TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY
NEWSLETTER • 19 SEPTEMBER
On 19 Sep 1851, William Lever, later Lord Leverhulme, was a British manufacturer and philanthropist. For the benefit of his workforce, he had a town built-to-order with 239 acres for his factory and 233 acres for not only housing, but also churches, clubs, schools, an inn, swimming pool, hospital, gymnasium, baths, tennis courts, and common gardens in addition to the individual gardens with the houses. The houses were never sold, but the rents were nominal, just a few shillings a week.
It is notable that he saw the strength of the company as coming from the well-being of his workers, and he realized that by investing in them, he was investing in the future of the business. This contrasts with the modern corporate goal which has in certain cases become to maximize immediate short-term profits for the shareholders, while holding down wages, holding down hours, and using part-time workers denied benefits and dependable hours.
Whereas Lever founded his business on exporting a common household product, which he manufactured in annual quantities of tens of thousands of tons and shipped worldwide, modern corporate goals too often seem to be to export the jobs. For more background on Lever's philosophy and how he made it successful, read this article on William Lever (Lord Leverhulme) from The Chemical Age (1919). Lever made his enterprise enormously successful, and didn't have a business school education telling him how to do it.
On 19 Sep 1851, William Lever was born, a British manufacturer and eccentric Victorian philanthropist. Today's book pick is: The King of Sunlight: How William Lever Cleaned Up the World, by Adam Macqueen, who relates the life of a man who both created an international manufacturing business while holding beliefs far ahead of his time—the welfare state and votes for women (although he also believed that employers should dictate how workers spend their weekends). He was also far in advance of laws requiring factories to have fresh air, fire alarms, or sprinklers. He built a planned village for his workers outside Liverpool. This jovial and well-researched book rescues from obscurity an odd and influential mercantile prince, whose business empire that straddled the world, as far as the Congo, with schools and hospitals he provided for the workers, an example of care that was unprecedented in that continent. The book also reveals remarkable eccentricities, such as having his bedroom built for open-air sleeping, even open in all weathers.
It is available from Amazon, typically about New from $49.17. Used from $2.97. (As of earlier time of writing - subject to change.)
 | For books [Charles Darwin] had no respect, but merely considered them as tools to be worked with. … he would cut a heavy book in half, to make it more convenient to hold. He used to boast that he had made Lyell publish the second edition of one of his books in two volumes, instead of in one, by telling him how ho had been obliged to cut it in half. … his library was not ornamental, but was striking from being so evidently a working collection of books. — Francis Darwin, English botanist (died 19 Sep 1925).  |
 | Wisdom is knowing what to do next, skill is knowing how to do it, and virtue is doing it. — David Starr Jordan, American ichthyologist and peace activist (died 19 Sep 1931). |
| | We won't argue; you're wrong. [A common comment to his employees illustrating his resistance to changing his mind about his grand schemes.] — William Lever, British manufacturer and philanthropist (born 19 Sep 1851). |
| Before you look at today's web page, see if you can answer some of these questions about the events that happened on this day. Some of the names are very familiar. Others will likely stump you. Tickle your curiosity with these questions, then check your answers on today's web page. | |
| Births | |
| | William Lever, born 19 Sep 1851, was a British philanthropist and industrialist who built an international firm. What was this firm's major product? |
 | Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Delambre, born 19 Sep 1749, was a French astronomer who is known for his tables that plot the location of one of the planets in particular. For which planet did he prepare these tables? |
| Deaths | |
 | Chester F. Carlson (1906-1968) was an American physicist who invented xerography, an electrostatic dry-copying process that found applications ranging from office copying to reproducing out-of-print books. The process involved sensitizing a photoconductive surface to light by giving it an electrostatic charge In what decade did he begin to develop the process? |
 | William Howe (1803-1852) was an American inventor who pioneered in the design of a certain type of bridges for the developing railroads, which he patented. His first bridge (1838-39) was a light, cheap and substantial structure across the Quaboag River at Warren, Mass. By 1842, he had spanned the Connecticut River. What type of bridge structure did Howe invent? |
| Events | |
 | On 19 Sep 1991, a Stone Age wanderer and the most ancient human being ever found, was discovered in the Similaun glacier in the Alps on the Italian-Austrian border. His frozen body was found along with artifacts of his vanished way of life in the Ötzal region of the Alps, hence the name Ötzi given him by an Austrian reporter. By what nickname is this man commonly known? |
 | On 19 Sep 1783, a duck, a sheep and a rooster were launched in a test aboard a hot-air balloon at Versailles in France. Who was the pioneer making this test? |
Fast answers for the previous newsletter for September 18: neptunium and plutonium • microscopic particles involved in the condensation of atmospheric water vapour in clouds and fogs • they devised an accelerator that generated large numbers of particles at lower energies. The Cockcroft-Walton generator they built was the first atom-smasher • Armand Hippolyte Fizeau • decade containing the year 1980 • Tom Thumb.
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