Preview
Creation Date
1930
Description
Sinclair Lewis, ca. 1930s
Sinclair Lewis's novel Arrowsmith, published in 1925, introduced a news kind of hero to the American public - the research scientist. Lewis wrote the book with the close consultation of Paul de Kruif, who had worked in Simon Flexner's laboratory at The Rockefeller Institute for two years beginning in 1920. For Arrowsmith, de Kruif provided Lewis with character sketches based on scientists he knew. Martin Arrowsmith's mentor Max Gottlieb was a a composite of Rockefeller's Jacques Loeb and F. G. Novy. Loeb's philosophy, and his habit of lecturing to his collegues, is evident in Gottlieb's paeans to physical chemistry. Gottlieb tells Arrowsmith: "Physical chemistry is power, it is exactness, it is life."
Keywords
Sinclair Lewis, Arrowsmith, Jacques Loeb, Paul de Kruif