Mary Elvira Weeks

Education and career In 1913 Weeks earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Ripon College where she worked with Albert F. Gilman. In 1914 she received a master's degree from the University of Wisconsin–Madison where she worked with Joseph Howard Mathews. She completed her Ph.D. at the University of Kansas in 1927, writing a thesis on the role of hydrogen ion concentration in the precipitation of calcium and magnesium. carrying a heavy teaching load and doing a limited amount of laboratory research. While in Kansas, she began researching and writing about the history of chemistry, and published Discovery of the Elements (1933).

Weeks retired from Wayne State in 1954 and continued to live in Detroit. Discovery of the Elements went through multiple editions. Both book and the earlier articles were liberally illustrated with pictures of chemists from the collection of Frank B. Dains, an older Kansas colleague of Weeks.

By 1968, Discovery of the Elements had appeared in seven editions, and had been updated to include the 94 elements that were discovered between 1524 and 1964. The book had been translated into multiple languages. Weeks, who spoke French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, Swedish, and Russian,

The seventh edition was identified as a "classic of chemistry". It was hailed as "a new edition of an old favorite", a "definitive and unique work" whose "value is well established and recognized by all". Revised by Weeks and Henry M. Leicester, it contained 2,688 references and 373 illustrations. ) Weeks's work was one of the inspirations for The Lost Elements: The Periodic Table's Shadow Side (2015).

A History of the American Chemical Society In 1946 or 1947, Weeks began collaborating with Charles A. Browne on a retrospective history of the American Chemical Society. Browne was responsible for the structure of the project and the first nine chapters. After Browne's death in 1947, Weeks brought the project to completion, and A History of the American Chemical Society—Seventy-five Eventful Years was published in 1952.

quote|The authors have assembled a scholarly work which records the accomplishments of the Society without gloating over them. They have even given attention to the difficulties of the Society and the disagreements within its membership. –Aaron J. Ihde