Sargent-Welch offers a comprehensive selection of quality products for science educators of all science disciplines and levels.
Sargent-Welch - quality products for science educators
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Welcome to Sargent-Welch! We offer a wide array of quality products for science educators of all disciplines and levels including: physics, biology, chemistry, earth science, space science, environmental science, allied health and nursing and even labware and furniture. We also features name brand and exclusively distributed products throughout our catalog including ScholAR Chemistry, Cenco Physics, Sargent-Welch Biology and VWR Signature products supporting our reputation of quality, selection and service.
Sargent-Welch is part of the science education division of VWR International. We are a full-line, all-discipline, supplier of science education equipment and apparatus. "Full-line" means that we can equip a school science room completely from the benches and furniture to the expendable supply items. We are a distributor of major brand name equipment and supplies in the science education field. In business for over 150 years, Sargent-Welch is your one-stop science education supply source.
For more about our history click here.
Our Mission
At Sargent-Welch, our mission is to enhance Science Education by providing the highest quality products, professional development, and technical support available to the nearly 200,000 educators teaching science throughout the United States.
Our products & services are making a difference in the lives of millions of students. We constantly strive to find ways to help teachers raise student achievement, engage and captivate student interest, while saving them time and money.
By living our mission, we will become the world’s most valued company to our customers, our corporation, and to the communities where we work and live.
History of Sargent-Welch
Sargent-Welch has been supplying quality laboratory supply equipment for over 150 years. Here's how it started: The laboratory supply industry traces its beginning to the time of the Gold Rush in 1849. Ezekiel H. Sargent, a young pharmacist from Boston, moved to Chicago to become a partner in a drugstore, selling assaying and prospecting equipment to prospectors passing through on their way West. In 1852, he bought out his partners' interest and renamed his store E.H. Sargent & Company.
Sargent's business prospered in spite of the total destruction of his store in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Four years later, he moved from the northern edge of what was later to become downtown Chicago, rebuilt, and published his first catalog in 1875 - the first recorded attempt at mail order solicitation in the laboratory supply business.
Meanwhile, W.M. Welch, a 24 year-old school superintendent in Maquoketa, Iowa, saw the inadequacies of school record keeping systems from the vantage point of a one-room country school. In 1880, he embarked on one of his first commercial ventures - the development of the nation's first system of awards for school attendance and scholarship including elementary school diplomas.
In 1889, Sargent incorporated his business in Illinois. The sale of the drugstore in 1904 and the acquisition of Richards & Company, Ltd., a New York scientific equipment company, marked Sargent's total commitment to the laboratory supply business. In the years immediately prior to World War I, Sargent established research facilities and manufacturing operations that enabled the company to develop precision instruments.
In 1906 Welch moved to Chicago and incorporated the W.M. Welch Manufacturing Company. Four years later, Welch acquired the Edward P. Martin Company - a manufacturer of science education products - and gradually developed proprietary products for physics, chemistry and biology education.
Sargent's efforts were devoted to manufacturing and supplying laboratory apparatus, chemicals and instruments. In need of additional space by 1919, Sargent moved to a six-story building on East Superior Street in Chicago.
In 1924, with help from Dr. Henry D. Hubbard of the U.S. Bureau of Standards, Welch introduced its "Periodic Chart of the Atoms", recognized as the most comprehensive representation of the Mendeleev periodic table. Also, in need of more space, Welch moved its operations to five connecting buildings on North Sedgwick Street in Chicago.
In 1941, Sargent became the first laboratory supply company to open a branch warehouse that would better serve a growing chemical industry at the start of World War II. Sargent moved its headquarters from downtown Chicago to a new and modern manufacturing and warehouse facility on the northwest side. Other sales and distribution centers were subsequently opened nationwide.
With the 1957 launching of Sputnik and the 1958 inactment of the National Defense Education Act, federal funds began flowing into the nation's schools at an increasing rate. Welch sales increased dramatically. In 1960, Welch changed its name to the Welch Scientific Company, moved its headquarters to Skokie, Illinois and offered its stock to the public the following year. A public offering of 545,000 shares was NYSE listed in 1963.
In 1962, Welch acquired the New York Scientific Supply Company, a manufacturer of reinforced fiberglass anatomical and biological models. In 1964, Welch established a Canadian base of operations by acquiring Cave and Company, Ltd. One year later, Welch acquired the Educational Science Division of Bud-Stanley Company, a New York manufacturer of microwave optics and video equipment.
Welch acquired Inter-Collegiate Press, Inc. of Mission, Kansas a leading producer of school yearbooks, graduation announcements, and related items - and its Canadian subsidiary in 1967.
In 1968, E. H. Sargent Company and the Welch Scientific Company merged under the name Sargent-Welch Scientific Company, thereby forming one of the nation's leading suppliers of science education products. In early 1987, the company became a wholly-owned subsidiary of ARTRA GROUP Inc., of Northfield, Illinois.
In early 1989, the Welch Manufacturing Division was sold, and in August 1989, Sargent-Welch was purchased by VWR Scientific Company. The Sargent-Welch industrial laboratory supply business was absorbed in the VWR Scientific Core business, and Sargent-Welch became a 100% science education supply business.
In 1993, Sargent-Welch moved to Buffalo Grove, Illinois. As part of VWR Scientific Company, Sargent-Welch markets science teaching products to elementary through college institutions, museums and science centers throughout the United States and Canada. The company's international division markets science education products throughout the world. In 1999, VWR Scientific Products was purchased by E. Merck of Darmstadt, Germany.
Sargent-Welch prints an annual catalog that lists nearly 25,000 products ranging from science room furniture, to glassware, to equipment used in teaching science. The parent company of Sargent-Welch, VWR International, is the largest industrial laboratory supply distribution company in the world, giving Sargent-Welch access to a very large additional product line. Outside field representatives supplement the catalog in marketing Sargent-Welch, and together make the company one of the most responsive and available to science teachers in North America.
Sargent-Welch has a distribution and fulfillment system that is the most efficient and effective in the science education supply business, regularly shipping the same or next day with low backorders and the highest service level available in the United States and Canada. By using trained, customer-oriented representatives, they ensure the highest level of value for those who contact Sargent-Welch.
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