Robert Hare (chemist)

Lore & Background

Robert Hare was born in Philadelphia on January 17, 1781. In 1801, he independently invented the oxy-hydrogen blowpipe, which was later improved and popularized by Edward Daniel Clarke of Oxford. He married Harriett Clark and had six children. In 1802, he was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society. He served as a professor at the University of Pennsylvania between 1810 and 1812 and again between 1818 and 1847. By the 1820s, he had developed the galvanic deflagrator, a type of voltaic battery with large plates used for rapid and powerful combustion. He was elected an Associate Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1824.

Reader's Guide

Robert Hare's significance lies in his dual legacy as a pioneering American chemist and a controversial convert to Spiritualism. His inventions, the oxy-hydrogen blowpipe and the galvanic deflagrator, advanced chemical experimentation in the early 19th century. However, his later work in Spiritualism, beginning with experiments in 1853 and culminating in books such as Experimental Investigation of the Spirit Manifestations (1855), drew sharp criticism from the scientific community. Critics like psychical researcher Frank Podmore noted that Hare failed to guard against possible fraud by mediums, while science writer Terence Hines argued that Hare, like other scientists, ventured outside his expertise and was ill-equipped to detect magicians' tricks. Historian Timothy Kneeland suggested that Hare's Spiritualist writings were consistent with his long-held political and social beliefs. Hare's publications, including over 150 articles in the American Journal of Science, reflect a prolific career that spanned chemistry, policy, and fiction.

Did You Know?

• Robert Hare independently invented the oxy-hydrogen blowpipe in 1801, not in collaboration with Edward Daniel Clarke.

Chemistry and the University Years

Robert Hare was born in Philadelphia on January 17, 1781, and would spend his professional life in that same city. Shortly after 1800, he partnered with Edward Daniel Clarke of Oxford to develop and experiment with the oxy-hydrogen blowpipe, an early collaboration that placed him at the frontier of chemical research. His standing in the scientific community grew quickly: by 1802 he had been elected to the American Philosophical Society, and in 1824 he received fellowship in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His most sustained institutional role was as a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, a position he held during two separate stints—1810 to 1812 and then 1818 to 1847—spanning nearly four decades of teaching and research. By the 1820s, Hare had engineered what he called the "galvanic deflagrator," a voltaic battery built around large plates designed to produce rapid, powerful combustion. This device represented a practical leap in applying electrical principles to chemical processes, and it cemented his reputation as an inventive American chemist working at the intersection of electricity and matter.

The Seance and the Spring Balance

In 1853, Hare—then in his early seventies—began conducting structured experiments with mediums, and by the following year he had fully embraced Spiritualism. His 1855 book, Experimental Investigation of the Spirit Manifestations, made him a household name in the United States among Spiritualist circles, even as the broader scientific community dismissed his findings. Two of his most discussed setups involved a board paired with a spring balance, and a table at which a medium sat whose movement was meant to drive a pointer across a wheel of letters. The psychical researcher Frank Podmore later pointed out that a medium could easily shift the table using knees or other body parts, yet Hare apparently never considered that possibility. Podmore noted that while Hare's apparatus was cleverly designed, it failed to account for the need for continuous, close observation of the human participant, and there was no indication Hare took steps to prevent trickery. The episode remains a cautionary case study in how even accomplished scientists can be blind to fraud outside their discipline.

A Fatal Step Outside the Laboratory

Science writer Terence Hines addressed the question of why respected researchers like Hare were convinced by what they witnessed at seances. His answer was not that they were incompetent, gullible, or dupes. Rather, they had simply stepped outside their area of expertise, which Hines called an often fatal mistake. Hare and his peers assumed that being a skilled observer in a laboratory automatically qualified one to observe a seance, but Hines argued this was simply not the case. Mediums, he noted, relied on the same sleight-of-hand and distraction techniques that professional magicians had honed over years of dedicated practice. The training of a chemist, physicist, or psychologist, he insisted, conferred no ability to detect such tricks; spotting them required a magician's eye. Historian Timothy Kneeland offered a different lens, suggesting that Hare's turn to Spiritualism was not a sudden aberration but was consistent with the political and social convictions he had maintained throughout his career. His 1855 book, Kneeland argued, promoted the restoration of social order grounded in republican principles, tying the spiritual to the civic.

The Prolific Pen and a Philadelphia Life

Beyond his laboratory and lecture hall, Hare was a remarkably prolific writer. He contributed roughly one hundred and fifty articles to the American Journal of Science, and his bookshelf included works spanning policy, chemistry, and literature. Among his nonfiction titles were A Brief View of the Policy and Resources of the United States (1810), Chemical Apparatus and Manipulations (1836), a compendium of chemical instruction for the medical department at Penn (1840), and a memoir on the explosiveness of niter (1850). His two Spiritualism volumes of 1855 rounded out his serious nonfiction output. Yet Hare also ventured into fiction, publishing two novels: Standish the Puritan: A Tale of the American Revolution (1850) and Overing: or, The Heir of Wycherly, A Historical Romance (1852). On the personal front, he married Harriett Clark and raised six children. He lived and died in Philadelphia, passing on May 15, 1858, in the city where he had been born seventy-seven years earlier. His life's work, from blowpipe to seance board, remained a product of that single urban community.

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