ALUMINUM USE IN TOKENS AND MEDALS

David Schenkman writes:

Aluminum, that wonderful new metal! Eulogized on medals of the early 1890s as malleable, tasteless, sonorous, ductile, untarnishable, odorless, and one-quarter the weight of silver, it is no wonder that this “discovery” would capture the fancy of a nation. However, as we shall see, aluminum was hardly a newly discovered metal in the last decade of the nineteenth century. In this article we will review nineteenth and early twentieth century efforts to manufacture aluminum, trace the early history of a company whose growth is intertwined inseparably with the metal, and discuss the early usage of aluminum in numismatics.

The first significant attempt to isolate aluminum from alumina (aluminum oxide) was by an English electrochemist. Sir Humphrey Davy, in 1807. Convinced that alumina had a metallic base, he named the metal alumium, later revising the word to aluminum. This name has remained unchanged to the present time, although the English spelling is usually aluminium.

In Philadelphia, at Col. William Frishmuth’s chemical works, a 100 ounce aluminum pyramid was cast in 1884. After being placed on exhibit at the Fifth Avenue showroom of Tiffany’s in New York City, it was mounted on the top of the Washington Monument. This was undoubtedly the best known usage of aluminum prior to the Hall process. The pyramid, incidently, was removed for inspection fifty years later; it had remained in good condition, and after a thorough cleaning the inscriptions could still be read. No longer was the problem how to manufacture the metal — now what was needed was a method for producing it inexpensively. At $17 an ounce (in 1854) it was worth nearly its weight in gold. In 1886 the price of $8 a pound still made it prohibitive for use in industry. Since sodium, the key element in the process, was the most costly item (and nearly three pounds were needed to produce one pound of aluminum), most research during this period was directed towards finding less expensive methods for its extraction. It remained for a twenty-two year old inventor, working in a makeshift laboratory, to discover that which had eluded scientists for years.

Charles Martin Hall was truly one of the giants of American industrial history. Born 6 December 1863 at Thompson, Ohio, he was the son of a minister. When he was nine years of age his family moved to Oberlin, Ohio, where young Charles developed an absorbing interest in chemistry.

In 1880 Charles enrolled in Oberlin College, a liberal arts school. He took those chemistry courses which were offered, supplementing his interest by studying at home. Frank F. Jewett, his chemistry professor, recalled that even when in high school, Charles would visit the college laboratory to purchase equipment for his experiments. On one occasion he confided to the professor that he was experimenting with ways to produce aluminum from its ores.

To read the complete article on the Newman Portal, see:
https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/book/525533?page=10

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
VOCABULARY TERM: ALUMINUM (http://www.coinbooks.org/v20/esylum_v20n24a12.html)

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