‘Science to the Glory of God’. The Popular Science
Magazine Ibe
´rica and its Coverage of Radioactivity,
1914–1936
Ne
´stor Herran
Published online: 29 August 2010
Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010
Abstract This paper provides a first approach to the history of Ibe
´rica, one of the most
important popular science magazines published in Spain before the Civil War. Founded in
1914 by members of the Society of Jesus based at the Ebro Observatory, Ibe
´rica reached a
weekly circulation of about 10,000 in the mid 1920s, and was instrumental in extending
science education in Jesuit education facilities and in developing a ‘‘reactionary mod-
ernist’’ culture that embraced Catholicism and modernisation. By focusing on its coverage
of radioactivity and the radium industry, the article aims to examine the magazine’s
popularising style and ideology, and to determine its role in the debates regarding the
cultural value of science in the first decades of twentieth century Spain.
1 Introduction
The history of education in Spain in the first third of twentieth century has been generally
interpreted in terms of the confrontation of two educational models: on the one hand, the
traditional model, supported by Catholic institutions and the basis of most public and
private educational practices; on the other, the reformist approach, including liberal and
radical initiatives such as the pedagogical innovations of Francisco Giner de los Rios’
Institucio
´n Libre de Ensen
˜anza [ILE, Free Institution of Learning] and Francesc Ferrer i
Gua
`rdia’s Escuela Moderna [Modern School]. Liberal reformers had also been considered
as key players in the spread of science education. By establishing a positive synergy with
Regeneracionismo—a modernising and nationalist intellectual movement aimed at
reforming Spain to enable the country to ‘‘catch up’’ culturally, technologically and
N. Herran (&)
Institut de Recherches Interdisciplinaires sur les Sciences et la Technologie (IRIST),
Universite
´de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France
e-mail:
N. Herran
Maison Interuniversitaire des Sciences de l’Homme Alsace (MISHA),
5 alle
´eduGe
´ne
´ral Rouvillois, 67000 Strasbourg, France
123
Sci & Educ (2012) 21:335–353
DOI 10.1007/s11191-010-9291-6
economically with other Western European nations
1
—members of the ILE fostered edu-
cational reforms and institutions for the support of scientific research. The most important
example was the Junta para Ampliacio
´n de Estudios e Investigaciones Cientı
´ficas [JAE—
Board for the Extension of Scientific Studies and Research], which from 1907 onwards
established a consistent programme of travel grants, funded museums, laboratories and
observatories, and contributed critically to the fostering of scientific research in Spain.
2
However, the role of conservative and Catholic institutions in science education move-
ments is less well known. According to Thomas F. Glick, conservative intellectuals—most
of them members of the Catholic Church or closely related to it—participated in an
ecumenical consensus or ‘‘civil discourse’’ among Spanish elites aimed at isolating science
from the ideological struggle and consequently promoting the modernisation of the country
(Glick 1988; Glick 1993). This apparent ‘‘de-ideologisation’’ of science was, however, at
odds with the tensions existing at the end of the century (Gonza
´lez-Silva and Herran 2009)
or the totalitarian control of science during the first decades of the Franco dictatorship after
the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939).
The aim of this paper is to analyse the involvement of conservative forces in the
extension of science education (and the ideological tensions related to this action) by
focusing in science popularisation activities of members of the Society of Jesus based at
the Observatorio del Ebro [Ebro Observatory]. In particular, attention will be focused on
the popular science magazine Ibe
´rica: El Progreso de las Ciencias y de sus Aplicaciones
[Iberica: The Progress of the Sciences and their Applications]. This magazine, published
without interruption from 1914 to 1936, enjoyed a considerable circulation and influence,
which can be compared with those of its commercially focused or socialist counterparts.
3
By focusing on a magazine, I aim to connect the Spanish case with recent studies into the
history of science popularisation. For example, Peter Bowler has recently studied popular
science magazines in Britain in the early twentieth century, such as Discovery
(1920–1942), Conquest (1919–1927) and Armchair Science (1929–1942), and has argued
the case for recognising the important influence of these endeavours in the advancement of
science education (Bowler 2009). In addition, he has found many instances of a persisting
tension between the use of science as a provider of moral values or as a driving force for
economic (and social) improvement. Science popularisation was also the battleground for
opposing groups of scientists, some promoting agnosticism, others trying to reconcile
science and spirituality. These conflicts also seem to have been present in other national
contexts. In Germany, for example, ideologically divergent views of science popularisation
were held by the ‘‘bourgeois’’ magazine Kosmos (Decker 1990) and the socialist Urania
(Hopwood 1996). In Italy, the increase in the number of popular science magazines during
1
In the contemporary literature of the history of science, this period has been labelled as ‘‘la Edad de Plata’’
[‘‘the silver age’’] of science in Spain (Sa
´nchez-Ron 1984), a term connecting developments in sciences to
the contemporary cultural renaissance in Spain branded as la Edad de Plata de la Cultura Espan
˜ola’’ [‘‘the
Silver Age of Culture in Spain’’].
2
On the JAE, see Roca-Rosell and Sa
´nchez-Ron (1988). The archive of the JAE, with graphs and statistics
about the 3,000 plus grants awarded between 1907 and 1939 and its recipients can be accessed on line at
//www.archivojae.edaddeplata.org/jae_app/jaemain.html.
3
Incomprehensibly overlooked by historians of Catalan and Spanish journalism, no comprehensive study of
Ibe
´rica exists to date. Garcı
´a-Doncel & Roca-Rosell’s history of the Ebro Observatory (Garcı
´a-Doncel and
Roca-Rosell 2007) provides the most up to date approach to the history of the magazine. Ibe
´rica also
features briefly in Alexandre Galı
´’s mammoth history of Catalan institutions in early twentieth century (Galı
´
1986), and has been subject of two commemorative papers (Bolufer 1995; Genesca
`2008). All this literature
is written in Spanish or Catalan.
336 N. Herran
123
Mussolini’s dictatorship (increasing from one title in 1924 to nine in 1944) reveals pop-
ularisation to be a key element of the fascist regime’s modernisation rhetoric (Battifoglia
2004). A similar exploitation can also be found in Japan, where initiatives such as Kagaku
gaho
¯(Science Illustrated, established in 1923) and Kodomo no kagaku (Children’s Sci-
ence, established in 1924) occupied an ‘‘important place in Japanese interwar mass con-
sumer culture’’ and contributed to the spread of technical education and to the construction
of Japan’s national identity (Mizuno 2009).
As a first approach to the Spanish case, this study examines the first period of the
magazine Ibe
´rica (1915–1936). My aim is to analyse the early history of this publication
and to define its popularising style by examining its coverage of the science and industry of
radioactivity. The choice of a discipline-bound approach is primarily justified by the desire
to cover the first period of the magazine fully without inspecting the whole series—the
complete records for the period 1915–1936 are estimated to consist of around 15,000
pages, with no digital version available. At the same time, the choice of radioactivity can
also be justified inasmuch as it provides a good testing field. Its interdisciplinary character
and its connections with ideologically-charged topics such as the question of the partici-
pation of women in research (especially conspicuous in radioactivity), controversies about
safety in laboratories and the industrial uses of science (in relation to the radium industry),
or scientific controversies—related to the use of radium in medicine or to the use of
radioactivity in assessing the age of the Earth—allow for wide-reaching conclusions
regarding the magazine’s aims in terms of popularisation and its underlying ideology.
Accordingly, this paper situates Ibe
´rica within a context of a growing interest in sci-
entific research, taking into consideration the political context, the changes in the Catalan
press and the inner transformations of the Society of Jesus’s educational structure in order
to accommodate science. I will argue specifically that Ibe
´rica was instrumental in pro-
viding Jesuit scientists with a showcase for reinforcing their discourse about the com-
patibility of science and faith. At the same time, I will show that Ibe
´rica contained an
underlying ideological agenda that was elitist and utilitarian, and which wished to play a
role in the political struggles regarding the cultural value of science in Spain before the
Civil War (1936–1939). These ideas are developed in four sections. In the first, I situate the
emergence of Ibe
´rica historically in the context of the debate within the Society of Jesus
regarding the Jesuits’ involvement in modern science, specially focusing on the estab-
lishment of its supporting institution, the Ebro Observatory. Secondly, I describe the
establishment of the magazine and situate it in the setting of popular Spanish science
magazines of the day. In the last part of the paper, I analyse Ibe
´rica’s representation of
radioactivity, and examine how the magazine’s popularisation style and ideology could be
inferred from this coverage. The conclusions reached in these latter sections provide the
basis for the final section, in which I analyse the role of Ibe
´rica as an instrument of cultural
hegemony, describe the closing of the magazine in the first year of the Spanish Civil War,
and consider the limitations of this study and the degree to which it challenges widespread
assumptions about the history of science in Spain in the first third of the twentieth century.
2 The Responses of Spanish Jesuits to Modernisation
Spain’s defeat in the Spanish–American War (1898), with the subsequent loss of its last
transoceanic colonies (Cuba and the Philippines), has been generally considered as a turning
point in Spain’s scientific policy. Technical and scientific backwardness was blamed for the
military defeat, and a number of reforms were gradually implemented. The ministry of
Science to the Glory of God 337
123
public education was established in 1900, implementing initiatives such as the reform of
secondary school curricula (1903) or free primary schooling (1910). However, economic
and structural constraints meant that these reforms had a limited effect, with illiteracy rates
only decreasing from 59% (47% men; 69% women) in 1900 to 44% (36% men; 52%
women) in 1920 (de Gabriel 1997). In 1907, the JAE was founded under directorship of
Santiago Ramo
´n y Cajal, who had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
the previous year. The JAE, backed by intellectuals and members of the Free Institution of
Learning, became the most important scientific institution in the country, establishing a
wide-reaching programme of travel grants (3,872 were awarded between 1907 and 1936)
and acting as the centre of an extensive network of scientific institutions.
4
In parallel to these developments, conservative elements associated with the Catholic
Church attempted to expand its pre-existing network of educational institutions and to
adapt it to the needs of a modern and industrialised society. These efforts were also aimed
at counteracting liberal and socialist discourses, which commonly associated religion with
superstition and backwardness. In reaction, some conservative intellectuals defended the
importance of appropriating science and keeping Catholicism in tune with the modern
world.
5
One of the most militant and influential Catholic institutions in this respect was the
Society of Jesus, which drew on a longstanding involvement in educational matters and in
science. After the Society’s restitution in Spain in early nineteenth century, the Jesuits had
established an extensive network of primary and secondary schools that provided Catholic-
grounded education for the offspring of the economic and political elites, often on a
boarding school basis.
6
The Society’s membership experienced a remarkable increase,
tripling its numbers in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. In early twentieth century,
the Society expanded its activities, establishing universities such as the Universidad de
Comillas [Comillas University, est. 1890] or the Universidad Comercial de Deusto [Deusto
Business University, est. 1916] and technical schools such as the Madrid’s Instituto
Cato
´lico de Artes e Industrias [Catholic Institute of Arts and Industry, est. 1908] or the
Centro Escolar y Mercantil de Valencia [Valencia Business School]. These institutions
provided the basis for numerous publications, such as the theological Razo
´nyFe
´[Faith
and Reason, est. 1901] and Sal Terrae (est. 1912), or the economics journals Estudios de
Deusto [Deusto Studies, est. 1904].
7
4
Among these institutions, the more prominent in natural sciences were the new Laboratorio de Investi-
gaciones Fı
´sicas [Laboratory of Physical Research] (established in 1910) and the Instituto de Material
Cientı
´fico [Institute of Scientific Material] (est. 1910), and the expanded Museo Nacional de Ciencias
Naturales [National Museum of Natural Sciences] (incorporated in 1913), Estacio
´n Biolo
´gica de Santander
[Marine Biological Station at Santander] and Jardı
´n Bota
´nico de Madrid [Madrid Botanical Garden]. JAE
also promoted studies in arts and humanities, with the establishment in 1910 of the Centro de Estudios
Histo
´ricos [Centre of Historical Studies] and the Residencia de Estudiantes [Students Residence], widely
known as the intellectual cradle for major intellectual figures such as the painter Salvador Dalı
´, the poet
Federico Garcı
´a Lorca, the film director Luis Bun
˜uel or the molecular biologist and Nobel Prize Severo
Ochoa.
5
For example Bartolome
´Feliu
´, professor of physics at the University of Madrid, addressed an assembly of
Jesuits gathered in Barcelona in 1904, encouraging its Catholic fellows to ‘‘respond to science with sci-
ence’’. Proceedings of the First Hispano-American Congress of Marian Congregations, pp. 203–213. Quoted
by Revuelta (2008), p. 597.
6
By the late nineteenth century, Jesuit schools were educating about 3,500 students a year. This is a small
number compared with students of other Catholic congregations like the Salesianos [Salesians] or Esco-
lapios [Pı
´arists], but important because of its specialisation in training political and professional classes.
7
On Spanish Jesuit publications in the twentieth century, see Sanz de Diego (1998). A more critical view,
which stresses the propaganda aspect of these publications, can be found in Oskam (1995).
338 N. Herran
123
Spanish Jesuits were credited with providing a sound education in humanities, but
(according to contemporary observers) their schools and colleges were ill-adapted to the
teaching of modern natural sciences. In particular, traditional Jesuit pedagogy based on the
Ratio Studiorum was at odds with the reforms in secondary education introduced by
Minister A
´lvaro de Figueroa y Torres, the Count of Romanones, whose aim was to promote
an education more closely related to technical and scientific matters.
8
These problems were
partially resolved by implementing two main strategies: the establishment of adequate
scientific facilities in schools (basically laboratories and natural science collections), and
the improvement of the scientific training of its teaching staff.
The Jesuits’ long tradition of involvement in science, which went back to the origin of
the Society in the sixteenth century, was without equal in the late nineteenth century. In the
early twentieth century, some members of the Society, mostly those based in the United
States, used seismology as a way of reinvigorating the Jesuits’ scientific networks,
establishing an extensive network of observatories, and leading to the creation of the
Seismological Service in 1911 and the Jesuit Seismological Association in 1925 (Gesch-
wind 1998). In Spain, a similar pattern emerged, with Jesuits founding research institutions
devoted to seismology. The first observatory, the Observatorio de la Cartuja [Cartuja
Observatory] was established in Granada in 1902, devoted to astronomical, meteorological
and seismic observations in a region particularly sensitive to earthquakes.
9
The second,
which was conceived as part of a complex of Jesuit scientific institutions in Catalonia, was
the Ebro Observatory.
Founded in 1905 near Tortosa (in southern Catalonia), the Ebro Observatory was part of
a complex including a Jesuit seminary (the ‘‘Colegio Ma
´ximo’’), a technical school, and
biology and chemistry laboratories. The aim in establishing such scientific facilities in
Tortosa was to raise the scientific profile of the Society of Jesus by focusing on topics
attracting popular appreciation and interest: chemistry, for its recognised utility and the
importance of the chemical industry in Catalonia; astronomy, for its long standing popu-
larity, also enhanced by the total eclipses of 1900 and 1905 in Spain;
10
meteorology, of
great practical interest in agrarian Spain and seismology, as it fitted in well with the Jesuits’
network of seismological stations, presented a neutral profile (being remote from contro-
versial topics like evolution), and could offer some clues to the practical problem of
predicting earthquakes. The choice of Tortosa as a site was scientifically justified by the
lack of light pollution in the region, but can also be politically explained by the presence in
the city of an Episcopal seat and the desire to isolate Jesuit seminarians from the uneasy
atmosphere of early twentieth century Barcelona.
11
Indeed, the city counted on the pres-
ence of a small local scientific community led by Jose
´Joaquı
´n Landerer (1841–1922), a
8
The modernising spirit of the Royal Decree in regulating secondary education (August 17th 1901) is
evident from its preface, in which Romanones states: ‘‘The spirit of other centuries was humanistic, and
education was based on the classics. In our times, the spirit is industrial, and education has to be technical’’.
9
The most recent earthquake had occurred near Granada in 1884, causing more than 800 fatalities. On the
history of the Cartuja Observatory, see Espinar et al. (2003).
10
On the public image of 1900 and 1905 eclipses in Spain, see Ruiz-Castell (2008a). On the history of
astronomy in early twentieth century Spain (including an updated approach to the creation of the Ebro
Observatory), see Ruiz-Castell (2008b). On the popularisation of astronomy in early twentieth century
Catalonia, see Nieto-Galan (2009).
11
In the 1900s, Barcelona was the stronghold for socialist and anarchist working class movements, while
Tortosa was a conservative city about 6 h by train from Barcelona. Bloody repression of radical movements
by the police and the army after the ‘Tragic Week’ of 1909—a working class revolt against forced con-
scription and social injustice—led to a calmer situation in the following decade.
Science to the Glory of God 339
123
wealthy amateur naturalist who had made important contributions in astronomy, palae-
ontology and meteorology. Landerer, a Catholic intellectual, was very close to the Jesuits,
and bequeathed his fortune to the observatory after his death in the late 1920s.
12
The call for the establishment of the Ebro Observatory was led by Ricard Cirera
(1864–1932), a Jesuit who had previously been based at the Manila Observatory and who
had conducted the first geomagnetic survey of the Philippines.
13
After returning to Europe,
Cirera became acquainted with members of the Catalan bourgeoisie, receiving important
donations from the heirs of the Catalan banker and philanthropist Pau Gil—who paid for
the observatory buildings—and other philanthropists, who purchased the instruments. The
Society of Jesus and Cirera also benefited from the wave of interest in astronomy inspired
by the total eclipses of the sun in 1900 and 1905, whose path of totality crossed the Iberian
Peninsula diagonally. Envisaging that the new observatory could make important mea-
surements in the second of such eclipses, construction was accelerated, and the buildings
were inaugurated—and blessed—in September 1904. One year later, in August 1905, the
facilities hosted an international delegation of seventy astronomers—many of them Jesu-
its—for the observation of the eclipse.
The event helped to integrate the Ebro Observatory into the network of observatories
devoted to meteorology, astronomy and geophysics, and increased the visibility of Cirera’s
scientific programme at home and abroad. Cirera participated in the 1905 Oxford Congress
of Solar Studies, where he outlined a research programme linking solar activity and ter-
restrial magnetism, and in the Conference of the Astronomical Society of Paris in 1907,
where he demonstrated the Observatory’s first observations linking solar activity and
magnetic storms. Cirera’s final speech at the first congress of the Asociacio
´n Espan
˜ola para
el Progreso de las Ciencias [Spanish Association for the Advancement of Science] in
Saragossa (October 22nd to 29th October, 1908) also reveals his rapid rise within the
closed ranks of Spanish science.
3 ‘Raising the Esteem for Our Studies’: Ibe
´rica Within the Panorama of Science
Popularisation in Spain
Cirera’s local prestige allowed him a certain degree of freedom in establishing the
observatory’s line of research, which he directed towards the study of solar activity,
establishing a long term research project to study the influence of solar activity on climate.
From January 1910 onwards, the results obtained were published in a monthly report,
which was sent to some 300 scientific institutions around the globe. The exchange links
with international journals resulting from this activity helped to build an important library
in the observatory. In 1911, aware of the possibilities offered by this wealth of information,
the Ebro Observatory Jesuits requested permission to higher-ranking officers to publish a
popular science magazine based on a selection of relevant pieces of scientific information
drawn from this material. After due consideration, the project was finally authorised.
Among the main supporting arguments put forward by the Jesuits to obtain this approval,
12
A correspondent of Flammarion, the Abbe
´Moigno
´, and the director of the Paris Observatory Pierre
Janssen, Landerer devoted a great deal of effort to science popularising, publishing in magazines such as the
French Les Mondes or the Spanish La Ilustracio
´n Espan
˜ola y Americana,orCro
´nica Cientifica. Interest-
ingly, his bequest was invested in the establishment of a new library, a museum devoted to astrophysics and
a photographical archive in the Ebro Observatory. On Landerer, see Gonzalo and Navarro (1995).
13
Biographies of Cirera and other members of the Society of Jesus are available at O’Neill and Domı
´nguez
(2001).
340 N. Herran
123
was the belief that the magazine would ‘‘increase the authority of the Observatory and the
glory of God, the Church and the Company’’, and the importance of the fact that no
magazine of this type was being published in Spanish and there was ‘‘an imminent danger
that such a magazine could be published by another, non-Catholic society, if we don’t do
so before’’.
14
At the same time, the magazine would help to publicise the scientific results
of the Observatory and other Jesuit institutions, adding visibility and raising support both
for the Observatory and the Society of Jesus. In his presentation of the magazine in
‘‘sample’’ issues published in October and November 1913 under the title Ecos Cientı
´
ficos
del Ebro [Scientific Echoes from the Ebro] Cirera is quite clear about these strategic
values:
It would be very convenient […] if, without interrupting the publication of our
Report, we could also address our message to the public by popularising the ideas
enclosed in it. On the one hand, this would raise the esteem for our studies and
increase the number of those with an enthusiasm for research. On the other, it would
contribute to the transformation of this admiration and sympathy into wide support.
15
In January 1914, the first issue of Ibe
´rica: el Progreso de de las Ciencias y de sus
Aplicaciones,Ibe
´rica was produced at the Ebro Observatory’s brand new printing facili-
ties, featuring on its cover an image of Pasteur, a scientist regularly mobilised by Catholic
apologists as a symbol of the compatibility of science and the Christian faith. The change
of title (from Ecos to Ibe
´rica) was conceivably due to the desire to broaden the ambitions
and scope of the magazine. A reference to its place of production was retained in the title,
but in a cryptic form (‘‘Iber’’ is the Latin name for the Ebro), and reference to ‘‘Iberia’’ was
justified by a Spanish nationalist agenda, appealing to its purpose of exciting Spanish
‘‘patriotic sentiment’’. On the other hand, its subtitle (The Progress of the Sciences and
their Applications) not only made it clear that the magazine would devote much attention
to technological developments, but might also be understood as a veiled reference to the
French science magazine Cosmos, Revue des sciences et de leurs applications, founded by
the Abbe
´Moigno in 1852 and still being published in France by the Catholic publishing
house ‘‘La Maison de la Bonne Presse’’.
Initially edited by Cirera, Ibe
´rica was conceived as a weekly popular science magazine,
16 pages long, heavily illustrated and providing good quality scientific information in a
popular form. It was structured into regular sections: ‘‘Cro
´nica cientı
´fica’’ [Science
Chronicle], aimed at presenting ‘‘scientific facts’’; ‘‘Boletı
´n Cientı
´fico’’ [Scientific Report],
including news about theoretical advances; articles based on particular scientific devel-
opments and a section devoted to book reviews. Articles were regularly written by the
Jesuits working at the Tortosa scientific facilities (around ten by 1916)
16
but also by Jesuits
working in other institutions in Spain, especially the Catholic Institute of Arts and
Industries in Madrid (which collaborated on engineering-related topics) or the Institute at
On
˜a (which collaborated on experimental physics). Later on, collaborations were also
14
Jose
´Barrachina (provincial superior) to Francisco Jose
´Wernz (general superior) in a letter dated
December 18th 1911. Jesuit archive. Quoted in Garcı
´a-Doncel and Roca-Rosell, pp. 69–70.
15
Cirera (1913). Presentation Ecos cientı
´
ficos del Ebro, Specimen A., p. 42. Also quoted in Galı
´(1986):
167–169.
16
Some of early Ibe
´rica collaborators were Pedro Trulla
´s (mathematical physics, astronomy and geology),
Eugenio Sanz and Eduardo Vitoria (chemistry and mineralogy), Jacobo Pujiula (biology and Natural his-
tory), Ricardo Cirera (the director of the Observatory), Jose
´Albin
˜ana (seismology and meteorology), Andre
´s
Linari (magnetism), Juan Garcı
´a Molla
´(meteorology, electricity), Joaquı
´n Pericas and Francisco Rubio
(astrophysics) and Jose
´Vallve
´.
Science to the Glory of God 341
123
provided by Jesuits working in foreign institutions such as the Ignatius College at Val-
kenbourg (Holland), Stonyhurst College (United Kingdom) or Georgetown (USA). In this
sense, the magazine can be considered more as a collective endeavour of the Society,
managed and produced at the Ebro Observatory facilities.
How did Ibe
´rica fit into the panorama of popular science publications in Spain?
Analysis of the library catalogues and contemporary statistical surveys of the day reveals
the existence of an incipient market for popular science in major Spanish cities at the
beginning of the twentieth century. In the early years of the century, anarchist intellectuals
led by Juan Montseny (alias Federico Urales) had successfully established in Barcelona La
Revista Blanca (1898–1905), a magazine devoted to ‘‘sociology, science and the arts’’ and
based on the model of the socialist French magazine La Revue Blanche. Until political
pressures terminated the project, the magazine had reached a circulation of 8,000 copies a
week, most of which were sold in Valencia, Catalonia and Andalusia, and was enjoyed and
appreciated both in intellectual circles and by workers (Seoane and Sa
´iz 1997: 155–156).
17
Other commercially-based magazines in Barcelona also seem to have enjoyed a wide
circulation, such as El Mundo Cientı
´
fico (established in 1903), which sold 10,000 copies
per issue in 1920.
18
In 1926, the first popular science magazine written in Catalan, Cie
`ncia
(1926–1933), was also launched in Barcelona (March 2002). In Madrid, magazines like
Alrededor del mundo (1899–1930)
19
or Por esos Mundos (1900–1926)
20
also seem to have
enjoyed high circulations. At this time (the 1910s and 1920s) many newspapers in Madrid
and Barcelona included sections devoted to science.
21
Thus, and in contrast to previous
historical accounts about the magazine, Ibe
´rica cannot be considered as being an isolated
venture, but rather as one forming a part of a highly dynamic scenario of expanding science
journalism similar to that to be found in other European countries and in America.
From the magazine’s beginning, the aim of Ibe
´rica’s publishers was to reach a broad
national audience of ‘‘learned people’’ interested in the advancement of science, and in
particular in developments in Spain. The publication’s educational aims were also evident
in the simple and unaffected style of language used, the didactical tone in the covering of
technical details and the extensive use of illustrations. Indeed, the magazine’s very sub-
heading, describing Ibe
´rica’s contents as a ‘‘living history of technical and practical
progress’’, and the efforts put into providing detailed tables of contents emphasised the
editor’s idea of building an Encyclopedia of scientific progress. Jesuit schools and other
religious learning institutions seem to have been among the magazine’s keenest
17
La Revista Blanca reappeared in 1923, and continued to be published until the onset of the Spanish Civil
War. In this second period, the magazine enjoyed a sustained growth, attaining a circulation of 40,000 by
1927.
18
Data on circulation of journals and newspapers comes from the three comprehensive surveys made by the
Spanish government, approximately in 1913, 1920 and 1927. References are: Ministerio de Instruccio
´n
Pu
´blica y Bellas Artes (1921) and Ministerio de Trabajo y previsio
´n(1930).
19
Alrededor del Mundo (1899–1930) was a weekly illustrated magazine founded by Manuel Alhama
Montes (alias the Wanderer). It featured stories on artistic topics and travel, also covering expeditions or
scientific and technical news.
20
Por esos mundos (1900–1926) was initially established by Jose
´del Perojo as a supplement of the
magazine Nuevo Mundo. It was an illustrated magazine devoted to travel and the popularisation of geog-
raphy, which also included articles on history, literature and science, most of them translated from foreign
sources.
21
In Barcelona, the most conspicuous example was La Vanguardia, which had a regular column written by
astronomer Jose
´Comas-Sola
´. In Madrid, El Sol and other newspapers featured science and technology
supplements. On Comas-Sola
`, see Roca-Rosell (2004). Cebrian (2002) has counted some 600 newspaper
articles published by Comas-Sola
`alone in La Vanguardia during the period 1901–1926.
342 N. Herran
123
subscribers, but these were also drawn from enlightened segments of the petite bour-
geoisie. A year’s subscription cost 10 pesetas in the normal paper issue (a luxury papier
couche
´issue was also offered, at a yearly cost of 20 pesetas). This price is within the same
range as the other magazines mentioned above, and demonstrates that the Jesuits were also
interested in reaching educated sectors of the working class.
22
As the Jesuit Rafael Martı
´y
La
´zaro had stated in the preceding decade, ‘‘the need for a popularising science with a
Catholic criteria among workers’’ was considered an important objective of the Society of
Jesus,
23
whose missions usually organised conferences on scientific issues with the aim of
spreading doctrine, projecting a favourable image of missioners as educated men, and
impressing working classes, who ‘‘come out of the church marvelling at so much
knowledge, even if they have understood nothing’’.
24
In some sense, Ibe
´rica can be
considered a new instrument of this kind of campaign.
Ibe
´rica’s early years were not easy, however. The establishment of the editorial
department and the press were expensive undertakings, and the loans acquired by the
Jesuits to finance them amounted to 114,000 pesetas (more than one million euros in
present-day currency). Indeed, the outbreak of the First World War led to an extraordinary
rise in the cost of paper (with prices increasing by about 80% in the period) because of the
disappearance of imports and the practical monopoly by the Spanish paper manufacturer
La Papelera Espan
˜ola.
25
The situation improved after 1917, but revenues from sales were
still not enough to sustain its publishers. The wealth of the Society of Jesus, however,
allowed Ibe
´rica to continue, even if pressure for including advertisements increased.
26
Cirera, the magazine’s editor since its inception, resigned however, in 1917, and Jose
´
Marı
´a Albin
˜ana become its new editor. This change, officially justified by the heavy work
load of the director of the Ebro Observatory, also reveals some of the inner tensions in the
Society of Jesus, where not everybody was convinced of the importance of increasing the
Jesuit’s scientific profile. According to Jesuit officials, Cirera’s ambition and the excessive
independence of the chemical laboratory called for a tighter control. The first changes
involved the decision to move the Jesuit seminar to Barcelona in 1914, and the suppression
of the short lived courses at Tortosa’s Philosophers School—including some scientific
content—in 1916. Important tensions developed in Tortosa, as Cirera had major dis-
agreements with his superior Juan Capell, leader of an inner current in the Society aimed at
the restoration of Ratio Studiorum and opposed to the teaching of modern science. As part
of this conflict, Cirera was accused of being a mediocre scientist and of having only a
superficial knowledge of scientific matters, and as compromising the prestige of the Jesuits
since he was regularly consulted by the king and members of high society on scientific
matters. As a result, Cirera’s scientific activity almost ceased in 1913. In 1919, Cirera was
22
The yearly income for a qualified industrial worker in the 1920s was about 2,000 pesetas (1,200 for an
unqualified worker). Subscription to the magazine would have then amounted to between 0.5 and 1% of a
working class family’s income.
23
The quote is part of Martı
´’s speech, reproduced on pages 214–276 of the proceedings of the Primer
Congreso Hispano-Americano de las Congregaciones Marianas. Quoted by Revuelta (2008), p. 597.
24
The aims of the conferences are described in the mission reports published in 1900 as Cartas Edificantes
de la Asistencia en Espan
˜a. Quoted in Revuelta (2008), p. 210.
25
In order to counteract this crisis, the Spanish government initiated a programme of loans to publishing
houses and newspapers, with some informal political compensations. The result of this was that the crisis
affected especially socialist and republican newspapers, which were not eligible for this kind of support.
26
Financial troubles were also relieved by means of Spanish Government aid, with the Observatory
receiving grants of approximately 20,000 pesetas per year.
Science to the Glory of God 343
123
removed as director of the Observatory, and in 1921 he was dispatched as head of a
mission in Bombay (Garcı
´a-Doncel and Roca-Rosell 2007, pp. 73–80).
His replacement was Luis Rode
´s (1881–1939), who had gained a degree in physics
(1906–1910) while teaching this subject in the Barcelona Jesuit seminary, and had com-
pleted his training in astronomy, first under Cirera, and then in the period 1916–1919 with
periods spent in American institutions such as Harvard University and the observatories at
Yerkes and Mount Wilson. Rode
´s continued the ongoing research lines at the Ebro
Observatory and initiated new research programmes to study the influence of the sun on the
Earth’s magnetic activity and the origin of earthquakes, and to evaluate the effect of the
Earth’s position on the number and extent of sun spots. According to his theories, the
presence of life (and rational life) on Earth was an important astronomical factor, also
revealing the privileged position of our planet in the Universe. The effects claimed by
Rode
´s were never considered seriously by the scientific community, and were later
explained by increases in visibility, but he succeeded in having data obtained at the Ebro
Observatory published frequently in international scientific journals. More importantly, he
also implemented wide-reaching popularisation initiatives, including books (El Firma-
mento, 1927) and a series of talks in Barcelona (the most famous being his performance
‘‘Harmonias del Firmamento’’ [Harmonies of the Firmament] together with a choral group
at the Palau de la Mu
´sica in Barcelona) and also in South America, where his efforts to
defend the harmony of science and religion were blessed by the Society’s officials and by
the Pope, interested in ‘‘counteracting the negative influence of anti-Catholics’’ (Garcı
´a-
Doncel and Roca-Rosell 2007, p. 104).
In 1917, a number of other important changes also affected the Tortosa facilities. The
Colegio Maximo and the chemical and biological laboratories were moved to Barcelona,
where they became the basis of the Instituto Quı
´mico de Sarria
`[Sarria
`Chemical Institute].
The resistance of theologically-oriented Jesuits to natural and mathematical sciences seems
to have delayed the movement of Ibe
´rica offices to Barcelona until 1925 (Garcı
´a-Doncel
and Roca-Rosell 2007, p. 73), but a political situation more favourable to conservative
forces can also be invoked: two years before, in 1923, a military coup lead by Miguel
Primo de Rivera and supported by the king had ended the parliamentary government. By
the time Ibe
´rica was installed in its new offices, it had a new editor, Andre
´s F. Linari
(Albin
˜ana had died in 1922), and occupied a new building near the city hall and the
telephone company headquarters. The new premises housed a brand new printing press, a
luxurious library and a conference room, and were designed to become a cultural centre in
the city. At its new location Ibe
´rica’s circulation rose to 10,000 (in 1927), occupying 27th
position in terms of sales among 373 periodicals published in Barcelona (or 16th if
newspapers are excluded).
27
4 Science Under Control: Ibe
´rica’s Coverage of Radioactivity
The transformation of Ibe
´rica into a widely-read magazine may have had some effect on
Spanish (and more particularly, Catalan) public perceptions of science and of the rela-
tionship between science and religion. With regard to this question, it seems of interest to
27
Ibid. In the 1927 survey we find four technology and scientific-based publications with a circulation of
more than 2,000 per issue: a radio magazine called El radiooyente (33,000); a journal devoted to the
advancement of chemical industry, Quı
´
mica e Industria (2800); and two electricity magazines, Electricidad
(4000) and Electricidad y meca
´nica (2000).
344 N. Herran
123
attempt to analyse what Ibe
´rica’s popularisation style was, and what kind of images and
ideologies were conveyed. In the following sections, I will provide a first attempt at
addressing this issue by analysing Ibe
´rica’s content in terms of its coverage of
radioactivity.
By the time Ibe
´rica was launched, radioactivity was not a new topic, but still attracted
wide public interest. Research carried out by the Curies, Rutherford and other researchers
into radioactivity had revealed new elements and established genealogic relationships,
challenging the previous views on the nature of chemical elements, providing a new
perspective of the structure of matter and endowing science with new tools to establish the
age of the Earth. At the same time, its medical and industrial applications gave rise to the
radioactive element industry, with radium becoming by the 1910 s the most coveted and
expensive substance in the world.
28
The period under study (1914–1936) was marked by
the expansion of the radium industry and by an important increase in public interest about
radioactivity, with a parallel growth of scientific journalism at the time. As a result,
radioactivity enjoyed a sustained presence in the public sphere: the subject was increas-
ingly popular from 1900 onwards, and after the disruption caused by World War 1,
references to radium seem to equal or even exceed pre-war levels.
29
In the interwar period there were important scientific developments in the field of
radioactivity, such as the establishment of the isotope concept, the development of radio-
active dating or the emergence of nuclear physics. On the other hand, safety issues began to
be acknowledged after the case of women working in radium dial painting factories who
were affected by cancer (in the late 1920s), the death of workers trained at the Marie Curie
laboratory and active in the French radium industry due to exposure to radiation (1920s–
1930s), or the Byers case (early 1930s), a scandal arising from the death of millionaire Eben
M. Byers in 1932 after regularly drinking the radioactive potion ‘‘Radithor’’.
30
How was radioactivity and these topics depicted in Ibe
´rica? An inspection of the
magazine’s contents between 1914 and 1936 reveals that there were 72 articles and 13
book reviews directly related to radioactivity or radium. Additionally, another 124 articles
were published about nuclear physics and isotopes in this same period, with these areas
becoming increasingly prominent in the public sphere in the late 1920s and 1930s to the
detriment of ‘‘classical’’ radioactivity (see Figs. 1,2), as might be expected given the
scientific dynamics of the field (Badash 1979). By comparing these numbers with the total
number of articles published (estimated at about 300 per year), we find that radioactivity
comprised about 1% of the total contents.
The topics covered in the radioactivity-related articles are highly varied (see Table 1).
Consistent with the didactical tone of the magazine, more than a quarter of them are
devoted to a generic popularisation of radioactivity, i.e. to a description of the radioactive
phenomena, explanations about its cause and a broad assessment of its applications. The
28
According to Lawrence Badash, by the early 1920s radioactivity was victim of its ‘‘suicidal success’’.
Having characterised all the radioactive elements, radioactivity’s main principles, it devoted itself exclu-
sively to refining existing techniques, and produced no significant innovation. However, his analysis does
not take into account the industrial side of radioactivity, nor its medical applications (Badash 1979).
29
Some evidence of this comes from the inspection of the number of articles related to radium in the British
newspaper The Times, which reveal about 60 references to this word per year in the period 1900–1914 and
about 90 references per year after the war (1920–1934) (Source: Times Digital Archive).
30
For a general perspective on radioactive risks in the early twentieth century, see Boudia and Fellinger
(2007). On the Byers’ case, see Macklis (1993). The most complete analysis of the ‘‘radium girls’’ case is
Clark (1997).
Science to the Glory of God 345
123
articles are evenly distributed over time, and take for granted Rutherford’s disintegration
hypothesis (the origin of radioactivity in the disintegration of atomic nuclei).
31
The anti-
Rutherfordian views of Jose
´Mun
˜oz del Castillo, director of the Madrid Institute of
Radioactivity and dean of the discipline in Spain, appear not to have had much impact on
the magazine’s approach.
32
This observation also reveals the relative openness of Ibe
´rica
to international developments, a result of the flow of magazines, scientific journals and
books reaching the Ebro Observatory library, and its scientific exchanges with other
institutions. In relation to this flow, the examination of book reviews on radioactivity topics
suggests that French publications may well have been the main source of information in the
first decade of the magazine. Of eight radioactivity-related books reviewed in the period,
Fig. 1 The first issue of Ibe
´rica,
January 1914. On the top,a
picture of the Observatorio del
Ebro facilities
31
See for example: Puig, Ignacio (1923). La desintegracio
´n de los elementos. Ibe
´rica, 506, pp. I–IV.
32
Mun
˜oz del Castillo founded the first Spanish radioactivity laboratory in Madrid in 1904. He attempted to
institutionalise the discipline by extolling the therapeutic virtues of radioactive waters and the promises of
radioactive materials as fertilizers. Munoz’s high academic status procured him the support of Spanish
authorities, which provided his laboratory (which became a research institute in 1911) with material and
human resources, but he remained at the periphery of the international community of radioactivity
researchers. Among the factors explaining the incapacity of the Madrid Institute of Radioactivity to connect
with international networks of radioactive research (and, to some extent, its decline in the 1920s) were the
limitation of its communication strategy to the national scale, the dependence on foreign instruments and
radioactive elements, and last but not least, the inexistence of a Spanish radium industry that might have
established synergies with the university laboratory and provided employment opportunities for its students.
On the Madrid Radioactivity Laboratory, see Herran (2008a) and (2008b).
346 N. Herran
123
seven were written in French and one in Spanish, with almost half of the French being
books that were translations of works originally written in German or English.
33
Refer-
ences to research conducted in the English-speaking world only increased from the late
1920s.
Faithful to its title, Ibe
´rica also devoted considerable attention to developments in the
science and industry of radioactivity in Spain. Short news items were regularly published
about courses and conferences, and institutional or technical developments in Spain. This
is the case, for example, of the radiotherapy courses offered by the university of Granada in
1921, the creation of the Spanish Society of Electrotherapy and Radiology, the estab-
lishment of a society for securing radium for Catalan physicians in Barcelona, the pro-
duction of electrometers in the Madrid Institute of Radioactivity, or the coverage of Marie
Curie in Madrid in April 1931.
34
Table 1 Main topics of articles
published on Ibe
´rica about
radioactivity, 1914–1936
Topic Articles Percent
Generic popularisation of radioactivity 20 28
Medical uses (including dangers of radium) 15 21
Production, prospecting, prices of radioactive
substances
11 15
Use of radioactivity in biology and agriculture 7 10
Instruments, standards and experiments 7 10
Institutions, obituary, social events 6 8
Industrial uses 3 4
Geochronology 3 4
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
1914-18 1919-23 1924-28 1929-33 1934-36
Years
Articles, notes and reviews
Nuclear physics
Isotopes
Radioactivity
Fig. 2 Articles, notes and reviews published in Ibe
´rica, according to research field, 1914–1936
33
Interestingly, France was the main recipient of JAE’s fellows until the late 1920s, when Germany took
the lead.
34
Cro
´nica Cientı
´fica: Reconocimiento y determinacio
´n de los minerales de radio y torio. Ibe
´rica, 261
(January 18th 1919), p. 35; Cro
´nica Cientı
´fica: Nueva Sociedad Espan
˜ola de electrologı
´a y radiologı
´a.
Ibe
´rica, 90 (September 18th 1915), p. 178; Cro
´nica Cientı
´fica: Sociedad del Radio. Ibe
´rica, 32 (August 8th
1914), p. 82; Cro
´nica hispanoamericana: Cursillo de Radioterapia en la Universidad de Granada. Ibe
´rica,
399 (October 20th 1921), pp. 242–243; Cro
´nica hispanoamericana: Conferencias de Mme. Curie en Madrid.
Ibe
´rica, 884 (June 27th 1931), p. 2.
Science to the Glory of God 347
123
In any case, the magazine editors adapted the information received to suit their own
aims and ideology. This is especially noticeable in the case of evolution, since the Jesuits
were the leading opponents to this theory within the Catholic Church (Artigas et al. 2006).
For example, in April 1931 Ibe
´rica published a translation of Millikan’s speech at the
December congress of the AAAS in 1930, which had been published in Science 4 month
previously.
35
The translated version omitted the introduction, in which Millikan declared
evolution to be one of the most important scientific advances of the last century. In this
same vein, the use of radioactivity in dating the age of Earth was also regarded with
suspicion. For example, in 1916, Arthur Holmes’s attribution of 1,500 million years to the
age of the Earth age based on the rate of decay of radium was qualified as being
‘‘hypothetical’’ considering the ‘‘current state of science’’. In 1925 a more balanced
analysis of the issue can be seen in an article by Ignacio Puig, deputy director of the Ebro
Observatory. However, he still assumed that this knowledge was ‘‘imperfect’’ and
announced that we would have to wait a long time before knowing the real age of the
Earth.
36
In contrast, the role of women in radioactivity research did not seem to be greatly
affected by ideology. Even if some prominent female radioactivity researchers like Mar-
ietta Blau were assumed to be men in short news items,
37
Marie Curie’s pioneering role
was generally acknowledged and celebrated. In this respect, the awarding of Nobel Prizes
seemed then, as now, to provide an aura of legitimacy to authors and theories. An example
of this reaction is Ibe
´rica’s coverage of the concept of the isotope, with the term only being
used in the magazine after the award of the 1922 Nobel Prize for Chemistry to Francis
William Aston for the invention of the mass spectrograph. Developments prior to this
event, such as the formulation of the isotope hypothesis by Soddy in 1913 or Aston’s early
experiments in 1919–1920, were ignored by the magazine. This observation agrees with
Jeff Hughes’s recent assessment of Aston’s work, which argues for the importance of the
Nobel prize in the acceptance of the isotopic theory of matter (Hughes 2009).
The medical use of radium was a major topic in radioactivity-related articles in Ibe
´rica.
In this area, the journal provided a generally positive view of radium-based treatments,
reporting international and local initiatives for establishing Radium institutes and other
medical institutions. However, the magazine also gave voice to surgeons who criticised
radium therapy, such as Ricardo Lozano, who in the early 1920s argued against the use of
emanation therapy on the grounds of medical efficiency:
When a sudden frenzy to acquire radium for therapy affected Spain I felt sceptical
and even revolted by the idea of employing an element that is scientifically unknown,
and whose dosage it is impossible to control. It is not enough to read cases of healing
by radium in newspapers; before employing it, we need to have a basic scientific
understanding of its composition and how it affects the body, chemically and
physically, and we must consider the damage we might cause to our patients after an
imprudent application: ‘premium non nocere’. This is the reason why I refused to
35
Millikan, Robert A. (1931). Estado presente de la teorı
´a y de la experimentacio
´n en lo concerniente a
desintegracio
´nysı
´ntesis ato
´mica. Ibe
´rica 876 (April 2nd 1931), p. 285–287, and 877 (April 9th 931),
p. 302–304. The original version of the paper is by Millikan (1931).
36
Cro
´nica Cientı
´fica: La Edad de la Tierra valuada por los feno
´menos radioactivos. Ibe
´rica, 143 (23
September 1916), p. 197. Puig, Ignacio (1925). Determinacio
´n de la edad de los terrenos por la radioac-
tividad. Ibe
´rica, 608, p. 395–397.
37
Cro
´nica general: Los rayos H y la desintegracio
´n de los elementos. Ibe
´rica, 780 (1 June 1929), p. 343.
348 N. Herran
123
acquire radium and even to recommend it to my patients, with the exception of two
or three I considered incurable by other means.
38
Ibe
´rica also published two articles commenting on the possible dangers of radium, but
only in relation to the possible danger to physicians or researchers dealing with x-rays and
radium on a daily basis, and heroically portrayed as ‘‘victims of radiology’’.
39
Consumer
concerns, such as those expressed in relation to the Byers case, or work safety concerns,
such as those involved in the case of the radium dial painters, were not addressed by the
magazine.
After general popularisation and medicine, the third area where topics related to
radioactivity were given closest attention in the pages of Ibe
´rica was in describing the state
of the radium industry, especially focusing on prospecting and on the pricing of this
element. The discovery of new deposits in Colorado (1915) and the Belgian Congo (1923)
and their effects on prices, and the movements of the radium market, were routinely
commented on in the news section of the journal,
40
which provided a wealth of information
about prices. In contrast to critiques of the elitist character of radium treatments encoun-
tered in the anarchist and socialist press, they generally show a condescending view of the
radium market. The high price of radium is justified because of its extraction costs, and the
market would ultimately solve the supply problem by encouraging the discovery of new
deposits. Obsession with the wealth provided by radioactivity is also reflected in the
magazine’s constant interest in hypothetical transmutations (mostly of mercury into gold,
etc.), even if most of the news items generally ended up refuting this possibility.
41
In general Ibe
´rica adopted an optimistic view when dealing with any new application of
radioactivity. A popular topic was the application of radioactivity in agriculture, an area
where Spanish researchers were especially involved.
42
Several long reports on the question
were published, in which the activities of the Madrid Institute of Radioactivity were
described as being ‘‘unsurpassed by any foreign centre’’.
43
In fact, the research conducted
by foreign scientists in this field were also enthusiastically commented on. This is the case,
for example, of Nodon and Cuvier’s report to the Paris Academy of Science about the
content of radioactivity in wine (found to be of the same order as mineral water, and
inversely proportional to its alcohol content), which was supposed to be a good basis for
38
Lozano, Ricardo (1922). Impresio
´n de un viaje cientı
´fico. La radioterapia y la cirugı
´a en algunos casos de
tuberculosis – el radio. Ibe
´rica, 414, pp. 90–93.
39
Cro
´nica general: Los peligros del radio. Ibe
´rica 379 (21 May 1921), pp. 326–327; Vı
´ctimas de la
radiologı
´a. Ibe
´rica 974 (29 April 1933), pp. 269–272.
40
Cro
´nica Cientı
´fica: La produccio
´n de Radio en Colorado. Ibe
´rica, 91 (September 25th 1915), p. 196;
Cro
´nica general: Obtencio
´n de 100 mg. de bromuro de radio. Ibe
´rica, 327 (May 8th 1920), p. 294–295;
Cro
´nica general: Disminucio
´n del precio del radio. Ibe
´rica, 468 (March 10th 1923), p. 151; Cro
´nica general.
La industria del radio. Ibe
´rica, 631 (June 5th 1926), pp. 292–295; Cro
´nica general: La cuestio
´n del ra
´dium.
Ibe
´rica, 794 (September 21st 1929), p. 166; Existencia total y precios del radium. Ibe
´rica, 958 (7 January
1933), p. 5.
41
Cro
´nica general: El oro y los iso
´topos de mercurio. Ibe
´rica, 576 (May 2nd 1925), p. 280; Cro
´nica
general: Sobre la pretendida transmutacio
´n del mercurio en oro. Ibe
´rica, 602 (November 14th 1925),
pp. 292–295; Cro
´nica general: Ma
´s resultados negativos en experimentos de transmutacio
´n de elementos.
Ibe
´rica, 798 (October 19th 1929), pp. 231–232.
42
Ibe
´rica devoted several long articles to the topic, such as Gorria, Hermenegildo (1914). Radicultura.
Ibe
´rica, 32, 94–6, or Navarro, Benjamin (1917). De Radioactividad II. Ibe
´rica, 187, pp. 75–78.
43
Navarro, Benjamı
´n (1917). De radioactividad. Ibe
´rica, 178, pp. 345–350; 187, pp. 75–78, and 180,
pp. 109–111.
Science to the Glory of God 349
123
including ‘‘radioactivity content’’ as a standard wine feature.
44
Luminescent radioactive
paintings and other inventions, such as Robert John Strutt’s ‘‘radium clocks’’, were also
received positively by Ibe
´rica.
45
The Jesuits’ selective appropriation of science and the emphasis on technology and
science as a solution to economic and social problems—from agriculture to industry—is
characteristic of the conservative appropriation of science during the interwar period, and
bears a close resemblance to the ‘‘reactionary modernist’’ discourses that were typical of
the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany (Herf 1984) and were also present in other
European countries. It is not surprising therefore that the Jesuits’ activities were obvious
targets of anarchist and socialist forces during the Civil War, and that, in its aftermath, they
were called upon by Franco’s fascist regime to establish the basis of its new scientific and
technological policy (Malet 2008).
5 Conclusion
The fall of Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship and the advent of the Second Spanish Republic
in 1931 led to a sudden alteration of the Spanish political map and the beginning of a
troubled period for the Society of Jesus. The new Constitution included an article dis-
solving religious orders and limiting their educational activities. An official decree issued
in January 1932 dissolved the Society of Jesus and ended government subsidies to its
institutions.
46
The Jesuits reacted by transferring the ownership of its possessions to other
religious institutions, and in some cases, by mobilising support from private individuals. In
this way the Jesuits kept the Ebro Observatory in operation by transferring its property to
the bishop of Tortosa. Indeed, the new autonomous, left-leaning government of Catalonia
agreed to protect the Observatory because of its scientific interest, allowing the Jesuits to
live together, and even supporting its activities economically. As a result, Ibe
´rica’s
activities were practically unaffected. However, the troubled atmosphere of the period is
reflected in the incrising appearance of politically inspired articles, such as transcripts of
the speeches of the Jesuit Jose
´Agustı
´nPe
´rez del Pulgar, head of the Catholic Institute of
Arts and Industry, who argued for a professional education:
We do not need intelligence, capacity and energy […] We do not need men able to
organise and lead, but men able to be managed and to participate spontaneously and
productively as part of an organisation […] no soul is strong enough to control an
organism whose cells all have their own independent life.
47
Or Ibe
´rica’s analysis of the effects of the Bolshevik revolution on Russian science:
44
Cro
´nica general: Radioactividad de los vinos. Ibe
´rica, 757 (December 22nd 1928), pp. 375.
45
News about the applications of radioactivity may also offer some insight into the audience’s interests,
exemplified by at least one letter from a reader requesting information about shops selling luminescent
paintings in Barcelona. Ibe
´rica, Supplement (May 1927), p. 20. In general, the magazine did not publish the
correspondence it received, but in the 1920s it included a monthly supplement were readers could ask
questions about scientific and technical topics.
46
The confiscation process was opposed in several news items in Ibe
´rica, 917 (February 27th 1932),
pp. 130–132, and Ibe
´rica 923 (April 9th 1932), p. 226.
47
Aznar, Severino (1932). El padre Jose
´Pe
´rez del Pulgar y la ensen
˜anza profesional. Ibe
´rica, 923, 227.
Perez del Pulgar was the director of the Jesuit Instituto Cato
´lico de Artes e Industrias.
350 N. Herran
123
The worst disaster caused by Bolshevism is the wave of ignorance engulfing this
unfortunate country, which has over the last 13 years been deprived of any kind of
serious instruction, suffering the destruction of its laboratories, the dispossession of
its universities, and the misery of its wise men.
48
The Society of Jesus’ conservative profile earned it the animosity of the radical left.
With the outbreak of the Civil War in July 1936, Ibe
´rica’s offices were taken over by
anarchist activists, the publication was suspended and most of its collaborators went into
exile. In Tortosa, the Ebro Observatory facilities were spared after Rode
´s successfully
mediated with members of the anarchist militias, arguing that the Jesuits and the working
class movement shared a common respect for science. These negotiations helped to keep
the Observatory almost intact, but compromised its position after the war. In May 1939,
one month after the end of the war, Ignacio Roman
˜a
´was appointed director of the Ebro
Observatory, replacing Rode
´s, who died of a stroke one month later. Ibe
´rica reappeared in
January 1945 under the editorship of the Jesuit Ignacio Puig, who had been exiled in
Argentina during the war. However, the magazine’s new era was not as successful as the
first one, and Ibe
´rica never recovered the influence and the sales it had enjoyed during the
interwar period, and continued to languish until its final closure in 2004.
On presenting the first issue of Ibe
´rica, its first editor Ricardo Cirera claimed that the
magazine ‘‘will never deny scientific truth out of fear that it opposes revealed truth’’. As
shown in this paper, this pronouncement should be taken as more rhetorical than binding.
The examination of Ibe
´rica’s coverage of radioactivity reveals that, besides its instru-
mental value in improving the quality of scientific training at Jesuit schools, Ibe
´rica was
also instrumental in shaping a vision of science in harmony with religion, and most
importantly, in providing a space for designing a particular agenda for modernisation that
maintained the cultural hegemony of the Church and at the same time enshrined science as
a source of order and economic growth. Relying on selectively appropriated reports and
self-tailored news of local developments, Ibe
´rica formed a cordon sanitaire for potentially
disturbing findings—in the case of radioactivity these included geochronology and the
elitist character of radium therapy—and provided a top–down model of popularisation that
reinforced established hierarchies and experts (Hilgartner 1990).
Is this characterisation of Ibe
´rica compatible with Glick’s image of consensual ‘‘civil
discourse’’, in which ideologically confronted players shared a common appreciation for
science, or does it provide room for considering science as yet another ideological bat-
tlefield in the first decades of the twentieth century? In my opinion, both perspectives only
reveal a part of the picture. More than a contribution to a shared scientific appreciation or
an exploitation of science as a tool of cultural hegemony, we may consider Ibe
´rica as part
of an exercise in reconciling Catholic traditions with modern science and technology, and
also to a certain extent with modern culture and economic institutions. This process, which
closely resembles developments in other European countries, implied both a selective
appropriation of the products of modern technology and science and the ability to con-
tribute to the country’s modernisation. These characteristics would also prevail after the
Spanish Civil War, when a conservative and Catholic-centred discourse became hege-
monic, and would provide the basis for science policy during the Franco regime.
Acknowledgments This article has been produced under the project ‘‘Bases para una Historia de la Fı
´sica
en Espan
˜a en el Siglo XX’’ (HAR2008-05039), funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation,
and with the support of a Marie Curie contract (IEF) in the 7th Framework Programme of the European
48
¡Si los sabios se tomasen diez an
˜os de vacaciones!. Ibe
´rica, 862 (January 24th 1931), pp. 63–64.
Science to the Glory of God 351
123
Commission. I thank Xavier Roque
´, Agustı
´Nieto-Galan and three anonymous referees for their helpful
comments.
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