Private Philanthropy and Basic Research in Mid-Twentieth Century America: The Hickrill Chemical Research Foundation

The Hickrill Chemical Research Foundation, located north of New York City on the estate of its patrons, Sylvan and Ruth Alice Norman Weil, had a short (1948-59) but productive life. Ruth Alice Weil received a Ph.D. in organic chemistry in 1947, directed by William von Eggers Doering of Columbia University. She intended that Hickrill contribute to cancer chemotherapy while providing resources for Doering's more speculative research. Ultimately, Doering's commitment to theoretical organic chemistry set Hickrill's research agenda. Lawrence Knox, an African American with a Harvard Ph.D., supervised the laboratory's daily activities. Hickrill's two dozen postdoctoral fellows produced path-breaking results in Hückel aromatic theory and reactive intermediate chemistry, fostering the postwar emphasis on "basic science." This essay places the Laboratory's successes in the wider context of postwar politics and scientific priorities. Private philanthropic support of basic science arose because it received little pre-World War II government support. In the immediate postwar period, modest organisations like Hickrill still met a need, but the increasing governmental defence- and non-defence-related support for science eventually rendered them unnecessary.