The first National Colloid Symposium—renamed the Colloid and Surface Science Symposium in 1976—took place at the University of Wisconsin (UW) in Madison, Wisconsin, in June 1923. Joseph Howard Mathews, who was chairman of the UW Chemistry Department at the time, received chuckles from an audience of about 175 people when he opened the event by pronouncing it the first annual. Mathews, who passed in 1970, reminisced about that day during his remarks at the 40th symposium, admitting he suspected that the attendees of that first meeting thought annual was a presumptuous prediction at the time. “Time has shown that my prophecy was nearly correct,” he added.
As this year marks the 100th Colloid and Surface Science Symposium, his forecast has continued to hold true. The first symposium took place more than a century ago, and the few years it wasn’t held were following the Great Depression and then again during World War II. This June 21–24, the event will be held at the University of Delaware, and somewhere between 400 and 600 attendees are expected, predicts Raymond Tu, professor at the City College of New York and past chair of the symposium committee.
“Everybody has a conference they love the most, and this is the one that I love the most. So whenever anybody asks me to do something for it, I’ll do it.”
The symposium, first sponsored by the National Research Council, originated before its American Chemical Society division. Despite initial opposition, according to Mathews, ACS established what was then called the Division of Colloid Chemistry in 1926, “just fifty years after the organization of the parent society in 1876,” Lloyd H. Reyerson, then a University of Minnesota professor, said in his historical presentation at the 40th symposium, which was published in the Journal of Colloid and Interface Science. Between the division-creation delay and the skipped-symposium years, this year marks the centennial of both the division and the symposium.
Creating a symposium, winning a Nobel prize, and boosting a region
The idea for the symposium sprouted during a conversation between Mathews and the UW graduate school dean, C. S. Slichter, who wanted to stimulate research at the university and thought such an event would be effective. Because Mathews was involved in colloid chemistry, Slichter suggested the topic. “Well, have you ever seen a hungry trout go for a grasshopper? With considerable restraint I replied that I thought the idea was certainly worth considering. And I considered it!” recalled Mathews in his 40th symposium remarks.
“And Mathews just milked this for everything he could,” says Abraham Lenhoff, professor at the University of Delaware and chair of the history session at this year’s symposium. “Colloid science had a high profile around this time, and a lot of it was in colloid chemistry.”
Not only did Mathews organize the event, but he also arranged for a guest in the field, Theodor Svedberg, to move from Sweden to Wisconsin for the semester and summer session before the symposium. During his stay, Svedberg worked on his idea for a superfast ultracentrifuge. And he later won the 1926 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his colloid and protein work using such a tool. The research program at UW thrived after his tenure and had a local ripple effect. For instance, some students went on to work at E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company in the area, “and that was why DuPont had the second analytical ultracentrifuge in the world, because they built it through the connection with Svedberg,” says Lenhoff. “So there were a lot of consequences for science that came from this conversation that Howard Mathews had with his dean.”
Over the next few years, other influential scientists presented at the symposium. One was Irving Langmuir, who won the 1932 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his surface chemistry research and had an ACS journal named after him in 1985. “Certainly the first five meetings stimulated and gave direction to the whole of colloid science in this country,” Reyerson said in his 40th symposium remarks. “Something new and big was happening. . . . Here was gathered a happy blending of industrial and academic science.”
This year’s Colloid and Surface Science Symposium will host a few special events; one will be at the Winterthur decorative art museum and estate (shown). Credit:
Rob Cardillo/Courtesy Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library
A field that touches almost everything and a place for community
The continuity of the symposium provided a place for the community to come together, says Ramanathan Nagarajan, senior research scientist at the US Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Soldier Center and former program chair for the division, who remembers submitting a paper to the first issue of Langmuir. “Also, because of the nature of the field . . . multidisciplinary participation has been the norm, and to the extent such cross-discipline interactions take place, it’s always contributing to the growth more than what you can expect from just one type of conversation, I would say.”
“It’s hard to imagine anybody on planet earth who doesn’t touch colloid interface science in their everyday world.”
Many modern goods have been greatly affected by the field’s emergence. “It’s hard to imagine anybody on planet earth who doesn’t touch colloid interface science in their everyday world. . . . They eat food that has colloids and interface science engineering in it. They use shampoos and soaps and cleaning products, right? . . . I don’t want to sound like we [colloid and surface scientists and engineers] do everything, but you know, in a way, if you could touch it, we probably have something to do with it,” says Norman Wagner, professor at the University of Delaware and a host of this year’s symposium.
Art conservation is another, more unique, field touched by colloid and surface science. This year’s symposium will have a special session at the Winterthur decorative arts museum and estate for an academic exchange about the overlap. There will also be a special session for discussions about the history and future directions of colloid and surface science. Presentations by the plenary speakers, Emanuela Del Gado and Margaret E. Schott, will be open to all attendees. From the ACS Division of the History of Chemistry, Schott will talk about Katharine Burr Blodgett, who performed research with Langmuir, as well as other influential women in the field.
The division has paid attention to the neglected in colloid and surface chemistry, such as its female scientists, says Nagarajan, and has become more representative over time. “We’re very inclusive, and maybe that’s more of an evolution than a change. I think it represents our community better that we’re truly inclusive and very diverse in our nature and diverse not just in all possible ways of diversity but also scientifically diverse. . . . Because our work is critical in such a broad range of science and technologies, and the results of that work touch most of humanity,” says Wagner, who notes that the meeting is well known for its international nature.
Despite the division’s growth, funding the symposium has become more challenging over the years, with a changing “mosaic of funders,” says Tu. “Every host has always figured out ways to make the conference work. I don’t want it to change the fundamental cultural aspects of the meeting, namely, to keep it inexpensive and to focus on the students. As funding sources change, that always becomes a little bit harder.”
Regardless, the event’s core has been steady. “But this is the flagship symposium for our community, and while its emphasis is partly molded by the local-arrangements committee and our many session chairs, it will reflect the excellent, state-of-the-art science to be presented by those attending,” Wagner says. “I think it’s actually quite remarkable how the general structure of the meeting has been sustained over a full century,” Lenhoff says.
At the end of that first symposium in 1923, attendees applauded for a long time after Mathews read aloud an invitation from Northwestern University for the event to be held there the following summer. And the dedication to keep the tradition alive carries on: “Everybody has a conference they love the most, and this is the one that I love the most. So whenever anybody asks me to do something for it, I’ll do it,” Tu says.
As Mathews said at the 40th anniversary, “We still have our Annual [Colloid and Surface Science] Symposium. Long may it live!”
2026 American Chemical Society
