Maine’s wildlife and its people owe a debt of gratitude to the 20th century scientists who studied environmental contamination by DDT, the toxic agricultural insecticide widely used starting in the 1950s.
One of those scientists was Frederic T. Martin, a former professor of chemistry at the University of Maine, born 120 years ago this year.
Martin (1904-1996) developed a method to measure low levels of DDT contaminants in eastern Maine and New Brunswick forests. He and former fellow UMaine biology professor George Woodwell published their findings 60 years ago in a July 1964 issue of the journal, Science.
“It was a very notable project that my father did when working with the biologist (Woodwell) who brought him the soil samples to analyze and determine the amount of residual DDT in the areas they studied,” recalled Martin’s son, Allen, from Orono. “That work eventually led to the banning of DDT.”
While Martin went on to investigate other avenues of scientific interest, Woodwell became a vocal advocate for outlawing DDT, eventually banned from agricultural use in the United States in 1972, and a prominent ecological researcher in areas such as climate change.
Writing for a Scientific American article in March 1967, Woodwell explained, “working with Frederic T. Martin of the University of Maine, I found that in a New Brunswick forest where spraying had been discontinued in 1958, the DDT content of the soil increased from half a pound per acre to 1.8 pounds per acre in the three years between 1958 and 1961.”
Their work helped establish that after aerial spraying, DDT residues persisted for years in tree canopies and eventually deposited in increasing concentration in the soil.
DDT nearly wiped out bald eagles in Maine by contaminating their prey, landing the birds on the endangered species list. They were removed from that list in 2007 after the population rebounded.
Martin became a respected chemistry instructor with a sense of humor during his 35 years (1934-1969) at the University of Maine. As noted in his Bangor Daily News obituary, he was “fond of doing spectacular demonstrations” in General Chemistry classes.
“I had him for freshman chemistry,” recalled Bonnie Fortini from the UMaine Class of 1965. “My most vivid memory was his demonstration about electrons where he rubbed a glass rod with a pelt that he explained was formerly ‘worn’ by — insert Fred Martin evil grin here — a cat. Of course, he got the gasping reaction he wanted after which he used the charged rod to demonstrate static electricity.”
“He liked to blow things up and make big bangs,” his son Allen Martin said. “He had a carbide cannon from which he used to shoot cork stoppers into the student seats in the lecture room.” That room was 316 in Aubert Hall, where the chemistry department is still located.
Allen said his father built a huge periodic table with lights for that classroom.
A general fix-it man, according to his son, Martin was handy with tools and adept at machining and glassblowing on campus. He also was a small boat sailor.
As a fixture on the walls of science classrooms across the world, commercial periodic tables have aided chemistry teachers in their discussion of the chemical elements. But in large lecture halls, most instructors of the era had little more than long wooden sticks or rulers to highlight specific elements on their table when discussing their properties.
Martin’s campus-made table, which was one of two he built, was far more interactive.
Construction of the first, around 1940, was described by Martin in a 1941 article published in the Journal of Chemical Education. Measuring five feet high by seven feet long, Martin pasted a large periodic table onto a plywood board, attaching more than 90 tiny light bulbs — one for each element listed on the table — connected by 100 wires hidden behind the chart that hung on the classroom wall.
“It must have had a whole series of switches to turn the lights on,” Allen said. In fact, a photograph in the journal article shows about 90 toggle switches on a hinged oak control box that the teacher could engage to illuminate an element or groups of elements under discussion during lectures.
Not content with this initial version, Martin years later built an even larger periodic table with colored electric button lights and installed it in room 316, the department’s large lecture hall that can accommodate more than 200 students. There it remained until the classroom was remodeled years later. But exactly when did Martin install it? Probably around the same time he was engaged in his DDT studies.
Elaine Swasey Criswell, a retired analytical chemist and former employee at Eastern Kodak, was a chemistry major at the University of Maine from 1964-1968. “I remember the huge periodic table and think it was there in 1964,” she said by email. “Since Lawrencium (element number 103, the last one known at the time) was discovered in 1961 and is on the table, it must have been done in the early ‘60s.”
Alice Bruce, the current Chair of the chemistry department, said the big table was fun to use during lectures. “Some of us advocated for updating the wiring and replacing the bulbs to keep it in 316 but the electricians didn’t want to deal with it,” she said.
Six decades after its construction, the old chart can be viewed in Aubert Hall on a third-floor corridor wall, although the electrics have been disconnected. While it may remain little more than a historical curiosity to students who pass by today, it’s a reminder of the ingenuity of its creator who played a role in addressing a major environmental concern of the 20th-century.
Built on the shoulders of dedicated former faculty such as Fred Martin, the UMaine chemistry department remains a world-class academic destination for chemistry education and research.
Nick Thomas teaches at Auburn University at Montgomery in Alabama and has written features, columns, and interviews for numerous publications. He spent three months during the summer of 2023 traveling throughout Maine. See www.getnickt.org.
