William McPherson was born near Xenia, Ohio in 1864. He attended Ohio State University obtaining B. S, M.S. and Sc.D. degrees. He obtained a Ph.D. degree from the University of Chicago and also completed about five years teaching in High Schools. He returned to Ohio State University as assistant to Professor Sidney A. Norton in 1892 where he had an illustrious career until his second retirement in 1938. William Edwards Henderson was born in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania in 1870. He attended Wooster College obtaining a B. A degree in 1891. He obtained his Ph.D. degree from Johns Hopkins University in 1897. He taught at Ohio State University from 1899 to 1941. McPherson and Henderson both saw the tremendous increase in the popularity of chemistry reflected in student numbers in the early part of the twentieth century. Observing this trend, they wrote a book, Elementary study in chemistry (1905), for High School and first year College chemistry students which included more physical chemistry than other textbooks of the period. This was followed by a chemistry laboratory manual entitled Exercises in chemistry in 1906. They published over twenty different manuals and textbooks in a variety of editions, providing an introduction to chemistry for an estimated two million students; they are thus amongst the most widely used chemistry textbooks ever published. The McPherson and Henderson manuals are usually owned by individual students. The students perform the experiments as indicated in the manual and fill in answers in the spaces provided. Each manual is thus a unique notebook of the student’s results. The “William Palmer” collection contains about 370 different of such manuals collected using Ebay over twenty years and Exercises in chemistry is the most numerous manual title in the collection.

William McPherson (1864-1951) and William Edwards Henderson (1870-1962): authors of an outstanding series of chemistry textbooks and manuals

ACS Spring Meeting 2021

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