title: Alfred Werner's role in the mid-20th century flourishing of American inorganic chemistry.
abstract: The development of organic and physical chemistry as specialist fields, during the middle and end of the 19th century respectively, left inorganic behind as a decidedly less highly regarded subfield of chemistry. Despite Alfred Werner's groundbreaking studies of coordination chemistry in the early 20th century, that inferior status remained in place - particularly in the US - until the 1950s, when the beginnings of a resurgence that eventually restored its parity with the other subfields can be clearly observed. This paper explores the extent to which Werner's heritage - both direct, in the form of academic descendants, and indirect - contributed to those advances.
authors.affiliation: California Institute of Technology, Beckman Institute, Pasadena, CA 90025, USA. jal@its.caltech.edu.
authors.forename: Jay A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Labinger
mesh_terms: D015392:Chemistry, Inorganic / Q000266:history*; D056831:Coordination Complexes / Q000266:history*; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D013557:Switzerland; D014481:United States
chemical_list: D056831:Coordination Complexes