American Scientist

Bern Dibner was born in 1897 in a tiny village near Kiev, in what came to be known as Ukraine. He was the youngest of eight children and with his family came to the United States in 1904, settling on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Young Dibner attended public schools and then the Hebrew Technical Institute, while spending many an evening listening to lectures on nontechnical subjects at the Cooper Union. Not unlike a lot of young people who are torn between the arts and the sciences, Dibner could likely have gone on to study either one successfully, but circumstances led him to become an electrician. It was while working at an electrical-maintenance job in the printing industry that Dibner had the tip of one of his fingers nipped, and the $650 in workman's compensation that he received allowed him to redirect his life.