Figure 1.-- This picture shows five high school students during the 1930s displaying their individual science projects undertaken as part of their high school science clubs. The idea was to encourage boys and girls to come up with some scientific project in chemistry, physics, biology, or electronics from which they would learn. At the time this was an after school extra-curicular activity, nit a program promoted in the school's actual scienvce classes. Wecare not sure just what the various gadgets displayed are. Perhaps our scientifically literate readers can help identify what they are. The boy on the extreme left seems to have an anvil in front of him for some purpose, and the boy on the extreme right seems to have chemical tubes attached to a board of some sort, or is this an electronic device?

This picture shows five high school students during the 1930s displaying their individual science projects undertaken as part of their high school science clubs. The idea was to encourage boys and girls to come up with some scientific project in chemistry, physics, biology, or electronics from which they would learn. At the time this was an after school extra-curicular activity, nit a program promoted in the school's actual science classes. We are not sure just what the various gadgets displayed are. Perhaps our scientifically literate readers can help identify what they are. The boy on the extreme left seems to have an anvil in front of him for some purpose, and the boy on the extreme right seems to have chemical tubes attached to a board of some sort, or is this an electronic device?

Science Clubs

Many American highschools by the 1930s had science clubs. These clubs began to develop in the late-19th century as part of school extra-curricular asctivities. This was almost unique at the time to America. European schools were much mor academically focused with very limited sctivities outside the classroom.

Competitions

We are not entirely sure just what the activities of school science clubs included. We believe that projects were a major focus, although we are unsure to what extent there were competitions among the members. At the time there were not yet anything like sciednce gauirs.

Age

These teenagers children seem to be about 16-17 years old. One of the boys may be slightly younger.

Gender

Participation in science clubs and voluntary science fairs were primarily boys. We get a inkling of this in the image here. The single girl wears a white blouse and skirt and looks very outnumbered by the boys. We are not entirely sure why this was. Socialization was surely a factor. But boys also tend to be inherently more interested in mechanics, electronics, and chemistry. As to biology there seems to be a more equal gender destribution. And in more recent years, more girls are pursuiong science, but there continues to be a gender disparity.

Projects

This picture shows five students at an unidentified highschool. The photograph is undated, but looks like the 1930s. The students are displaying their individual science projects undertaken as part of their school science clubs. The idea was to encourage boys and girls to come up with some scientific project in chemistry, physics, biology, or electronics from which they would learn. At the time this was an after school extra-curicular activity, not a program promoted in the school's actual science classes. We are not sure just what the various gadgets displayed are. Perhaps our scientifically literate readers can help identify what they are. The boy on the extreme left seems to have an anvil in front of him for some purpose, and the boy on the extreme right seems to have chemical tubes attached to a board of some sort, or is this an electronic device?

High School Clothing

The teenage boys here are wearing typical 1930s high school clothes. Notice the thin suspenders of the boy on the left (probably clip-on braces) and the bow tie with pointed ends. Two of the boys wear these old-fashioned-style bow ties. It is interesting that the boys wear shirts with ties to school. This was still fairly common for older boys in the 1930s. Two of them have on pullover dark sweaters with shirts and ties underneath. Notice that in one case the points of the shirt collar are worn on top of the sweater even while the tie is underneath. The boy on the right wears a jacket with what looks a tee-shirt underneath, although tee shirts only came into fashion much later than the 1930s, so this boy seems to be something of a ground-breaker in style, although he probably doesn't care much about clothes.

Reader Commentsd

A reader writes, "This group would today probably be classified as "nerds" by their fellow students. But it is worth remembering that American excellence in technology often originated in the talents of people who developed their interest in science very early in life. One of my roommates in boarding school was a math prodigy, worked on rockets as a boy of 15 years in the school physics lab, and later ended up as a professor of physics at Princeton."

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Created: 8:24 PM 1/20/2011
Last updated: 8:24 PM 1/20/2011