What science based sets were sold at the department store headquarted in Washington D.C. and founded in 1887?
Porter Chemical Company Porter Chemical Company was an American toy manufacturer that developed and produced chemistry sets aimed as educational toys for aspiring junior scientists. The company's "Chemcraft" kits were first sold at major retail by Woodward & Lothrop, and appeared soon after at other retailers in the country. The company would later form a relationship with the Lionel Corporation, famed American maker of toy trains. The company also made the "Microcraft" line of microscope sets. The "Chemcraft" and "Microcraft" line competed with similar sets offered by A. C. Gilbert Company as part of a boom in science educational toys spurred by the Space Race between the US and USSR in the late 1950s.
Life Science Library The Life Science Library is a series of hardbound books published by Time Life between 1963 and 1967, popular in its prime. Each of the twenty-six volumes explore a major topic of the natural sciences. They are intended for, and written at a level appropriate to, an educated lay readership. In each volume, the text of each of eight chapters is followed by a "Picture Essay" lavishly illustrating the subject of the preceding chapter. They were available in a monthly subscription from "Life" magazine. Each volume takes complex scientific concepts and provides explanations that can be easily understood. Einstein's Theory of Relativity is explained in a cartoon about a spy drama involving a train traveling very close to the speed of light; probability is explained with poker hands and the atomic table with common household items. Although progress has overtaken much of them, their explanations of basic science and the history of discovery in an area is still excellent. The Consulting Editors of the series are microbiologist René Dubos, physicist Henry Margenau, and physicist and novelist C. P. Snow.