Abraham Cressy Morrison in the Agora: Bringing Chemistry to the Public

This paper looks at the visual and textual images of chemists in A. Cressy Morrison's Man in a Chemical World. It argues that Morrison was attempting to create a public image of an American chemist different from European chemists. Morrison and the illustrator Leon S derston, working on behalf of the American Chemical Society, attempted to associate chemists and chemical industry with American prosperity by linking the 'man in the white lab coat' to religious and secular themes. This approach is analyzed using the concept of metonyms. Metonyms are a way of encapsulating complex ideas and associations within simple, often iconic, images in text and illustrations.