Waldemar Kaempffert

Who was Waldemar Kaempffert?

Waldemar Kaempffert was a US science writer and museum director.

Waldemar Kaempffert was born and raised in New York City. He received his B.S. from the City College of New York in 1897. Thereafter he was employed by Scientific American, first as a translator, then as managing editor. He also wrote articles about science for other publications during this time, including three articles for Harper's, beginning in 1908. In 1916, he started working as the editor of Popular Science Monthly. On January 7, 1911, he married Carolyn Lydia Yeaton, who died in 1933.

In 1922, he began writing essays about science for the New York Times, where he was named Editor of Science and Engineering in 1927. He would continue to hold this position till 1953. During the 1920s, he also wrote free-lance magazine articles. in a June 1924 essay for Forum magazine, "The Social Destiny of Radio," he addressed a non-technical audience, discussing where radio had been and how it was changing American life.

In 1928, following a nationwide search for a director, the Museum of Science and Industry Chicago asked Kaempffert to become its first director. He enthusiastically devoted himself to the work of laying out the history of the sciences and of the industries. He encouraged his curators and exhibit designers to base their exhibits on careful research in order to be as objectively true as possible. This devotion to objectivity, however, led to disputes with the board of directors, especially around the appointment of George Ranney, who was also a director of International Harvester. This appointment created an apparent conflict of interest in the museum, as International Harvester was contributing to an exhibit on farm tractors that claimed that an IH predecessor company was responsible for the invention of the tractor. Research by both Kaempffert and his staff showed otherwise, but he could not antagonize donors to the museum nor his board of directors.