On April 6 fans and pros gathered in West Philadelphia across from the apartment building where Isaac Asimov lived during WWII and kicked off a campaign to have the site commemorated with a Pennsylvania state historical marker. Philadelphia Weekly is behind the application:
We were thrilled to be joined by a bunch of speculative-fiction luminaries—including authors Michael Swanwick, Gregory Frost, Victoria McManus, Tom Purdom and Gardner Dozois, several of whom knew Isaac personally. We all signed the petition of support that will be part of our application to the Historical Marker Commission later this year. And our favorite geektastic photographer, PW contributor Kyle Cassidy — whose idea all this was in the first place — shot a photo to commemorate the moment the Asimov historical movement officially began.
The petition is posted at Change.org. The appeal for signatures reads —
Though he’s often thought of as a New Yorker, he spent three very important landmark years in Philadelphia. From 1942 to 1945, while living and working here during WWII as a chemist at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, Isaac Asimov wrote half a dozen of the key stories that comprise his two most influential cultural masterpieces: the Foundation series, which introduced the idea of “psychohistory,” the mathematical modeling of the future; and the Robot series, which introduced the famous Three Laws of Robotics governing how artificial intelligences should behave.
It was at an apartment on the corner of 50th and Spruce streets in West Philadelphia where Asimov wrote these historic stories.
Since 1946, the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission has authorized more than 2,000 cast aluminum markers recognizing names and sites connected with “Native Americans and settlers, government and politics, athletes, entertainers, artists, struggles for freedom and equality, factories and businesses.”
Pennsylvania added 17 in 2012, honoring both high culture — the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia — and pop culture — the “Birthplace of Commercial Ice Cream Production.” (Since a 2009 budget cut it’s been the nominators’ responsibility to cover the cost of the marker.)
None of Pennsylvania’s existing historical markers celebrate anything associated with science fiction – not even the alleged world’s first science fiction convention held in the Rothmans’ Philadelphia living room in 1936. Markers have been approved for a few writers, native-borns like Rachel Carson (Silent Spring), and others who grew up in the state like James Michener and Margaret Mead. Based on such a track record, it would be surprising if the Commission approved a marker for somebody who lived in the state only three years.
[Thanks to David Klaus for the story.]
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They should put the marker on the moon!
Nice idea … but the three years he spent working for Uncle Sam in Philadelphia seems little compared to his youth spent in New York, or his mature years in Boston. Perhaps they should name a hero sandwich and a plate of beans after the Good Doctor?
Strictly speaking, Asimov worked not for the Philadelphia Navy Yard but for the Naval Aircraft Factory, which was renamed the Naval Air Material Center in 1943 during Asimov’s tenure.
Mind you, the Naval Aircraft Factory was right next to the Navy Yard, and for all practical purposes, Asimov can be said to have “worked at the Navy Yard.”
However, as a young man a habit of precision was instilled in me, partly through reading stacks of Asimov’s books, so I wished to point out the distinction. Fortunately I am surrounded by kindly people who tolerate nitpickers.
@Bill – And we should honor it anytime a fan picks up a good habit from a science fiction writer…
Agreed!
When twenty people are at my house , and they all read science fiction, it is a party, not a convention. I’m surprised there are fan historians still trying to fob this off.
A historical marker for the six or seven SF writers who all worked at the Naval yard is better than focusing on one writer who never really called Philadelphia home.
RWS has it right, I think. Maybe we should put up a marker for that too? ; )
We might word it, “Robert A. Heinlein, dean of science fiction, tested plexi-glass canopies on this spot. We don’t exactly know what the other two were doing — somebody please write a comprehensive biography.”
Actually, Asimov’s copious autobiographies probably describe what he was doing in considerable detail. That leaves, whatsis name … was it L. Sprague de Camp who was the remaining member of the three. That detail, too, is doubtless in Asimov’s works, but I want to finish this comment in 3… 2… 1 second.
Taral writes:
We might word it, “Robert A. Heinlein, dean of science fiction, tested plexi-glass canopies on this spot. We don’t exactly know what the other two were doing — somebody please write a comprehensive biography.”
Actually, Asimov’s copious autobiographies probably describe what he was doing in considerable detail. That leaves, whatsis name … was it L. Sprague de Camp who was the remaining member of the three.
I actually know (some of) the answers to these questions; Have Slide Lecture, Will Travel. De Camp’s autobiography is Time and Chance, and some of Heinlein’s wartime correspondence is available from the Heinlein Archives.
At the request of a Navy pal, Heinlein recruited Asimov and de Camp for the laboratories. He came close to recruiting John W. Campbell, Jr., but failed.
De Camp, a Navy lieutenant trained as an aeronautical engineer, supervised engineers constructing an altitude chamber and a “cold room.” Later he served in the Controlled Elements Equipment and Test Unit of the Structures Group. At least one of the engineers he supervised tested a number of pressure suits borrowed from a secret Army project– but de Camp himself was not directly involved in such tests, and neither were Heinlein or Asimov, as far as I can tell.
Asimov was a civilian chemist in the Chemicals and Coatings Unit of the Materials Group. We may presume he worked on chemicals and coatings. In his biography he mentions adhesives, and also dyes meant to assist rescuers by coloring the water around a downed pilot.
Heinlein worked in general administration at first, then, as Taral suggests, became an engineer in the Plastics and Adhesives Unit of the Materials Group. Testing the properties of plexiglass (or “methyl methacrylate,” if you please) aircraft canopies is one of the few things we know he did. He was reluctant to talk about his Navy work, even years later, because that was Just Not Done.
(For an example of a researcher attempting to pierce the veil of Heinlein’s silence about naval technology, see Edward Wysocki’s The Great Heinlein Mystery.)
Some of the buildings they worked in still exist, and Paul Malmont, author of The Astounding, the Amazing, and the Unknown— a novel about Heinlein’s imaginary WWII two-fisted pulp adventures– has a collection of photographs including some of the Naval Air Material Center buildings and Philadelphia Navy Yard buildings.
By the way, if anyone is thinking of further plaque-placing, when they came to Philadelphia in the spring of 1942, Robert and Leslyn Heinlein lived at 99 South Landsdowne Avenue in Landsdowne, Pennsylvania. In October of 1942, they moved to 311 South Hicks Street in Philadelphia, and remained there until the end of the war.
I may have said more than anyone is interested in hearing. I really need to write this stuff down one of these days.
I recall that George O. Smith and Theodore Sturgeon were there as well.