The Garden Party at Wiltzangk

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After three years in the lab, for my bachelor degree in chemistry, I decided to explore new areas of research: a master program in history of science at Utrecht University. In the course “Dilemmas of Modernity” I was for the first time—still half chemist— confronted with the empirical richness of the archive. I thoroughly enjoyed the strange feeling of connecting with an earlier time. Whenever you thought you figured it out, an unexpected letter, photo or scribble in the sidelines could turn the story upside down. And I enjoyed the physical contact with my century-old sources: from the thick yellowed paper and the beautifully published booklets, to the clumsy, cozy places in the library or museum where you could suddenly plow through piles of paper. As research space the archive is thus both very different from the lab, and not so different at all—especially when you consider the practical discipline required and the surprises that the empirical world holds for the researcher.

Luckily, all this toil not only ended up in chaos, but also a paper that was allowed to appear in a special issue about the First World War in Studium (a magazine that has recently become archival material itself!) [2]. In short, this paper followed the attempts of a few Utrecht chemists to bring the chemists of all countries back into conversation after the Great War—that was especially sensitive for chemists, since chemical expertise had been used for offensive (and defensive) purposes on all sides of the conflict. The newly established International Organization for Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) temporarily excluded the chemists from Central Powers (Germany, Austria, Hungary) from participating. The Dutchman Ernst Cohen was one of the neutral champions who tried to change this in the 1920s [3].

Looking back at these papers, I am a little bothered by the need I felt to emphasize again and again that this war marked a break with the scientific images of “Comtean” and “positivist” optimists (what we would today probably call scientism). The science-critical scholar I had decided to become had to deal with the chemist I might have been. But, the archival sources that I gathered for these papers still fascinate me: from a cozy group photo in Cohen’s garden in Utrecht, in 1921, and the “chemical-historical” menu they were served that evening, to a poem by the Latvian-German chemist Paul Walden who, with healthy poetic exaggeration, compared the work of the Dutch with their struggle against the raging sea.

Ernst Cohen

Subsequently, I wrote my thesis on the same Cohen and his so-called “pure” physical chemistry, and so I collected his remaining documents throughout the Netherlands. That is how I came to visit the Utrecht University Museum, where I not only found a few beautiful letters from an exchange between Cohen and Fritz Haber— the German Nobel Prize winner who became a notorious symbol for poison gas development—but was also surprised by a classy photo album.

Most of the photos were from the IUPAC conference that took place in The Hague in July 1928. I quickly snapped some memories of the prettiest—including the garden party photo that I started this piece with. But I didn’t dwell on it very long and didn’t figure out what exactly was happening there, and it disappeared in a folder, tucked away deep on my hard drive.

It was a few years later, in 2019, that I opened this digital drawer again. The occasion was the centenary of the IUPAC, in honor of which chemistry historians prepared a special issue of Chemistry International [4]. As it turned out, they knew about my Studium article (which had a wider international reach than I suspected!) and asked me to tell more about Ernst Cohen’s years as IUPAC president [5]. The article that I thought I had left behind for a long time suddenly turned out to be relevant again.

It was the editor of Chemistry International, Fabienne Meyers, who inquired about the photos I supplied with the text. Where were these photos taken, and why? The easiest was the photo of the opening of the IUPAC conference—where German chemists were again present as guests for the first time. This clearly took place in the “old” room of the House of Representatives in the Binnenhof [See photograph of the opening of IUPAC Conference in the “old chamber” of the “Tweede Kamer” (House of Representatives)” in The Hague in July 1928, reproduced in ref. 5, p. 9]. Although it’s not officially in use anymore for the main Dutch political debates, it still houses events. And, in 2020, it was again used, as it could accomodate distancing measures, to hold political meetings on the appropriate (scientifically validated) response to the covid pandemic.

Can you find Cohen?

Even though they have put up some gloomy blue lights in the meantime, the hall remains easily recognizable.

In both 2020 and 1928, this room was a crossroads of science and politics [6]. Cohen opened the meeting in four languages (French, English, Latin and Esperanto) to emphasize the international nature of science. He then gave the floor to the Minister of Labour, Trade and Industry, Dr J.R. Locksmith de Bruine. As a “former professor” of theology, he praised not only “pure” science, but also, as a minister, “applied” chemistry, because “industry” increasingly learned to “reap the fruits” of science. Cohen concluded with some science-historical jokes: History had examples of ministers proficient in chemistry—Joseph Priestley discovered both oxygen and soda water (‘laughter’)—so the Minister could become “one of them” if only he would hang out long enough with chemists (“cheerfulness”).

Indeed, there was sufficient attention at the 1928 IUPAC conference for cheerfulness and entertainment. On Friday, the delegates visited Rotterdam, where they enjoyed lunch at City Hall, took a boat trip on the Maas river to visit the port and passed by the monument of the first Dutch Nobel prize winner J.H. van ’t Hoff (which can still be visited today!).

And on Saturday, 21 July, a procession of cars drove from the Peace Palace in The Hague to the woody Wassenaar. All IUPAC chemists “and their wives” were invited for a cup of tea at the Wiltzangk estate. The invitation came from “S. van den Bergh and Mrs. Van den Bergh-Willing.” That is to say, Samuel van den Bergh, at that time a member of the board of directors of the Margarine Unie, and thus one of the founders of today’s Unilever. The Jewish Van den Berghs had been spending their free time on Wiltzangk since 1922, and would do so until the Wehrmacht requisitioned and looted the house during World War II. Today it is the residence for the Iranian ambassador, at Rust en Vreugdelaan 5.

At the closing dinner, in the Kurhaus in Scheveningen, the Minister for Industry Slotemaker de Bruine again reflected on the relationship between pure and applied science, in chemistry and theology: “If I review what you have done in the last four days . . . I wonder how to classify this. For example, was the ‘garden party’ on the Wiltzangk and your visit to the ports of Rotterdam to be regarded as pure or applied chemistry?” Both, Cohen could have answered, because the international chemical conference was an opportunity for him to establish himself internationally on the scientific map, as well as an opportunity to strengthen ties with politics and industry within Dutch borders, so as to convince them of the social relevance of his science. That was more or less the conclusion of my master’s thesis on Cohen’s chemistry, which I now saw expressed in these few images. The garden party photo has continued to follow me over the years—and I’m excited to see it resurface here again in Chemistry International and who knows, at the IUPAC conference next year in The Netherlands.

Title page reprinted with permission from the photo album of Professor Dr. E.J. Cohen, 1928-1933, Utrecht University Museum, inv.nr 0285-25630.