November 4, 2025 • 9 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, in the hills of Vermont, a boy named Wilson Bentley fell in love with snow. Each flake, he noticed, was fleeting and perfect, gone before he could study it. Determined to keep their beauty from melting away, he began experimenting with photography in his family’s farmhouse. On January 15, 1885, at twenty years old, Bentley succeeded in taking the first photograph of a snowflake. Using a microscope and a bellows camera, he revealed a world of icy symmetry no one had ever seen. He spent the rest of his life photographing snow crystals, building a collection of more than five thousand historic photos that reshaped early photography and inspired generations of scientists and artists alike. Dr. Jerry Bergman tells the story.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is our American stories, and we tell all kinds
of stories here on this show. As you know, Jerry
Bergman has taught science for forty five years at university
in subjects like biology, genetics, chemistry, biochemistry, anthropology, geology, and microbiology.
He has nine degrees in the field of science, including
(00:33):
seven graduate and postgraduate degrees. Doctor Bergmann's here to tell
us the story of a teenage boy who became interested
in snow. In January fifteenth, eighteen eighty five, at twenty
years of age, he became the first person in the
world to photograph a snowflake. Here's doctor Bergman with the story.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Well, his background is he's from Vermont and a lot
of snow there, and he became interested in science, and
his parents were very supportive. They even though they really
couldn't afford it. They bought him things like a microscope
and a camera so he could take pictures. And among
his many interests was the weather. He actually charted the
(01:15):
weather and tried to correlate the weather with other events.
But he became especially interested in snowflakes, and he could
with a small magnifying glass he could see they looked different,
and so he tried to figure out what, why are
they different, what's going on here? And of course the
problem is a microscope requires lights, and light produces heat,
(01:35):
and the heat melted the snowflakes. So he had to
come up with a way of getting it cold enough
to get the snowflakes and examine them work quickly so
he could get pictures without the snowflakes melting, and he
was finally able to do that. In fact, he was
the first person ever to get a photograph of a snowflake,
(01:55):
and so that was quite an invention for a young boy. School.
By the way, he didn't go to public schools and
his parents his mother was a teacher, so she was
very supportive of his work. So he was somewhat independent,
I guess his whole life. His full name was Wilson
or Willie. They called him his childhood name, Bentley, and
(02:17):
his name often is called snowflake Bentley because he did
so much work in this area and he wanted to
explore the world of science firsthand, and he saw God
not only in the scriptures, but he saw God in
the natural world. And as a result of his studying
the natural world, he just realized he could learn a
(02:38):
great deal about God through studying God's creation, and once
he noticed they were different, he wanted to photograph them
because he felt that the glory of God can be
revealed through snowflakes. And of course people thought that was silly,
because come on, the glory of God can be revealed
through snowflakes. This is silly. But he saw snowflakes as
(03:01):
miracles of beauty, and it seemed to him the beauty
of this should not be hidden, it should be seen
and appreciated by others. So how can you do that.
You can do that basically by getting pictures, and he
when he photographed them, he realized that the key is
the conditions. Can't be too cold because then the snowflakes
(03:23):
are brittle. It can't be too warm because then the
snowflakes melt. And so therefore he really was a good experimentalist.
I mean, he must have spent hours and hours and
hours of failures and he realized that, well, this has
to be done, and he had things all set up
to get pictures, and something would happen. He didn't get
a picture. He wasn't fast enough, and so he had
(03:45):
to work out his system so that he was able
to accurately get snowflakes, and once he did so, he
was able to photograph a few ten fifteen twenty, and
then after a while he ended up with about five
thousand snowflake images for the forty six years that he
worked on this, and so he had a lot of pictures.
(04:07):
One interesting thing is is that even though he wasn't
a scientist, never went to school, he was home educated.
He ended up publishing in some of the leading science
magazines in the world. He wrote the article on snow
for the Encycopedia Britannica, and that was quite a privilege
in his day and well today as well. And then
he eventually published a coffee sized table book of six
(04:30):
thousand photographs titled Snow Crystals, and the book was published
by the leading publishers McGraw hill, and so this was
quite a coupe for a young man who was home schooled.
He also published articles on snowflakes in Popular Mechanics magazine,
in the world's leading scientific magazine called Nature, and of
(04:52):
course in the more common widely circulated magazines like the
National Geographic In nineteen twenty three. Unfortunately, I have most
of these magazines, so I was able to look them
up in the nation geographic and from our standards today,
they were good and beautiful, but not to the quality
that we can get today today. The techniques are such
(05:14):
where we end up with incredibly gorgeous pictures of snowflakes.
And I have four or five books which illustrate this,
and you can see the beauty is there quite vividly,
and you can appreciate more than in his day. But
on the other hand, on his day, you know, seeing
a picture of a snowflake just astounded people, and that's
why he became his work became so popular. Another contribution
(05:38):
he made which turned out to be very important, was
every snowflake, as far as he could tell, was different,
and he wondered why why are they different? And so
he studied the process of the manufacture, the production of snowflakes,
and realize they fall in certain conditions. They move upward
because of weather conditions, so they move up the down
(06:00):
in the clouds, and after a while they end up
being exposed in different amounts of heat and cold in
different conditions, and that produces the variety that we see
in snowflakes. But you discovered they all have either six
sides or three sides. And now we understand part of
the reason for the difference is because water molecules are
(06:22):
not all the same. We have a water molecule called deuterium,
which is called heavy water, which is a little bit
different than most common water molecules. And now this is
a rare molecule. It's not found very commonly. But each
snowflake is made out of several hundred trillion water molecules.
(06:43):
And so even if we only have a few of
these molecules that are deuterium, we therefore end up with
differences because of these few molecules. Because when you're talking
about one thousand million billion water molecules, even if you
have a million billion than these ruge molecules such as
(07:03):
deuterium produce differences. And so he really did a lot
of work in chemistry and physics, in science and understanding
specifically why there are so many snowflake differences, and so
therefore it helps us appreciate the variety in nature. And
one thing you learn about nature when you study nature
is there is an enormous amount of variety everywhere in animals.
(07:27):
In Beatles, one scientist said God has an inordinate fondness
of beatles because He made so many kinds, and I
guess there are six seven thousand different kinds of beatles,
and so therefore, one thing we know when we look
at the natural world is enormous variety everywhere, even in snowflakes.
And his inspiration again wants to understand God's creation. You
(07:51):
learn about God by studying his creation, which is true
because you learn about an artist by studying his artwork.
You learn about a musician by studying his music compositions.
You learn about God by studying his creation. And of
course his creation would be the natural world. And so
I've course, my background is science, so I agree that
(08:11):
that's true in many scientists that I know, their motivation
is to understand and learn about God, and certainly we
can see that was true in Snowflake Bentley. That's why
I became fascinated with him, because he's different. He's not
the usual person who goes to colleagues and gets his
PhD in physics and goes on and studies nature. He's
(08:32):
totally home grown, and therefore he was original and wasn't
constrained by the belief back then that you'll never photograph
snowflakes because it just can't be done because the heat
of the microscope. You've got to get light in there
to see it, and that light is heat, and therefore
that's going to melt the snowflakes. He can't do it,
(08:52):
and he had a hard time at first. He failed,
I think for two or three years and he wasn't
able to get one single photograph, but eventually he got thousands.
As Edison once said, the key to invention is not creativity,
but simply perseverance, keep trying, keep working. The local elementary school,
(09:16):
I was asked to come in and do a presentation
on Snowflake Bentley because they studied him in this school,
and so he still his ideas and his example still
inspires young people today, and there are a lot of children's
books about him, and so therefore it's a good example,
(09:36):
a good example for all of us.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Great work is always by Greg Hengler for picking up
this story and for producing the piece, and a special
thanks also to Jerry Bergman for sharing the story of
Wilson Willie Bentley, a beauty here on our American Stories
This is our American stories, and we tell all kinds
of stories here on this show. As you know, Jerry
Bergman has taught science for forty five years at university
in subjects like biology, genetics, chemistry, biochemistry, anthropology, geology, and microbiology.
He has nine degrees in the field of science, including
(00:33):
seven graduate and postgraduate degrees. Doctor Bergmann's here to tell
us the story of a teenage boy who became interested
in snow. In January fifteenth, eighteen eighty five, at twenty
years of age, he became the first person in the
world to photograph a snowflake. Here's doctor Bergman with the story.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Well, his background is he's from Vermont and a lot
of snow there, and he became interested in science, and
his parents were very supportive. They even though they really
couldn't afford it. They bought him things like a microscope
and a camera so he could take pictures. And among
his many interests was the weather. He actually charted the
(01:15):
weather and tried to correlate the weather with other events.
But he became especially interested in snowflakes, and he could
with a small magnifying glass he could see they looked different,
and so he tried to figure out what, why are
they different, what's going on here? And of course the
problem is a microscope requires lights, and light produces heat,
(01:35):
and the heat melted the snowflakes. So he had to
come up with a way of getting it cold enough
to get the snowflakes and examine them work quickly so
he could get pictures without the snowflakes melting, and he
was finally able to do that. In fact, he was
the first person ever to get a photograph of a snowflake,
(01:55):
and so that was quite an invention for a young boy. School.
By the way, he didn't go to public schools and
his parents his mother was a teacher, so she was
very supportive of his work. So he was somewhat independent,
I guess his whole life. His full name was Wilson
or Willie. They called him his childhood name, Bentley, and
(02:17):
his name often is called snowflake Bentley because he did
so much work in this area and he wanted to
explore the world of science firsthand, and he saw God
not only in the scriptures, but he saw God in
the natural world. And as a result of his studying
the natural world, he just realized he could learn a
(02:38):
great deal about God through studying God's creation, and once
he noticed they were different, he wanted to photograph them
because he felt that the glory of God can be
revealed through snowflakes. And of course people thought that was silly,
because come on, the glory of God can be revealed
through snowflakes. This is silly. But he saw snowflakes as
(03:01):
miracles of beauty, and it seemed to him the beauty
of this should not be hidden, it should be seen
and appreciated by others. So how can you do that.
You can do that basically by getting pictures, and he
when he photographed them, he realized that the key is
the conditions. Can't be too cold because then the snowflakes
(03:23):
are brittle. It can't be too warm because then the
snowflakes melt. And so therefore he really was a good experimentalist.
I mean, he must have spent hours and hours and
hours of failures and he realized that, well, this has
to be done, and he had things all set up
to get pictures, and something would happen. He didn't get
a picture. He wasn't fast enough, and so he had
(03:45):
to work out his system so that he was able
to accurately get snowflakes, and once he did so, he
was able to photograph a few ten fifteen twenty, and
then after a while he ended up with about five
thousand snowflake images for the forty six years that he
worked on this, and so he had a lot of pictures.
(04:07):
One interesting thing is is that even though he wasn't
a scientist, never went to school, he was home educated.
He ended up publishing in some of the leading science
magazines in the world. He wrote the article on snow
for the Encycopedia Britannica, and that was quite a privilege
in his day and well today as well. And then
he eventually published a coffee sized table book of six
(04:30):
thousand photographs titled Snow Crystals, and the book was published
by the leading publishers McGraw hill, and so this was
quite a coupe for a young man who was home schooled.
He also published articles on snowflakes in Popular Mechanics magazine,
in the world's leading scientific magazine called Nature, and of
(04:52):
course in the more common widely circulated magazines like the
National Geographic In nineteen twenty three. Unfortunately, I have most
of these magazines, so I was able to look them
up in the nation geographic and from our standards today,
they were good and beautiful, but not to the quality
that we can get today today. The techniques are such
(05:14):
where we end up with incredibly gorgeous pictures of snowflakes.
And I have four or five books which illustrate this,
and you can see the beauty is there quite vividly,
and you can appreciate more than in his day. But
on the other hand, on his day, you know, seeing
a picture of a snowflake just astounded people, and that's
why he became his work became so popular. Another contribution
(05:38):
he made which turned out to be very important, was
every snowflake, as far as he could tell, was different,
and he wondered why why are they different? And so
he studied the process of the manufacture, the production of snowflakes,
and realize they fall in certain conditions. They move upward
because of weather conditions, so they move up the down
(06:00):
in the clouds, and after a while they end up
being exposed in different amounts of heat and cold in
different conditions, and that produces the variety that we see
in snowflakes. But you discovered they all have either six
sides or three sides. And now we understand part of
the reason for the difference is because water molecules are
(06:22):
not all the same. We have a water molecule called deuterium,
which is called heavy water, which is a little bit
different than most common water molecules. And now this is
a rare molecule. It's not found very commonly. But each
snowflake is made out of several hundred trillion water molecules.
(06:43):
And so even if we only have a few of
these molecules that are deuterium, we therefore end up with
differences because of these few molecules. Because when you're talking
about one thousand million billion water molecules, even if you
have a million billion than these ruge molecules such as
(07:03):
deuterium produce differences. And so he really did a lot
of work in chemistry and physics, in science and understanding
specifically why there are so many snowflake differences, and so
therefore it helps us appreciate the variety in nature. And
one thing you learn about nature when you study nature
is there is an enormous amount of variety everywhere in animals.
(07:27):
In Beatles, one scientist said God has an inordinate fondness
of beatles because He made so many kinds, and I
guess there are six seven thousand different kinds of beatles,
and so therefore, one thing we know when we look
at the natural world is enormous variety everywhere, even in snowflakes.
And his inspiration again wants to understand God's creation. You
(07:51):
learn about God by studying his creation, which is true
because you learn about an artist by studying his artwork.
You learn about a musician by studying his music compositions.
You learn about God by studying his creation. And of
course his creation would be the natural world. And so
I've course, my background is science, so I agree that
(08:11):
that's true in many scientists that I know, their motivation
is to understand and learn about God, and certainly we
can see that was true in Snowflake Bentley. That's why
I became fascinated with him, because he's different. He's not
the usual person who goes to colleagues and gets his
PhD in physics and goes on and studies nature. He's
(08:32):
totally home grown, and therefore he was original and wasn't
constrained by the belief back then that you'll never photograph
snowflakes because it just can't be done because the heat
of the microscope. You've got to get light in there
to see it, and that light is heat, and therefore
that's going to melt the snowflakes. He can't do it,
(08:52):
and he had a hard time at first. He failed,
I think for two or three years and he wasn't
able to get one single photograph, but eventually he got thousands.
As Edison once said, the key to invention is not creativity,
but simply perseverance, keep trying, keep working. The local elementary school,
(09:16):
I was asked to come in and do a presentation
on Snowflake Bentley because they studied him in this school,
and so he still his ideas and his example still
inspires young people today, and there are a lot of children's
books about him, and so therefore it's a good example,
(09:36):
a good example for all of us.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Great work is always by Greg Hengler for picking up
this story and for producing the piece, and a special
thanks also to Jerry Bergman for sharing the story of
Wilson Willie Bentley, a beauty here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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