Who Invented the White Lab Coat: Scientists or Doctors?

An oil painting of Louis Pasteur in his laboratory from 1885 shows him in formal wear as well.

Marie Curie was often photographed working in long dark dresses. She wore her dark blue wedding gown to the lab and, mourning her husband’s passing in 1906, began wearing black dresses. [1] She does have one photo with an apron over hear dress (circa 1915).

 

Lab assistants, however, often did wear protective garments. One well-documented example is Sergeant Anderson, Faraday’s assistant at the Royal Institution (1827–1866), who wore a long brown apron during demonstrations — more akin to a blacksmith than a modern chemist.

In industrial research labs, the divide was even more stark.

Act II: The Industrial Revolution Gets Messy

By the late 1800s, chemistry was booming in industry. German companies like Bayer and BASF were turning chemistry into big business with dyes, explosives, and pharmaceuticals fueling a new kind of laboratory: the industrial research lab.

This created a clothing hierarchy:

At the bottom were workers in brown aprons and coats/jackets. Practical clothes reflecting their industrial surroundings. Mid-level chemists wore suits (but no ties), and only the high-ranking managers (likely absent from lab benches) wore full formal attire. Specialized lab coats? Not yet. But the seeds were there. Industrial chemists were already migrating between factories and labs, bringing with them workwear inspired by carpenters, millers, and painters. All trades that used durable protective garments. [2,6]

It’s unclear whether scientists used brown lab coats/jackets at this time. It has been suggested that the portrait below of German chemist Wilhelm Hofmann, taken around 1870, shows him wearing a brown laboratory coat. If it was a brown lab coat, it could possibly have been the first one worn in academia. [2]

Act III: Medicine’s Image Problem

Meanwhile, medicine in the 1800s was undergoing an identity crisis. Before germ theory, hospitals were often places people went to die. Doctors wore black suits out of respect and, some argue, to resemble clergy. The symbolism was clear: medicine was solemn, not necessarily scientific. [3]

While physicists and engineers were changing the world with steam engines and telegraphs, medicine lagged behind. Doctors had little to offer beyond tradition and intuition. [4]

But things changed fast.

By the 1880s, the germ theory of disease (championed by Pasteur and Koch) had gained traction. Antiseptics were revolutionizing surgery. The actual shift in medicine from home remedies and quackery to the field of bioscience was made possible by Joseph Lister. Researchers were able to better grasp how to prevent bacterial contamination for the first time because of reproducible results. [5]

Suddenly, cleanliness meant life, and doctors saw a chance to rebrand. Physicians were urged to present themselves as scientists by having clean and scientific office spaces. This may be done by displaying their microscopes and other aids of precision, certificates, diplomas, human skeletons, pretty much anything that shows that they have studied the science of medicine. [7]

Not only in the office, physicians started to present themselves as scientists by adopting the use of protective garments. As doctors adopted scientific practices, they also borrowed the scientist’s lab coat but gave it a makeover. From brown and beige came white: the color of cleanliness and purity. [3]

One of the earliest visual records of this shift is The Agnew Clinic (1889), an oil painting by Thomas Eakins. It shows surgeons, for the first time, in white coats and gowns. The painting was more than a portrait. It declared: “We are modern. We are clean. We are scientists.”

That same year, photos from Massachusetts General Hospital’s Bradlee Ward also show Dr. J. Collins Warren performing one of the first abdominal surgeries. Once again, in a white coat.

Contrast that with Eakins’ earlier painting The Gross Clinic (1875), where Dr. Samuel Gross is still in a black coat, surrounded by assistants in streetwear. In just 14 years, the symbolism of medicine had transformed.

Act IV: Who Wore It First?

So… did doctors or scientists wear the white coat first?

There's no doubt that scientists and industrial chemists were the first to wear lab coats. Just not white.

Doctors were quicker to adopt it publicly. The photographic and artistic evidence is clearer for medicine: by 1889, white had become the color of clinical professionalism.

Scientists took longer. The earliest photographs of chemists and physicists in white coats appear around the early 1900s, often in German or British labs. Even then, it was inconsistent. Some wore aprons, some suits, and some adopted white coats likely inspired by the medical field or industry practices.

The image below is from 1902/03 of a neurobiological laboratory in Berlin.

Still, it may have been the industrial chemist moving between noisy factories and compact labs who first embraced the idea of protective clothing as a boundary between work and the world. And it was the doctor, with a PR problem and a microscope, who turned that into the white symbol of trust we know today.

Timeline of the invention and introduction of lab coats

Before 1850

• Scientists (then called “natural philosophers”) wore regular street clothes
• Chemists in academic settings dressed like professors or bankers

1850s–1870s

• Some lab assistants (e.g., Sergeant Anderson) wore brown aprons in demonstrations
• Industrial chemists worked in suits or day clothes; no protective garments yet

1880s–1890s

• Surgeons begin wearing white garments (e.g.,The Agnew Clinic, 1889)
• Medicine shifts toward germ theory and rebrands using the color white
• Industrial labs introduce brown work coats for factory chemists
• Doctors adopt white coats as symbols of cleanliness and scientific credibility

Early 1900s

• White lab coats begin to appear in neurobiology and academic science labs
• Chemists in industry still often wear brown or beige coats
• Medical professionals more consistently adopt white coats across settings

1930s

• White lab coats become common attire in chemistry and academic science labs
• Likely influenced by medicine’s standardization of the white coat
• Scientific identity starts to merge with the symbolism of purity and trust

1950s

• White coats become standard in universities, pharma companies, and school labs
 • No longer just practical — now an institutional symbol of professionalism and authority

A Coat of Many Meanings

Today, the white lab coat is more than a uniform. It’s a symbol of credibility, authority, and cleanliness. It’s also a symbol that’s been questioned in recent years. Some medical schools now delay or downplay the “White Coat Ceremony,” encouraging students to focus first on empathy, not authority. In labs, some researchers are searching for different colors of lab coats. And in popular culture, the white coat has become a kind of shorthand for “smart” whether the character is a genius, villain, or both.

Need a lab coat of your own? See our collection of laboratory coats for scientists.

Sources:

1. Green, C., Musée Curie, The Voice Of Fashion, NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation), JSTOR Daily, Mode & Tendances, Musée Curie, & Bibliothèque Nationale de France. (2018). The radioactive wardrobe. In The Voice of Fashion (pp. 1–8). https://www.thevoiceoffashion.com/intersections/columns/the-radioactive-wardrobe--781/

2. Morris, P. J. T. (2015). The Matter Factory. Reaktion Books.

3. Blumhagen, D. W. (1979). The Doctor’s White Coat: the image of the physician in modern America. In Annals of Internal Medicine (Vol. 91, pp. 111–116). American College of Physicians.
   

4. Shryoc, RH. The Development of Modern Medicine. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc; 194; 248-72.
   

5. Hochberg, M. S. (2007). The Doctor’s White Coat--An historical perspective. The AMA Journal of Ethic, 9(4), 310–314. https://doi.org/10.1001/virtualmentor.2007.9.4.mhst1-0704

6. History in the details: Building Trade Attire  - Discover Your Ancestors -    A brief history by costume and picture expert Jayne Shrimpton. (2020, June 1). https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/discover-your-ancestors/periodical/86/history-in-the-details-building-trade-attire-3656/

7. Cathell D.W. (1882) The Physician Himself and What He Should Add to the Strictly Scientific. Baltimode; Clishay and Barley; 10-11.