

  a day's worth of UV exposure? Like, an hour? If you spent the day with this thing? Like, I couldn't quite nail it down, but I'm, from the context that everybody describes it, and it sounds fairly harmless.

• 38:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it's exposure, but like, what if it's on your skin, or gets in your body somehow?

• 38:24Josh Clark?

  Near your teeth?

• 38:26Speaker 02

  It can't be good.

• 38:27Josh Clark?

  So I saw that they only sold about 5,000 of them, and that it wasn't, there's a great Atlas Obscura video on this, where they talked to a curator at a science museum who opens one of these and just talks about it.

• 38:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:40Josh Clark?

  And she said that they were, they were discontinued after two years, not because of safety concerns, but because they didn't sell very many, because it was about 500 or something dollars in today's money for these things. So, most parents weren't like, "Sure, I'll buy you this, you know, atomic lab for 500 bucks."

• 38:57Speaker 02

  Yeah. And here's the thing, it was just kind of fun. We won't read through all these quotes, but a lot of legit Nobel winning chemists over the years got their start in chemistry sets. I imagine a lot of real deal scientists and chemists had these things when they were kids. And we'll read one from Oliver Sacks. The neurologist and author said, "I do not think there can be any adequate substitute for having a chemistry set or a little chemistry lab and doing experiments oneself, thinking them out, taking responsibility for them, and occasionally facing risks too." So Oliver Sacks talking about risk was one of the big cells of chemistry sets for kids.

• 39:39Speaker 02

  A little bit of danger involved. They were fun and all, but I think it was that little bit of like, you are making fire, you are making things go boom or smoke. That was one of the things that appealed to kids and probably still does.

• 39:53Josh Clark?

  Yeah, for sure. And the problem is, is that over time, so like kids who were like, "I'm really into this and I need to learn to be a responsible chemist because I want to grow up to be a chemist." There were also kids that got these that were not that interested in being a chemist. They just wanted to blow things up. And then I think also there were kids who were responsible but just had accidents. And so there were reports of people burning down their family house with these chemistry sets or injuring themselves. And that kind of coincided with a couple of things. One, this increasing interest in protecting kids from toys.

• 40:34Josh Clark?

  And then two, also a greater emphasis on things like environmental pollutants and toxins. And that whole love of chemistry that really carried everybody in the 50s and early 60s was starting to be questioned and like, exactly what are these chemicals doing to us? So you put those two things combined and chemistry sets started to take a hit.

• 40:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. In 66, Congress passed the Child Protection Act, which, you know, all of a sudden you could ban a toy that had something dangerous or hazardous in there. A couple of years later, the US Department of Health, Education and Welfare, they estimated that toys, just all toys, caused about 700,000 injuries a year. So more regulations were passed in the late 60s and early 70s for, like you said, just protecting kids from dangers in toys and what these toys were made of, in the case of chemistry sets, like the chemicals that were in there.

• 41:32Josh Clark?

  Yeah. So like this increasing concern among parents and what are in these chemistry sets led to a decline in sales. And in fact, Porter Chemical and Gilbert, the two rivals who made Chemcraft and Gilbert, chemistry sets were bought by a toy maker named Gabriel Toys. You might recognize that name from Othello, Trouble, the pottery craft activity little set, where you could make your own pottery. You remember that? It was this little pottery wheel.

• 42:02Speaker 02

  Probably remember the box.

• 42:03Josh Clark?

  You can, you definitely would. But you could recreate that scene from Ghost, but for cheap.

• 42:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, as a teenager, too.

• 42:10Josh Clark?

  Anyway, Gabriel, they bought those two in 1967 and by the 80s, there were like no chemistry sets. You just couldn't sell them. Some companies went on like, no, we're going to keep the flame going. But they really, really watered them down, starting in the 80s and 90s.

• 42:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. And that, I mean, I guess my brother would have had one probably from the 70s. So it may have still been a little bit legit. But yeah, in the 80s, they started literally watering them down, watering down the chemicals. Things, you know, became plastic. Like you didn't get glass test tubes and metal scales and stuff like that anymore. Like, you know, the old kits were just sort of smaller condensed versions of like the real deal. And that all changed. They just became cheaper, kind of like everything else. I think in 2001, there was a recall of a set called Professor Wacko's Exothermic Exuberance.

• 43:09Speaker 02

  That had glycerin and potassium. What is that word?

• 43:14Josh Clark?

  Manganese?

• 43:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, okay, great. And that could cause things to catch on fire and spontaneously combust. These, these, this particular kit had containers with removable lids, but they weren't labeled. So kids were mislabeling things or just getting them confused, basically, because there were no labels. And there were two separate house fire incidents. So that one was recalled and that was, I mean, that was in the early 2000s. It was surprising those were still around.

• 43:41Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I think those people tried to throwback to like the real deal and it just didn't quite work. There was another one that's a CSI fingerprint examination kit, which sounds extremely innocuous, but it was recalled in 2007 because they found out that the fingerprint powder that you use to dust for prints with had asbestos in it. It was up to 5% asbestos, which is obviously, I think, a mesothelioma-causing carcinogen. So that was like, no. And parents were like, what are you guys doing? Stop selling our kids. Like, we're clearly into product safety. Stop selling our kids this stuff. So a toy maker named, oh, I don't know who made it, but they came out with a set called

• 44:26Josh Clark?

  Chemistry 60. And they were like, watch this. This is 60 fun activities with no chemicals.

• 44:33Speaker 02

  In other words, boring. This, this is the irony here. Despite that it had no chemicals, it had two kinds of safety goggles, the goggles and those little clear safety glasses made out of whatever they're made out of, the non-chat, non-chatter or something.

• 44:50Josh Clark?

  And a folded up nanny who came out of the box to hover while all of these experiments are going on. And you could get the items that you need, like you did need some chemicals, but these are like kitchen level chemicals, like vinegar, baking soda, that kind of stuff. And I thought that was kind of reminiscent. You remember Dave came up with a bunch of quotes of Nobel scientists who credit chemistry sets for like increasing their, or starting their interest in science. There was one other scientist named Kerry Mullis, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 93, who said that their objective with their chemistry set was to figure out what things I might put together to cause an explosion. And that they discovered whatever chemicals might be missing, they could buy them at the

• 45:34Josh Clark?

  local drugstore or hardware store. And so like, that's, this is like the antithesis of that. Rather than being like, I need more explosive stuff, or I need this other thing to make this explosion happen. I'm going to go down to the drugstore, hardware store. This was, I'm going to go to the kitchen and make a baking soda and vinegar volcano in this chemistry set that my parents bought me. And then I'm going to go to sleep and maybe hopefully never wake up.

• 46:00Speaker 02

  Right. Dave did a little research though, and found that there are some pretty good ones today that you can still get. There are some companies that are, you know, trying to make a safe version of a real deal chemistry set these days. This one called, I don't know, it's Tim's or Thames in this case, and Cosmos with a K. It's called the Chem C3000. 280 bucks plus money for chemicals. So it better be good for that kind of dough.

• 46:30Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it got best overall chemistry set by the Wall Street Journal in 2006. I didn't know the Wall Street Journal rated such things, but it makes sense.

• 46:38Speaker 02

  18 years ago.

• 46:39Josh Clark?

  It does make sense that they would rate it though, because some of the legit chemistry sets sold today, they're for like homeschoolers, like who need this kind of stuff. And in fact, if you want to plunk down 645 simoleons, you can get a chemistry set that covers an entire year of 11th grade chemistry.

• 47:00Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 47:01Josh Clark?

  Pretty neat. I also saw one other reason that chemistry sets kind of got watered down over the years are meth labs. People were finding like they could actually buy these things and use them to make meth.

• 47:10Speaker 02

  Right.

• 47:11Josh Clark?

  So there was another, there was another prong to like, be like, we need to really stop making these legit chemistry sets.

• 47:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:19Josh Clark?

  Got anything else?

• 47:21Speaker 02

  I got nothing else. You know, support, support science for your, for your kids, little girls, little boys, give them, give them a chemistry set.

• 47:31Josh Clark?

  Very nice.

• 47:31Speaker 02

  That's what I say.

• 47:32Josh Clark?

  That's right. Since Chuck gave us a nice PSA, it's time, of course, for listener mail.

• 47:40Speaker 02

  I'm gonna call this all caught up. Hey, everybody. Got hooked on your show in 2019? After a few weeks of listening, I decided I had to listen to all of it. And after five years, I finally have completed that task. Just finished listening to the Judas Priest suicide trial.

• 47:55Josh Clark?

  Wow.

• 47:55Speaker 02

  During a morning trail run, and now I feel like I have a little void in my life, you guys. Having to wait patiently throughout the week for new content. I often listen for hours on end during trail runs, training for ultramarathons. By the way, Josh has many times called them ultra-thons, which never fails to give me a chuckle. Ultra-thon, is that not a thing?

• 48:16Josh Clark?

  I think they're called ultramarathons. Ultra-thon is like a bad guy on...

• 48:21Speaker 02

  And a character.

• 48:22Josh Clark?

  Yeah, on some Japanese anime.

• 48:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, I like ultra-thon. Your voices and content, guys, always give me, keep me in a positive mood, even when I'm at the point of exhaustion. You've been with me and my wife through some big life events, our marriage, multiple cross-country moves, new jobs, and now a new baby in a few weeks. And by the time this comes out, that baby will be around, I would imagine, because we're ahead by a few weeks at this point. So keep up the great work, guys. I can continue to share this and enjoy it with my family as it grows by one. Maybe a long shot, but I'd love to see a live show up here in Halifax, Nova Scotia, that you get a couple of hundred people in a room here. That's for Matt. Well, Matt, we got a couple of hundred people in a room in Atlanta.

• 49:08Josh Clark?

  Yeah, we can't get worse than that, right?

• 49:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'd rather go to Halifax than have a hometown show be undersold.

• 49:17Josh Clark?

  Yeah. You got any barns in Halifax, Matt, that we can do a show in?

• 49:21Speaker 02

  I bet Matt has a barn.

• 49:22Josh Clark?

  Well, congratulations in advance, retroactively, to you and your family for your baby's birth. And if you want to get in touch with us like Matt did and tell us how much we've kept you going on your ultra-thons, you can do so by sending us an email to [email protected].

• 49:47Speaker 03

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 50:02Josh Clark?

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• 51:33Speaker 00

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