Bernard Jaffe

After secondary education in New York City, Bernard Jaffe attended the City College of New York, where he graduated in 1916 with a B.S. cum laude. During WW I he served as an officer in the 108th Infantry Regiment, 97th Infantry Division of the U.S. Army. In 1918 his regiment fought in Belgium and France. As a lieutenant, he participated in September 1918 in the U.S. Army's final operations against the Hindenberg Line. After his repatriation and discharge, he matriculated at Columbia University, where he graduated in 1922 with an M.A. in chemistry. After about 2 years of working in the business sector, he became in 1924 a high school chemistry teacher in the New York City Department of Education. In 1926, while teaching at Jamaica High School, he published Chemical Calculations. This problem book for secondary school students was successful, and a revised, 2nd edition was published in 1947. In 1930 Simon and Schuster published Jaffe's book Crucibles: The Lives of the Great Chemists, a collection of biographies of famous chemists, including Bernard of Treves, Paracelsus, Johann Joachim Becher, Joseph Priestley, Henry Cavendish, Antoine Lavoisier, Marie Curie, J. J. Thomson, Henry Moseley, and Irving Langmuir. New editions with the title Crucibles: The Story of Chemistry from Ancient Alchemy to Nuclear Fission were published in 1942, 1949, 1957, and 1976.{{cite web|title=Bernard Jaffe (1896–1986)|website=Division of the History of Chemistry, American Chemical Society|url=https://acshist.scs.illinois.edu/awards/Dexter%20Papers/JaffeDexterBioJJB.pdf}} By 1950, Crucibles was translated into Italian and Spanish.{{cite journal|doi=10.1086/349128 |date=1950 |volume=41 |issue=1 |last1=Duveen |first1=Denis |title=Crucibles: The Story of Chemistry from Ancient Alchemy to Nuclear Fission. Bernard Jaffe |journal=Isis |pages=133–134 }} In 1935 Jaffe was appointed head of the Physical Sciences Department at Midwood, Brooklyn's Bushwick High School and his book New World of Chemistry was published by Silver, Burdett & Company. This highly successful textbook for secondary students went through new editions in 1940, 1942, and 1948. The textook took a strongly historical approach and displayed pictures of famous chemists and the use of chemistry in industry, as well as diagrams of experiments. In 1957 Crowell published Jaffe's book Chemistry Creates a New World, a book about chemistry's role in contemporary life. In Brooklyn, he taught high school chemistry until his retirement in 1958.{{cite news|newspaper=The New York Times|date=November 22, 1986|page=37, Section 1|title=Obituary. Bernard Jaffe|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1986/11/22/obituaries/bernard-jaffe.html}} (This obituary refers to "Martha's Vineyard Hospital, Vineyard Haven, Mass." — this should be "Martha's Vineyard Hospital, Oak Bluffs, Mass.") Jaffe's books for a popular audience include Outposts of Science: A Journey to the Workshops of Our Leading Men of Research (1935); Men of Science in America: The Story of American Science Told Through the Lives and Achievements of Twenty Outstanding Men From Earliest Colonial Times to the Present Day (1944); Michelson and the Speed of Light (1960); and Moseley and the Numbering of the Elements (1971). He contributed many scientific articles and book reviews to The New York Times, the New York Herald Tribune, The New Republic, The Saturday Review of Literature, and the Journal of Chemical Education. Jaffe was a strong advocate of using the history of chemistry in the teaching of chemistry to increase interest and to improve achievement among the students.{{cite journal|doi=10.1021/ed015p383 |title=The history of chemistry and its place in the teaching of high-school chemistry |date=1938 |last1=Jaffe |first1=Bernard |journal=Journal of Chemical Education |volume=15 |issue=8 |page=383 }}{{cite journal|doi=10.1021/ed032p183 |title=Using the history of chemistry in our teaching |date=1955 |last1=Jaffe |first1=Bernard |journal=Journal of Chemical Education |volume=32 |issue=4 |page=183 }}

In 1930 the 1st edition of Jaffe's book Crucibles won for him the Francis Bacon Award for Humanizing Knowledge, sponsored by Forum Magazine and by Simon and Schuster. At the award ceremony in New York City, John Dewey presented a gold medal and a check for $7,500 in prize money to Jaffe. In 1973, the Dexter Award of the History of Chemistry of the American Chemical Society was presented to Jaffe for his promotion of the history of chemistry in secondary school teaching of chemistry and for Crucibles and his other popular books dealing with the lives of outstanding scientists.{{cite journal|author=Nye, Mary Jo|author-link=Mary Jo Nye|title=Scientific biography in the history of chemistry: the role of Dexter and Edelstein Award winners in the last fifty years|journal=Bulletin for the History of Chemistry|volume=32|issue=1|year=2007|pages=21–26|url=https://acshist.scs.illinois.edu/bulletin_open_access/FullIssues/vol32-1.pdf#page=23}}{{cite journal|author=Jaffe, Bernard|title=The Human Crucible|journal=Forum: The Magazine of Controversy|date=May 1930|pages=316–320|url=https://archive.org/details/sim_forum-and-century_1930-05_83_5/page/316/mode/2up}}

Jaffe married Celia Lesser and they had a son, Lionel F. Jaffe of Woods Hole, Massachusetts and three grandchildren including Laurinda Jaffe.

• {{cite book|title=Chemical calculations: a systematic presentation of the solution of type problems, with 1000 chemical problems arranged progressively according to lesson assignments|location=Yonkers-on-Hudson, New York|publisher=World Book Company|series=New-world Science Series|year=1926|lccn=26013730}}
• {{cite book|year=1947|title=2nd edition|lccn=47006294}}
• {{cite book|year=1958|title=3rd edition|lccn=58025479}}{{cite journal|doi=10.1021/ed035p529.1 |date=1958 |volume=35 |issue=10 |last1=Eiseman |first1=Fred B. |title=Chemical Calculations (Jaffe, Bernard) |journal=Journal of Chemical Education |page=529 |bibcode=1958JChEd..35..529E }}
• {{cite book|title=Crucibles: The Lives of the Great Chemists|year=1930|location=New York|publisher=Simon & Schuster|lccn=30016955}}
• {{cite book|title=Crucibles: The Story of Chemistry from Ancient Alchemy to Nuclear Fission|publisher=Dover|year=1976|isbn=0486233421|postscript=; pbk; new revised & updated 4th edition}}
• {{cite book|title=New World of Chemistry|year=1935|lccn=35008008}} (textbook with several later editions)
• {{cite book|title=Outposts of Science: A Journey to the Workshops of Our Leading Men of Research|year=1935|lccn=35031946}}
• {{cite book|title=Men of Science in America: The Role of Science in the Growth of Our Country|publisher=Simon & Schuster|year=1944|lccn=44005618}}
• {{cite book|title=Men of Science in America: The Story of American Science Told Through the Lives and Achievements of Twenty Outstanding Men From Earliest Colonial Times to the Present Day|publisher=Simon & Schuster|year=1958|lccn=58059443|postscript=; revised edition}}
• {{cite book|title=1980 edition|date=1980 |publisher=Arno Press|isbn=0405125518}}
• {{cite book|title=Michelson and the Speed of Light|year=1960|edition=1st|publisher=Anchor Books|lccn=60013533}}
• {{cite book|title=Moseley and the Numbering of the Elements|edition=1st|publisher=Doubleday|year=1971|lccn=69015181}}
• {{cite book|title=Chemistry Creates a New World|year=1957|location=New York|publisher=Crowell|lccn=57006569}}{{cite journal|doi=10.1126/science.127.3288.35.b |date=1958 |volume=127 |issue=3288 |pages=35–36|last1=Harris |first1=Gordon M. |title=review of Chemistry Creates a New World by Bernard Jaffe|journal=Science }} {{spaces|1}}[https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.127.3288.36.a p. 36] (with an introduction by Glenn T. Seaborg; illustrations by Ava Morgan)
• {{cite book|title=revised edition|year=1962|location=New York|publisher=Pyramid Publications|lccn=62003537}}

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Category:1896 births

Category:1986 deaths

Category:20th-century American chemists

Category:20th-century American non-fiction writers

Category:American science writers

Category:Historians of chemistry

Category:City College of New York alumni

Category:Columbia University alumni

Category:Educators from New York City