Last week, representatives from the American Chemical Society, Bader Philanthropies, the Canadian Society for Chemistry (CSC), and MilliporeSigma gathered in Kingston, Ontario for an International Historic Chemical Landmark dedication ceremony recognizing chemist Alfred R. Bader for his transforming contributions to the profession. The event was led by the Queen’s University international student chapter of the ACS (Q-ACS), which coordinated the effort pursuing the recognition. Event attendees included Nobel laureate Barry Sharpless and those in the fields of chemistry and art who had been able to advance their work through one of Bader’s many funded awards or held a Bader Chair position.
“What I am most excited for and proud of is that Dr. Bader’s importance to chemistry will be highlighted and promoted through this landmark,” says Daniel Reddy, a PhD candidate in the Department of Chemistry at Queen’s University and Q-ACS member. “I think a lot of folks around Queen’s and beyond associate the name ‘Bader’ with art (and rightfully so),” says Reddy, noting that Bader’s contributions to the chemistry enterprise might be underrecognized today. “I hope that this landmark will bring a fresh perspective to his legacy and impact.” Reddy recalls reading Bader’s autobiography Adventures of a Chemist Collector early in his training, “so when I arrived at Queen’s and made the connections between Queen’s, Dr. Bader, Sigma-Aldrich, MilliporeSigma, and chemistry at large, I was motivated to stay the course in working to make sure that this landmark happened.”
“All of the National Historic Chemical Landmark designations this year are particularly memorable because they fall during ACS’s 150th anniversary,” says Rigoberto Hernandez, ACS president. “This is a time for looking back, and the work done to advance chemistry and the world that is remembered through our landmarks program add to our reflections. It also inspires us to think about what can and what will be done by chemists and our society over the next 150 years.”
Transforming access to chemicals
Two official historic landmark plaques will mark the occasion in two different locations: at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, where Bader received his chemistry training, and in Milwaukee, where Aldrich Chemical operated and Bader Philanthropies is currently located.
“I think my father was a pretty unique person in modern chemical history,” says Daniel J. Bader, CEO of Bader Philanthropies. “He started Aldrich Chemical, which really transformed the industry. A lot of us like to think of it as being sort of the Amazon of chemistry.”
“It’s the business that allowed many chemical investigators to do what they do, which is to create and invent.”
Before Alfred Bader cofounded his chemical distribution business in 1951, chemists had to purchase chemicals needed for their work in large quantities, often in kilograms or gallon drums. And there was no central place for researchers to shop for what they needed, which meant sourcing from suppliers from around the world. Aldrich Chemical enabled chemists from all over to get chemicals of different kinds, in small quantities, in one place. This shift in sourcing let chemists ramp up their research. “It was very much a gamechanger in its time—and still is,” Daniel Bader says. “It’s the business that allowed many chemical investigators to do what they do, which is to create and invent.”
Daniel Bader points out that from the 1960s through the 1980s, the idea of calling in an order for a certain amount of something before a certain time of day and having that order be fulfilled and put on a truck the same day felt revolutionary. But Aldrich Chemical achieved this quick order turnaround, and “it involved all kinds of techniques, including inventory techniques, computer technology, and things that were not as common as they are today. Then, of course, it involved chemistry. Having their own labs at Aldrich Chemical, they were able to themselves develop new compounds that could be offered through the company.”
The transformative nature of relationships
Before arriving at Queen’s, Alfred Bader had been a child refugee twice—once upon leaving Austria and again after being deported from England to Canada. “That experience transformed his life in so many different ways,” Daniel Bader says. His early experiences gave him a broad worldview that helped him to grow his company—visiting university, government, and commercial laboratories all around the world, asking chemists directly what they needed and what they’d like to be offered. He could then share those ideas with other chemists by making them available to everybody through Aldrich Chemical.
“I think one of the things that’s kind of amazing about chemistry is it’s a global enterprise,” says Alex Brown, president of CSC. “These innovations and discoveries aren’t just happening in Western Europe and the Americas. They’re happening across the globe, because there are talented people everywhere in the world.” Brown encourages thinking about the global connections between people in different countries who bring together their expertise to revolutionize or completely change the way we work.
Alfred Bader’s childhood also inspired a deep dedication to philanthropy. Because of the kindness he received early in life, he, along with his wife Isabel, thought it paramount to carry forward help for people in difficult situations. “He wanted to and did really believe in people,” Daniel Bader says. That relationship-oriented mindset has made his philanthropy impactful.
Brown agrees that beyond the lessons of grit and perseverance, the Bader family’s willingness to give back is truly a legacy we can all apply to our own careers. “Of course, not all of us can do it at the scale that the Bader family has done . . . but this idea that we can contribute financially to important projects,” Brown says—for example, the Chemical Institute of Canada’s Chemistry Education Fund and ACS’s Project SEED, which are focused on opportunities for younger students. “But if we don’t have finances, the one thing that chemists and people in the academic environment have in general is time and expertise. So, providing time either as mentors to young people or as judges at science fairs or to your chemical society . . . I think we can have a large impact on our members, but also the public,” he says.
The initiative for the landmark is another example of involving, “a lot of people across a lot of different levels and organizations,” Reddy says, noting that the last landmark designated in Canada was dedicated 20 years ago for Neil Bartlett and the discovery of reactive noble gases at the University of British Columbia. When asked if there were any parallels from Alfred Bader’s life that felt pertinent to the student chapter’s journey in accomplishing this recognition, “I think things like determination, drive, tenacity, and [betting] against the odds are commonalities,” Reddy says. “Personally, I am inspired by the humble beginnings of Aldrich, where the company began in a garage and became a global chemical giant. Perhaps analogously, though I am no Dr. Bader, I started our ACS International Student Chapter in a conference room, and we are now hosting two-time Nobel laureate Professor Sharpless, the ACS president, the CSC president, the CEO-president of Bader Philanthropies, and many more, all in one room. . . . That is exciting.”
