Mary Elvira Weeks

Her book Discovery of the Elements is considered the "first connected narrative of how scientists unraveled the mysteries of matter" and a "classic of chemistry".

[2] Weeks also published A History of the American Chemical Society (1952) with Charles Albert Browne, completing it after his death in 1947.

[2][4] 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.

[1][2] In 1944, Weeks left Kansas to become a research librarian at the Kresge-Hooker Science Library of Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan.

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.

Weeks, who spoke French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, Swedish, and Russian,[2] focused on translation for much of her time at Wayne State University.

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.

–Aaron J. Ihde[14]In 1967, Weeks won the Dexter Award for Outstanding Achievement in the History of Chemistry from the American Chemical Society.