George Sarton

Vocation

Lifestyle

Notable

Family

Belgian-American science historian known for his idealist view of science, who wrote three volumes of the "Introduction to the History of Science," called "an inspired dictionary." He authored 15 books, over 300 articles, and 79 critical biographies. Sarton’s father was a director-engineer of the Belgian railroads, and his mother died a few months after his birth. Sarton was an only child. He attended the University of Ghent, where he began in the Department of Philosophy. He was interested in the natural sciences, and as early as 1907, obtained a gold medal in chemistry from the four Belgian universities and a "silver laurel branch" from the city of Ghent for a scientific memoir. He obtained his doctoral degree in mathematics in 1911, his thesis having been devoted to the history and philosophy of science, entitled, "Les Principes de la Meanique de Newton." In 1912, he began the publication of his journal, "Isis." The same year he also began the accumulation of notes for his "Introduction to the History of Science." World War I interrupted his work and his house was invaded by the German Army and served as headquarters for German officers. Sarton and his family left at once for England, followed by a move to the United States. He arrived in New York in April 1915, and was given a lecture position at the summer school of the University of Illinois. He later worked at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. In 1918, he was appointed research associate by the Carnegie Institution of Washington. Sarton moved to Cambridge, Mass., to have access to the Harvard University Library for his work and lectured at Harvard, Radcliff and Brown University during the ‘30s. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1924. The "Introduction to the History of Science" was published in 1927. He then spent from October 1931 to May 1932 in the Near East while he mastered the Arabic language in order to read the original great works of the Arabic scholars to prepare for his second volume covering Arabic science and philosophy. Sarton was Hitchcock Professor at the University of California in 1932 and Elihu Root Lecturer in Washington, D.C., in 1935. In 1936, he published "The History of Mathematics." In 1937, a revised edition of his book, "The History of Science and the New Humanism" was published. Sarton founded the International Academy of the History of Science, and in 1934 was acting president of the 3rd International Congress in Portugal. He held honorary degrees from Brown and from Harvard and he received the Prix Binous from the Academie des Sciences of Paris in 1915 and again in 1935. He married Eleanor Mabel Elwes of London in 1911, and they had one surviving child, a daughter, Eleanor May, in 1912. Sarton died 3/22/1956 at Cambridge, MA. Link to Wikipedia biography