James Bryant Conant (March 26, 1893 – February 11, 1978) was an American
chemist
A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties. Chemists carefully describe t ...
, a transformative
President of Harvard University, and the first
U.S. Ambassador to West Germany. Conant obtained a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Harvard in 1916. During World War I he served in the U.S. Army, working on the development of
poison gases, especially
Lewisite. He became an assistant professor of chemistry at Harvard in 1919 and the Sheldon Emery Professor of Organic Chemistry in 1929. He researched the physical structures of
natural products, particularly
chlorophyll, and he was one of the first to explore the sometimes complex relationship between
chemical equilibrium
In a chemical reaction, chemical equilibrium is the state in which both the Reagent, reactants and Product (chemistry), products are present in concentrations which have no further tendency to change with time, so that there is no observable chan ...
and the
reaction rate of chemical processes. He studied the
biochemistry
Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and ...
of
oxyhemoglobin
Hemoglobin (haemoglobin BrE) (from the Greek word αἷμα, ''haîma'' 'blood' + Latin ''globus'' 'ball, sphere' + ''-in'') (), abbreviated Hb or Hgb, is the iron-containing oxygen-transport metalloprotein present in red blood cells (erythrocyte ...
providing insight into the disease
methemoglobinemia, helped to explain the structure of
chlorophyll, and contributed important insights that underlie modern theories of
acid-base chemistry.
In 1933, Conant became the President of Harvard University with a reformist agenda that involved dispensing with a number of customs, including class rankings and the requirement for Latin classes. He abolished
athletic scholarships
An athletic scholarship is a form of scholarship to attend a college or university or a private high school awarded to an individual based predominantly on his or her ability to play in a sport. Athletic scholarships are common in the United Stat ...
, and instituted an "
up or out
Up or out, also known as a tenure or partnership system, is the requirement for members of a hierarchical organization to achieve a certain rank within a certain period of time. If they fail to do so, they must leave the organization.
Examples ...
" policy, under which scholars who were not promoted were terminated. His egalitarian vision of education required a diversified student body, and he promoted the adoption of the
Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and co-educational classes. During his presidency, women were admitted to
Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the graduate medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is one of the oldest medical schools in the United States and is consi ...
and
Harvard Law School for the first time.
Conant was appointed to the
National Defense Research Committee
The National Defense Research Committee (NDRC) was an organization created "to coordinate, supervise, and conduct scientific research on the problems underlying the development, production, and use of mechanisms and devices of warfare" in the Un ...
(NDRC) in 1940, becoming its chairman in 1941. In this capacity, he oversaw vital wartime research projects, including the development of synthetic rubber and the
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...
, which developed the first
atomic bombs. On July 16, 1945, he was among the dignitaries present at the
Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range
Alamogordo () is the seat of Otero County, New Mexico, United States. A city in the Tularosa Basin of the Chihuahuan Desert, it is bordered on the east by the Sacramento Mountains and to the west by Holloman Air Force Base. The population was ...
for the
Trinity nuclear test
Trinity was the code name of the first detonation of a nuclear weapon. It was conducted by the United States Army at 5:29 a.m. on July 16, 1945, as part of the Manhattan Project. The test was conducted in the Jornada del Muerto desert abo ...
, the first detonation of an atomic bomb, and was part of the
Interim Committee that advised President
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. A leader of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 34th vice president from January to April 1945 under Franklin ...
to use atomic bombs on Japan. After the war, he served on the Joint Research and Development Board (JRDC) that was established to coordinate burgeoning defense research, and on the influential General Advisory Committee (GAC) of the
Atomic Energy Commission (AEC); in the latter capacity he advised the president against starting a development program for the "
hydrogen bomb."
In his later years at Harvard, Conant taught undergraduate courses on the
history and philosophy of science
The history and philosophy of science (HPS) is an academic discipline that encompasses the philosophy of science and the history of science. Although many scholars in the field are trained primarily as either historians or as philosophers, there ...
, and wrote books explaining the
scientific method
The scientific method is an empirical method for acquiring knowledge that has characterized the development of science since at least the 17th century (with notable practitioners in previous centuries; see the article history of scientific ...
to laymen. In 1953 he retired as President of Harvard and became the
United States High Commissioner for Germany, overseeing the restoration of German sovereignty after World War II, and then was Ambassador to West Germany until 1957. On returning to the United States, he criticized the education system in works such as ''
The American High School Today'' (1959), ''Slums and Suburbs'' (1961), and ''The Education of American Teachers'' (1963). Between 1965 and 1969, Conant, suffering from a heart condition, worked on his autobiography, ''My Several Lives'' (1970). He became increasingly infirm, suffered a series of
strokes in 1977, and died in a nursing home the following year.
Early life
James Bryant Conant was born in
Dorchester, Massachusetts, on March 26, 1893, the third child and only son of James Scott Conant, a
photoengraver
Photoengraving is a process that uses a light-sensitive photoresist applied to the surface to be engraved to create a mask that protects some areas during a subsequent operation which etches, dissolves, or otherwise removes some or all of the mate ...
, and his wife Jennett Orr (née Bryant). Conant was one of 35 boys who passed the competitive admission exam for the
Roxbury Latin School
The Roxbury Latin School is a private boys' day school that was founded in 1645 in the town of Roxbury (now a neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts) by the Rev. John Eliot under a charter received from King Charles I of England. It bills ...
in
West Roxbury in 1904. He graduated near the top of his class in 1910. Encouraged by his science teacher, Newton H. Black, in September of that year he entered
Harvard College
Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...
, where he studied
physical chemistry
Physical chemistry is the study of macroscopic and microscopic phenomena in chemical systems in terms of the principles, practices, and concepts of physics such as motion, energy, force, time, thermodynamics, quantum chemistry, statistica ...
under
Theodore W. Richards and
organic chemistry
Organic chemistry is a subdiscipline within chemistry involving the scientific study of the structure, properties, and reactions of organic compounds and organic materials, i.e., matter in its various forms that contain carbon atoms.Clayden, ...
under
Elmer P. Kohler. He was also an editor of ''
The Harvard Crimson
''The Harvard Crimson'' is the student newspaper of Harvard University and was founded in 1873. Run entirely by Harvard College undergraduates, it served for many years as the only daily newspaper in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Beginning in the f ...
''. He joined the
Signet Society
The Signet Society of Harvard University was founded in 1870 by members of the class of 1871. The first president was Charles Joseph Bonaparte. It was, at first, dedicated to the production of literary work only, going so far as to exclude debate ...
and
Delta Upsilon
Delta Upsilon (), commonly known as DU, is a collegiate men's fraternity founded on November 4, 1834 at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It is the sixth-oldest, all-male, college Greek Letter Organizations#Greek letters, Greek-let ...
, and was initiated as a brother of the Omicron chapter of
Alpha Chi Sigma
Alpha Chi Sigma () is a professional fraternity specializing in the fields of the chemical sciences. It has both collegiate and professional chapters throughout the United States consisting of both men and women and numbering more than 70,000 me ...
in 1912.
He graduated
Phi Beta Kappa
The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal ...
with his
Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four year ...
in June 1913. He then went to work on his doctorate, which was an unusual double dissertation. The first part, supervised by Richards, concerned "The Electrochemical Behavior of Liquid Sodium Amalgams"; the second, supervised by Kohler, was "A Study of Certain
Cyclopropane Derivatives". Harvard awarded Conant his
Doctor of Philosophy
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...
degree in 1916.
In 1915, Conant entered into a business partnership with two other Harvard chemistry graduates,
Stanley Pennock and Chauncey Loomis, to form the LPC Laboratories. They opened a plant in a one-story building in
Queens, New York
Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...
, where they manufactured chemicals used by the pharmaceutical industry like
benzoic acid
Benzoic acid is a white (or colorless) solid organic compound with the formula , whose structure consists of a benzene ring () with a carboxyl () substituent. It is the simplest aromatic carboxylic acid. The name is derived from gum benzoin, ...
that were selling at high prices on account of the interruption of imports from Germany due to World War I. In 1916, the departure of organic chemist
Roger Adams
Roger Adams (January 2, 1889 – July 6, 1971) was an American organic chemist who developed the eponymous Adams' catalyst, and helped determine the composition of natural substances such as complex vegetable oils and plant alkaloids. He isolat ...
created a vacancy at Harvard that was offered to Conant. Since he aspired to an academic career, Conant accepted the offer and returned to Harvard. On November 27, 1916, an explosion killed Pennock and two others and completely destroyed the plant. A contributing cause was Conant's faulty test procedures.
Following the
United States declaration of war on Germany, Conant was commissioned as a
second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Sanitary Corps on September 22, 1917. He went to the
Camp American University, where he worked on the development of
poison gas
Many gases have toxic properties, which are often assessed using the LC50 (median lethal dose) measure. In the United States, many of these gases have been assigned an NFPA 704 health rating of 4 (may be fatal) or 3 (may cause serious or perman ...
es. Initially, his work concentrated on
mustard gas, but in May 1918, Conant took charge of a unit concerned with the development of
lewisite. He was promoted to
major on July 20, 1918. A pilot plant was built, and then a full-scale production plant in
Cleveland
Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...
, but the war ended before lewisite could be used in battle.
Conant was appointed an assistant professor of chemistry at Harvard in 1919. The following year he became engaged to Richards's daughter, Grace (Patty) Thayer Richards. They were married in the
Appleton Chapel
The Memorial Church of Harvard University is a building on the campus of Harvard University. It is an inter-denominational Protestantism, Protestant church.
History Predecessors
The first distinct building for worship at Harvard University was H ...
at Harvard on April 17, 1920, and had two sons, James Richards Conant, born in May 1923, and Theodore Richards Conant, born in July 1928.
Chemistry professor
Conant became an associate professor in 1924.
In 1925, he visited Germany, then the heart of chemical research, for eight months. He toured the major universities and laboratories there and met many of the leading chemists, including
Theodor Curtius
''Geheimrat'' Julius Wilhelm Theodor Curtius (27 May 1857 – 8 February 1928) was professor of Chemistry at Heidelberg University and elsewhere. He published the Curtius rearrangement in 1890/1894 and also discovered diazoacetic acid, hydra ...
,
Kazimierz Fajans
Kazimierz Fajans (Kasimir Fajans in many American publications; 27 May 1887 – 18 May 1975) was a Polish American physical chemist of Polish-Jewish origin, a pioneer in the science of radioactivity and the discoverer of chemical element protac ...
,
Hans Fischer
Hans Fischer (; 27 July 1881 – 31 March 1945) was a German organic chemist and the recipient of the 1930 Nobel Prize for Chemistry "for his researches into the constitution of haemin and chlorophyll and especially for his synthesis of ha ...
,
Arthur Hantzsch,
Hans Meerwein
Hans Meerwein (May 20, 1879 in Hamburg, Germany – October 24, 1965 in Marburg, Germany) was a German chemist.
Several reactions and reagents bear his name, most notably the Meerwein–Ponndorf–Verley reduction, the Wagner–Meerwein rearran ...
,
Jakob Meisenheimer
Jakob Meisenheimer (14 June 1876 – 2 December 1934) was a German chemist. He made numerous contributions to organic chemistry, the most famous being his proposed structure for a group of compounds now named Meisenheimer complex. He also pro ...
,
Hermann Staudinger,
Adolf Windaus
Adolf Otto Reinhold Windaus (; 25 December 1876 – 9 June 1959) was a German chemist who won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1928 for his work on sterols and their relation to vitamins. He was the doctoral advisor of Adolf Butenandt who also won ...
and
Karl Ziegler
Karl Waldemar Ziegler (26 November 1898 – 12 August 1973) was a German chemist who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1963, with Giulio Natta, for work on polymers. The Nobel Committee recognized his "excellent work on organometallic compound ...
. After Conant returned to the United States,
Arthur Amos Noyes
Arthur Amos Noyes (September 13, 1866 – June 3, 1936) was an American chemist, inventor and educator. He received a PhD in 1890 from Leipzig University under the guidance of Wilhelm Ostwald.
He served as the acting president of MIT between ...
made him an attractive offer to move to
Caltech
The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...
. The President of Harvard,
Abbott Lawrence Lowell
Abbott Lawrence Lowell (December 13, 1856 – January 6, 1943) was an American educator and legal scholar. He was President of Harvard University from 1909 to 1933.
With an "aristocratic sense of mission and self-certainty," Lowell cut a large f ...
, made a counter offer: immediate promotion to professor, effective September 1, 1927, with a salary of $7,000 (roughly equivalent to as of ) and a grant of $9,000 per annum for research. Conant accepted and stayed at Harvard. In 1929, he became the Sheldon Emery Professor of Organic Chemistry, and then, in 1931, the Chairman of the Chemistry Department.
Between 1928 and 1933, Conant published 55 papers. Much of his research, like his double thesis, combined
natural product chemistry with
physical organic chemistry
Physical organic chemistry, a term coined by Louis Hammett in 1940, refers to a discipline of organic chemistry that focuses on the relationship between chemical structures and reactivity, in particular, applying experimental tools of physical c ...
. Based on his exploration of
reaction rates in
chemical equilibria, Conant was one of the first to recognise that the
kinetics
Kinetics ( grc, κίνησις, , kinesis, ''movement'' or ''to move'') may refer to:
Science and medicine
* Kinetics (physics), the study of motion and its causes
** Rigid body kinetics, the study of the motion of rigid bodies
* Chemical ki ...
of these systems is sometimes straightforward and simple, yet quite complex in other cases. Conant studied the effect of
haloalkane structure on the rate of
substitution with inorganic
iodide
An iodide ion is the ion I−. Compounds with iodine in formal oxidation state −1 are called iodides. In everyday life, iodide is most commonly encountered as a component of iodized salt, which many governments mandate. Worldwide, iodine de ...
salts
In chemistry, a salt is a chemical compound consisting of an ionic assembly of positively charged cations and negatively charged anions, which results in a compound with no net electric charge. A common example is table salt, with positively c ...
which, together with earlier work, led to what is now known as either the Conant-Finkelstein reaction or more commonly simply the
Finkelstein reaction
The Finkelstein reaction named after the German chemist Hans Finkelstein, is an SN2 reaction (Substitution Nucleophilic Bimolecular reaction) that involves the exchange of one halogen atom for another. It is an equilibrium reaction, but the react ...
. A recent application of this reaction involved the preparation of an iodinated
polyvinyl chloride from regular PVC. A combination of Conant's work on the kinetics of
hydrogenation
Hydrogenation is a chemical reaction between molecular hydrogen (H2) and another compound or element, usually in the presence of a catalyst such as nickel, palladium or platinum. The process is commonly employed to reduce or saturate organ ...
and
George Kistiakowsky
George may refer to:
People
* George (given name)
* George (surname)
* George (singer), American-Canadian singer George Nozuka, known by the mononym George
* George Washington, First President of the United States
* George W. Bush, 43rd Preside ...
's work on the
enthalpy change
Enthalpy , a property of a thermodynamic system, is the sum of the system's internal energy and the product of its pressure and volume. It is a state function used in many measurements in chemical, biological, and physical systems at a constant p ...
s of these reactions supported the later development of the theory of
hyperconjugation
In organic chemistry, hyperconjugation (σ-conjugation or no-bond resonance) refers to the delocalization of electrons with the participation of bonds of primarily σ-character. Usually, hyperconjugation involves the interaction of the electron ...
.
Conant's investigations helped in the development of a more comprehensive understanding of the nature of acids and bases. He investigated the properties of certain
acids which were many times
stronger than
mineral acid
A mineral acid (or inorganic acid) is an acid derived from one or more inorganic compounds, as opposed to organic acids which are acidic, organic compounds. All mineral acids form hydrogen ions and the conjugate base when dissolved in water.
Cha ...
solutions in water. Conant christened them "
superacids" and laid the foundation for the development of the
Hammett acidity function. These investigations used
acetic acid as the
solvent
A solvent (s) (from the Latin '' solvō'', "loosen, untie, solve") is a substance that dissolves a solute, resulting in a solution. A solvent is usually a liquid but can also be a solid, a gas, or a supercritical fluid. Water is a solvent for ...
and demonstrated that
sodium acetate
Sodium acetate, CH3COONa, also abbreviated Na O Ac, is the sodium salt of acetic acid. This colorless deliquescent salt has a wide range of uses.
Applications
Biotechnological
Sodium acetate is used as the carbon source for culturing bacteria ...
behaves as a
base under these conditions. This observation is consistent with
Brønsted–Lowry acid–base theory
The Brønsted–Lowry theory (also called proton theory of acids and bases) is an acid–base reaction theory which was proposed independently by Johannes Nicolaus Brønsted and Thomas Martin Lowry in 1923. The fundamental concept of this the ...
(published in 1923) but cannot be explained under older
Arrhenius theory approaches. Later work with George Wheland and extended by William Kirk McEwen looked at the properties of
hydrocarbon
In organic chemistry, a hydrocarbon is an organic compound consisting entirely of hydrogen and carbon. Hydrocarbons are examples of group 14 hydrides. Hydrocarbons are generally colourless and hydrophobic, and their odors are usually weak or ...
s as very weak acids, including
acetophenone
Acetophenone is the organic compound with the chemical formula, formula C6H5C(O)CH3. It is the simplest aromatic ketone. This colorless, viscous liquid is a precursor to useful resins and fragrances.
Production
Acetophenone is formed as a byprodu ...
,
phenylacetylene
Phenylacetylene is an alkyne hydrocarbon containing a phenyl group. It exists as a colorless, viscous liquid. In research, it is sometimes used as an analog for acetylene; being a liquid, it is easier to handle than acetylene gas.
Preparation
I ...
,
fluorene and
diphenylmethane
Diphenylmethane is an organic compound with the formula (C6H5)2CH2 (often abbreviated ). The compound consists of methane wherein two hydrogen atoms are replaced by two phenyl groups. It is a white solid.
Diphenylmethane is a common skeleton in or ...
. Conant can be considered alongside
Brønsted,
Lowry,
Lewis
Lewis may refer to:
Names
* Lewis (given name), including a list of people with the given name
* Lewis (surname), including a list of people with the surname
Music
* Lewis (musician), Canadian singer
* "Lewis (Mistreated)", a song by Radiohead ...
, and
Hammett as a developer of modern understanding of acids and bases.
Between 1929 and his retirement from chemical research in 1933, Conant published papers in ''
Science
Science is a systematic endeavor that Scientific method, builds and organizes knowledge in the form of Testability, testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earli ...
'', ''
Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...
'', and the ''
Journal of the American Chemical Society
The ''Journal of the American Chemical Society'' is a weekly peer-reviewed scientific journal that was established in 1879 by the American Chemical Society. The journal has absorbed two other publications in its history, the ''Journal of Analytic ...
'' about
chlorophyll and its structure. Though the complete structure eluded him, his work did support and contribute to
Nobel laureate Hans Fischer
Hans Fischer (; 27 July 1881 – 31 March 1945) was a German organic chemist and the recipient of the 1930 Nobel Prize for Chemistry "for his researches into the constitution of haemin and chlorophyll and especially for his synthesis of ha ...
's ultimate determination of the structure in 1939. Conant's work on chlorophyll was recognised when he was inducted as a foreign
Fellow of the Royal Society
Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathemat ...
on May 2, 1941. He also published three papers describing the
polymerisation
In polymer chemistry, polymerization (American English), or polymerisation (British English), is a process of reacting monomer molecules together in a chemical reaction to form polymer chains or three-dimensional networks. There are many for ...
of
isoprene to prepare
synthetic rubber.
Another line of research involved the
biochemistry
Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and ...
of the
hemoglobin-oxyhemoglobin system. Conant ran a series of experiments with
electrochemical
Electrochemistry is the branch of physical chemistry concerned with the relationship between electrical potential difference, as a measurable and quantitative phenomenon, and identifiable chemical change, with the potential difference as an outc ...
oxidation and reduction, following in the footsteps of the famous German chemist and Nobel laureate
Fritz Haber
Fritz Haber (; 9 December 186829 January 1934) was a German chemist who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918 for his invention of the Haber–Bosch process, a method used in industry to synthesize ammonia from nitrogen gas and hydroge ...
. He determined that the
iron
Iron () is a chemical element with Symbol (chemistry), symbol Fe (from la, Wikt:ferrum, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 element, group 8 of the periodic table. It is, Abundanc ...
centre in
methemoglobin
Methemoglobin (British: methaemoglobin) (pronounced "met-hemoglobin") is a hemoglobin ''in the form of metalloprotein'', in which the iron in the heme group is in the Fe3+ (ferric) state, not the Fe2+ (ferrous) of normal hemoglobin. Sometimes, it i ...
is a
ferric
In chemistry, iron(III) refers to the element iron in its +3 oxidation state. In ionic compounds (salts), such an atom may occur as a separate cation (positive ion) denoted by Fe3+.
The adjective ferric or the prefix ferri- is often used to sp ...
(Fe
III) centre, unlike the
ferrous
In chemistry, the adjective Ferrous indicates a compound that contains iron(II), meaning iron in its +2 oxidation state, possibly as the divalent cation Fe2+. It is opposed to " ferric" or iron(III), meaning iron in its +3 oxidation state, suc ...
(Fe
II) centre found in normal hemoglobin, and this difference in
oxidation state
In chemistry, the oxidation state, or oxidation number, is the hypothetical charge of an atom if all of its bonds to different atoms were fully ionic. It describes the degree of oxidation (loss of electrons) of an atom in a chemical compound. C ...
is the cause of
methemoglobinemia, a medical condition which causes
tissue hypoxia.
Conant wrote a chemistry textbook with his former science teacher Black, entitled ''Practical Chemistry'', which was published in 1920, with a revised edition in 1929. This was superseded in 1937 by their ''New Practical Chemistry'', which in turn had a revised edition in 1946. The text proved a popular one; it was adopted by 75 universities, and Conant received thousands of dollars in
royalties. For his accomplishments in chemistry, he was awarded the
American Chemical Society
The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all ...
's Nichols Medal in 1932,
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
's Chandler Medal in 1932, and the American Chemical Society's highest honor, the
Priestley Medal, in 1944. He also received the society's
Charles Lathrop Parsons Award
The Charles Lathrop Parsons Award is usually a biennial award that recognizes outstanding public service by a member of the American Chemical Society (ACS). Recipients are chosen by the American Chemical Society Board of Directors, from a list of ...
in 1955, for public service. He was elected a Fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...
in 1924,
and the
National Academy of Sciences in 1929.
Notable students of Conant's included
Paul Doughty Bartlett, George Wheland, and
Frank Westheimer. In 1932 he was also honored by membership of the
German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina
The German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (german: Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina – Nationale Akademie der Wissenschaften), short Leopoldina, is the national academy of Germany, and is located in Halle (Saale). Founde ...
.
After some months of lobbying and discussion, Harvard's ruling body, the
Harvard Corporation
The President and Fellows of Harvard College (also called the Harvard Corporation or just the Corporation) is the smaller and more powerful of Harvard University's two governing boards, and is now the oldest corporation in America. Together with ...
, announced on May 8, 1933, that it had elected Conant as the next President of Harvard.
Alfred North Whitehead, Harvard's eminent professor of philosophy disagreed with the decision, declaring, "The Corporation should not have elected a chemist to the Presidency." "But," Corporation member
Grenville Clark
Grenville Clark (November 5, 1882 – January 13, 1967) was a 20th-century American Wall Street lawyer, co-founder of Root Clark & Bird (later Dewey Ballantine, then Dewey & LeBoeuf), member of the Harvard Corporation, co-author of the book '' Wo ...
reminded him, "
Eliot was a chemist, and our best president too." "I know," replied Whitehead, "but Eliot was a ''bad'' chemist." Clark was very much responsible for Conant's election.
President of Harvard
On October 9, 1933, Conant became the
President of Harvard University with a low-key installation ceremony in the Faculty Room of
University Hall.
This set the tone for Conant's presidency as one of informality and reform. At his inauguration, he accepted the charter and seal presented to
John Leverett the Younger
John Leverett (August 25, 1662 – May 3, 1724) was an early Anglo-American lawyer, politician, educator, and President of Harvard College.
Early life
John Leverett was the son of Hudson Leverett, an attorney, and Sarah (Payton) Leverett, (a ...
in 1707, but dropped a number of other customs, including the singing of ''
Gloria Patri
The Gloria Patri, also known as the Glory Be to the Father or, colloquially, the Glory Be, is a doxology, a short hymn of praise to God in various Christian liturgies. It is also referred to as the Minor Doxology ''(Doxologia Minor)'' or Lesser ...
'' and the Latin Oration. While, unlike some other universities, Harvard did not require Greek or Latin for entrance, they were worth double credits towards admission, and students like Conant who had studied Latin were awarded an
A.B.
Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...
degree while those who had not, received an
S.B. One of his first efforts at reform was to attempt to abolish this distinction, which took over a decade to accomplish. But in 1937 he wrote:
Other reforms included the abolition of class rankings and
athletic scholarships
An athletic scholarship is a form of scholarship to attend a college or university or a private high school awarded to an individual based predominantly on his or her ability to play in a sport. Athletic scholarships are common in the United Stat ...
, but his first, longest and most bitter battle was over
tenure
Tenure is a category of academic appointment existing in some countries. A tenured post is an indefinite academic appointment that can be terminated only for cause or under extraordinary circumstances, such as financial exigency or program disco ...
reform, shifting to an "
up or out
Up or out, also known as a tenure or partnership system, is the requirement for members of a hierarchical organization to achieve a certain rank within a certain period of time. If they fail to do so, they must leave the organization.
Examples ...
" policy, under which scholars who were not promoted were terminated. A small number of extra-departmental positions was set aside for outstanding scholars. This policy led junior faculty to revolt, and nearly resulted in Conant's dismissal in 1938. Conant was fond of saying: "Behold the turtle. It makes progress only when it sticks its neck out."
![Oppenheimer Marshall Conant Bradley and others at Harvard](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/Oppenheimer_Marshall_Conant_Bradley_and_others_at_Harvard.jpg)
Conant added new graduate degrees in education, history of science and public policy, and he introduced the
Nieman Fellowship
The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University awards multiple types of fellowships.
Nieman Fellowships for journalists
A Nieman Fellowship is an award given to journalists by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University ...
for journalists to study at Harvard, the first of which was awarded in 1939. He supported the "meatballs", as
lower class students were called. He instituted the Harvard national scholarships for underprivileged students.
Dudley House was opened as a place where non-resident students could stay. Conant asked two of his assistant deans,
Henry Chauncey Henry Chauncey (February 9, 1905 – December 3, 2002) was a founder and the first president of the Educational Testing Service (ETS).
He graduated from Harvard College
Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy L ...
and William Bender, to determine whether the
Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) was a good measure of academic potential. When they reported that it was, Conant adopted it. He waged a ten-year campaign for the consolidation of testing services, which resulted in the creation of the
Educational Testing Service
Educational Testing Service (ETS), founded in 1947, is the world's largest private nonprofit educational testing and assessment organization. It is headquartered in Lawrence Township, Mercer County, New Jersey, Lawrence Township, New Jersey, b ...
in 1946, with Chauncey as its director.
Theodore H. White, a Boston Jewish "meatball" who received a personal letter of introduction from Conant so that he could report on the
Chinese Civil War
The Chinese Civil War was fought between the Kuomintang-led government of the Republic of China and forces of the Chinese Communist Party, continuing intermittently since 1 August 1927 until 7 December 1949 with a Communist victory on m ...
, noted that "Conant was the first president to recognize that meatballs were Harvard men too."
Instead of conducting separate but identical undergraduate courses for Harvard students and students from
Radcliffe College, Conant instituted co-educational classes. It was during his presidency that the first class of women were admitted to
Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the graduate medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is one of the oldest medical schools in the United States and is consi ...
in 1945, and
Harvard Law School in 1950. Lowell, Conant's predecessor, had imposed a 15 percent quota on Jewish students in 1922, something Conant had voted to support. This quota was later substituted with geographic distribution preferences, having the same effect of limiting Jewish admission. In the words of historians Morton and Phyllis Keller, "Conant's pro-quota position in the early 1920s, his preference for more students from small towns and cities and the South and West, and his cool response to the plight of the Jewish academic refugees from Hitler suggest that he shared the mild antisemitism common to his social group and time. But his commitment to
meritocracy made him more ready to accept able Jews as students and faculty."
In 1934, Harvard-educated German businessman
Ernst Hanfstaengl
Ernst Franz Sedgwick Hanfstaengl (; 2 February 1887 – 6 November 1975) was a German-American businessman and close friend of Adolf Hitler. He eventually fell out of favour with Hitler and defected from Nazi Germany to the United States. He lat ...
attended the 25th anniversary reunion of his class of 1909, and gave a number of speeches, including the 1934
commencement address
A commencement speech or commencement address is a speech given to graduating students, generally at a university, although the term is also used for secondary education institutions and in similar institutions around the world.
The commencement ...
. Hanfstaengl wrote out a check for (roughly equivalent to as of ) to Conant for a scholarship to enable an outstanding Harvard student to study for a year in Germany. The
President and Fellows of Harvard College
The President and Fellows of Harvard College (also called the Harvard Corporation or just the Corporation) is the smaller and more powerful of Harvard University's two governing boards, and is now the oldest corporation in America. Together with ...
rejected the offer due to Hanfstaengl's Nazi associations. When the issue of Hanfstaengl's scholarship came up again in 1936, Conant turned the money down a second time. Hanfstaengl's presence on campus prompted a series of anti-Nazi demonstrations, in which a number of Harvard and
MIT
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...
students were arrested. Conant made a personal plea for clemency that resulted in two girls being acquitted, but six boys and a girl were sentenced to six months in prison.
When the
University of Berlin
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiative ...
awarded an
honorary degree
An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hon ...
in 1934 to American legal scholar and Dean of Harvard Law School
Roscoe Pound
Nathan Roscoe Pound (October 27, 1870 – June 30, 1964) was an American legal scholar and educator. He served as Dean of the University of Nebraska College of Law from 1903 to 1911 and Dean of Harvard Law School from 1916 to 1936. He was a membe ...
, who had toured Germany earlier that year and made no secret of his admiration for the Nazi regime, Conant refused to order Pound not to accept it, and attended the informal award ceremony at Harvard where Pound was presented with the degree by
Hans Luther
Hans Luther () (10 March 1879 – 11 May 1962) was a German politician and Chancellor of Germany for 482 days in 1925 to 1926. As Minister of Finance he helped stabilize the Mark during the hyperinflation of 1923. From 1930 to 1933, Luther was h ...
, the German ambassador to the United States. While Conant declined to participate in the Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced German Scholars, Harvard awarded honorary degrees to two notable displaced scholars,
Thomas Mann
Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novell ...
and
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...
, in 1935. What Conant feared most was disruption to Harvard's tercentennial celebrations in 1936, but there was no trouble, despite the presence of
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...
, the
President of the United States
The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States ...
, and a Harvard graduate of the class of 1904, whom many Harvard graduates regarded as a
socialist
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ...
and a
class traitor
Class traitor is a term used mostly in socialist discourse to refer to a member of the proletarian class who works directly or indirectly against their class interest, or against their economic benefit and in favor of the bourgeoisie. It applies pa ...
. It was only with difficulty that Lowell was persuaded to be presiding officer at an event at which Roosevelt spoke.
An incident took place during the
1941 Harvard–Navy lacrosse game
The Harvard-Navy lacrosse game of 1941 was an intercollegiate lacrosse game played in Annapolis, Maryland, between the Harvard University Crimson and the United States Naval Academy Midshipmen on April 4, 1941. Before the game, the Naval Academ ...
, when the
Harvard Crimson men's lacrosse
The Harvard Crimson men's lacrosse team represents Harvard University in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I men's lacrosse. Harvard competes as a member of the Ivy League and plays its home games at Cumnock Turf and Harvard ...
team attempted to field a player of
African-American descent. The
Navy Midshipmen men's lacrosse
The Navy Midshipmen men's lacrosse team represents the United States Naval Academy in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I men's lacrosse. Navy currently competes as a member of the Patriot League and play their home games ...
team's coach then refused to field his team. Harvard's athletic director, William J. Bingham, overruled his lacrosse coach, and had the player, Lucien Victor Alexis, Jr., sent back to Cambridge on a train. Conant subsequently apologized to the
Commandant of Midshipmen. After serving in World War II, Alexis was refused admittance to Harvard Medical School on the grounds that, as the only black student, he would have no one to room with. Alexis graduated from Harvard Business School instead.
National Defense Research Committee
In June 1940, with World War II already raging in Europe,
Vannevar Bush
Vannevar Bush ( ; March 11, 1890 – June 28, 1974) was an American engineer, inventor and science administrator, who during World War II headed the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), through which almost all warti ...
, the director of the
Carnegie Institution of Washington
The Carnegie Institution of Washington (the organization's legal name), known also for public purposes as the Carnegie Institution for Science (CIS), is an organization in the United States established to fund and perform scientific research. Th ...
, recruited Conant to the
National Defense Research Committee
The National Defense Research Committee (NDRC) was an organization created "to coordinate, supervise, and conduct scientific research on the problems underlying the development, production, and use of mechanisms and devices of warfare" in the Un ...
(NDRC), although he remained president of Harvard. Bush envisaged the NDRC as bringing scientists together to "conduct research for the creation and improvement of instrumentalities, methods and materials of warfare." Although the United States had not yet entered the war, Conant was not alone in his conviction that
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
had to be stopped, and that the United States would inevitably become embroiled in the conflict. The immediate task, as Conant saw it, was therefore to organize American science for war. He became head of the NDRC's Division B, the division responsible for bombs, fuels, gases and chemicals. On June 28, 1941, Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8807, which created the
Office of Scientific Research and Development
The Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) was an agency of the United States federal government created to coordinate scientific research for military purposes during World War II. Arrangements were made for its creation during May 1 ...
(OSRD), with Bush as its director. Conant succeeded Bush as Chairman of the NDRC, which was subsumed into the OSRD.
Roger Adams
Roger Adams (January 2, 1889 – July 6, 1971) was an American organic chemist who developed the eponymous Adams' catalyst, and helped determine the composition of natural substances such as complex vegetable oils and plant alkaloids. He isolat ...
, a contemporary of Conant's at Harvard in the 1910s, succeeded him as head of Division B. Conant became the driving force of the NDRC on personnel and policy matters. The NDRC would work hand in hand with the Army and Navy's research efforts, supplementing rather than supplanting them. It was specifically charged with investigating
nuclear fission.
In February 1941, Roosevelt sent Conant to Britain as head of a mission that also included
Frederick L. Hovde
Frederick Lawson Hovde (7 February 1908 – 1 March 1983) was an American chemical engineer, researcher, educator and president of Purdue University.
Born in Erie, Pennsylvania, Hovde received his Bachelor of Chemical Engineering from the Unive ...
from
Purdue University
Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and mone ...
and
Carroll L. Wilson Carroll L. Wilson (September 21, 1910 – January 12, 1983; aged 72) was a Professor of Management at the Sloan School and the first Mitsui Professor in Problems of Contemporary Technology at MIT
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MI ...
from MIT, to evaluate the research being carried out there and the prospects for cooperation. The 1940
Tizard Mission
The Tizard Mission, officially the British Technical and Scientific Mission, was a British delegation that visited the United States during WWII to obtain the industrial resources to exploit the military potential of the research and development ( ...
had revealed that American technology was some years behind that of Britain in many fields, most notably
radar
Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, we ...
, and cooperation was eagerly sought. Conant had lunch with Prime Minister
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...
and
Frederick Lindemann
Frederick Alexander Lindemann, 1st Viscount Cherwell, ( ; 5 April 18863 July 1957) was a British physicist who was prime scientific adviser to Winston Churchill in World War II.
Lindemann was a brilliant intellectual, who cut through bureauc ...
, his leading scientific adviser, and an audience with
King George VI at
Buckingham Palace. At a subsequent meeting, Lindemann told Conant about British progress towards developing an
atomic bomb. What most impressed Conant was the British conviction that it was feasible. That the British program was ahead of the American one raised the possibility in Conant's mind that the
German nuclear energy project
The Uranverein ( en, "Uranium Club") or Uranprojekt ( en, "Uranium Project") was the name given to the project in Germany to research nuclear technology, including nuclear weapons and nuclear reactors, during World War II. It went through seve ...
might be even further ahead, as Germany was generally acknowledged to be a world leader in nuclear physics. Later that year, Churchill, as Chancellor of the
University of Bristol
, mottoeng = earningpromotes one's innate power (from Horace, ''Ode 4.4'')
, established = 1595 – Merchant Venturers School1876 – University College, Bristol1909 – received royal charter
, type ...
, conferred an honorary
Doctor of Laws
A Doctor of Law is a degree in law. The application of the term varies from country to country and includes degrees such as the Doctor of Juridical Science (J.S.D. or S.J.D), Juris Doctor (J.D.), Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), and Legum Doctor ...
degree on Conant ''in absentia''.
Conant subsequently moved to restrict cooperation with Britain on nuclear energy, particularly its post-war aspects, and became involved in heated negotiations with
Wallace Akers
Sir Wallace Alan Akers (9 September 1888 – 1 November 1954) was a British chemist and industrialist. Beginning his academic career at Oxford he specialized in physical chemistry. During the Second World War, he was the director of the Tube Al ...
, the representative of
Tube Alloys
Tube Alloys was the research and development programme authorised by the United Kingdom, with participation from Canada, to develop nuclear weapons during the Second World War. Starting before the Manhattan Project in the United States, the ...
, the British atomic project. Conant's tough stance, under which the British were excluded except where their assistance was vital, resulted in British retaliation, and a complete breakdown of cooperation. His objections were swept aside by Roosevelt, who brokered the 1943
Quebec Agreement with Churchill, that restored full cooperation. After the
Quebec Conference, Churchill visited Conant at Harvard, where Conant returned the 1941 gesture and presented Churchill with an honorary Doctor of Laws degree. After the United States entered the war in December 1941, the OSRD handed the atomic bomb project, better known as the
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...
,
over to the Army, with Brigadier General
Leslie R. Groves as project director. A meeting that included Conant decided Groves should be answerable to a small committee called the Military Policy Committee, chaired by Bush, with Conant as his alternate. Thus, Conant remained involved in the administration of the Manhattan Project at its highest levels.
In August 1942, Roosevelt appointed Conant to the Rubber Survey Committee. Chaired by
Bernard M. Baruch, a trusted adviser and confidant of Roosevelt, the committee was tasked with reviewing the synthetic rubber program.
Corporations used
patent law
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...
s to restrict competition and stifle innovation. When the
Japanese occupation of Malaya, North Borneo and Sarawak
The then British colony of Malaya was gradually occupied by the Japanese between 8 December 1941 and the Allied surrender at Singapore on 16 February 1942. The Japanese remained in occupation until their surrender to the Allies in 1945. The ...
, followed by the
Japanese occupation of Indonesia
The Empire of Japan occupied the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) during World War II from March 1942 until after the end of the war in September 1945. It was one of the most crucial and important periods in modern Indonesian history.
In Ma ...
, cut off 90 percent of the supply of natural rubber,
the rubber shortage became a national scandal, and the development of synthetic substitutes, an urgent priority.
Baruch dealt with the difficult political issues; Conant concerned himself with the technical ones. There were a number of different synthetic rubber products to choose from. In addition to
DuPont's
neoprene,
Standard Oil had licensed German patents for a
copolymer
In polymer chemistry, a copolymer is a polymer derived from more than one species of monomer. The polymerization of monomers into copolymers is called copolymerization. Copolymers obtained from the copolymerization of two monomer species are some ...
called
Buna-N
Nitrile rubber, also known as nitrile butadiene rubber, NBR, Buna-N, and acrylonitrile butadiene rubber, is a synthetic rubber derived from acrylonitrile (ACN) and butadiene. Trade names include Perbunan, Nipol, Krynac and Europrene. This rubber i ...
and a related product,
Buna-S. None had been manufactured on the scale now required, and there was pressure from agricultural interests to choose a process which involved making raw materials from farm products. The Rubber Survey Committee made a series of recommendations, including the appointment of a rubber director, and the construction and operation of 51 factories to supply the materials needed for synthetic rubber production.
Technical problems dogged the program through 1943, but by late 1944 plants were in operation with an annual capacity of over a million tons, most of which was Buna-S.
In May 1945, Conant became part of the
Interim Committee that was formed to advise the new president,
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. A leader of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 34th vice president from January to April 1945 under Franklin ...
on nuclear weapons. The Interim Committee decided that the atomic bomb should be used against an industrial target in Japan as soon as possible and without warning. On July 16, 1945, Conant was among the dignitaries present at the
Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range
Alamogordo () is the seat of Otero County, New Mexico, United States. A city in the Tularosa Basin of the Chihuahuan Desert, it is bordered on the east by the Sacramento Mountains and to the west by Holloman Air Force Base. The population was ...
for the
Trinity nuclear test
Trinity was the code name of the first detonation of a nuclear weapon. It was conducted by the United States Army at 5:29 a.m. on July 16, 1945, as part of the Manhattan Project. The test was conducted in the Jornada del Muerto desert abo ...
, the first detonation of an atomic bomb. After the war, Conant became concerned about growing criticism in the United States of the
bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
The United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945, respectively. The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the onl ...
by figures like
Norman Cousins
Norman Cousins (June 24, 1915 – November 30, 1990) was an American political journalist, author, professor, and world peace advocate.
Early life
Cousins was born to Jewish immigrant parents Samuel Cousins and Sarah Babushkin Cousins, in West ...
and
Reinhold Niebuhr
Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr (June 21, 1892 – June 1, 1971) was an American Reformed theologian, ethicist, commentator on politics and public affairs, and professor at Union Theological Seminary for more than 30 years. Niebuhr was one of Ameri ...
. He played an important behind-the-scenes role in shaping public opinion by instigating and then editing an influential February 1947 ''
Harper's'' article entitled "The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb". Written by former Secretary of War
Henry L. Stimson
Henry Lewis Stimson (September 21, 1867 – October 20, 1950) was an American statesman, lawyer, and Republican Party politician. Over his long career, he emerged as a leading figure in U.S. foreign policy by serving in both Republican and D ...
with the help of
McGeorge Bundy, the article stressed that the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were used to avoid the possibility of "over a million casualties", from a figure found in the estimates given to the
Joint Chiefs of Staff
The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) is the body of the most senior uniformed leaders within the United States Department of Defense, that advises the president of the United States, the secretary of defense, the Homeland Security Council and the ...
by its Joint Planning Staff in 1945.
Cold War
The
Atomic Energy Act of 1946 replaced the wartime Manhattan Project with the
Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) on January 1, 1947. The Act also established the General Advisory Committee (GAC) within the AEC to provide it with scientific and technical advice. It was widely expected that Conant would chair the GAC, but the position went to
Robert Oppenheimer
J. Robert Oppenheimer (; April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physicist. A professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, Oppenheimer was the wartime head of the Los Alamos Laboratory and is often ...
, the wartime director of the
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos National Laboratory (often shortened as Los Alamos and LANL) is one of the sixteen research and development laboratories of the United States Department of Energy (DOE), located a short distance northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico, ...
that had designed and developed the first atomic bombs. At the same time, the Joint Research and Development Board (JRDC) was established to coordinate defense research, and Bush asked Conant to head its atomic energy subcommittee, on which Oppenheimer also served. When the new AEC chairman
David E. Lilienthal raised security concerns about Oppenheimer's relationships with
communists, including Oppenheimer's brother
Frank Oppenheimer
Frank Friedman Oppenheimer (August 14, 1912 – February 3, 1985) was an American particle physicist, cattle rancher, professor of physics at the University of Colorado, and the founder of the Exploratorium in San Francisco.
A younger brother ...
, his wife Kitty and his former girlfriend
Jean Tatlock, Bush and Conant reassured Lilienthal that they had known about it when they had placed Oppenheimer in charge at Los Alamos in 1942. With such expressions of support, AEC issued Oppenheimer a
Q clearance
Q clearance or Q access authorization is the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) security clearance required to access Top Secret Restricted Data, Formerly Restricted Data, and National Security Information, as well as Secret Restricted Data. Restri ...
, granting him access to atomic secrets.
![Truman, Bush and Conant](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Truman%2C_Bush_and_Conant.jpg)
By September 1948, the
Red Scare began to take hold, and Conant called for a ban on hiring teachers who were communists, although not for the dismissal of those who had already been hired. A debate ensued over whether communist educators could teach apolitical subjects. Conant was a member of the Educational Policies Commission (EPC), a body to which he had been appointed in 1941. When it next met in March 1949, Conant's push for a ban was supported by the president of Columbia University,
General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...
. The two found common ground in their belief in ideology-based education, which Conant called "democratic education". He did not see public education as a side effect of American democracy, but as one of its principal driving forces, and he disapproved of the public funding of
denominational school
A faith school is a school in the United Kingdom that teaches a general curriculum but which has a particular religious character or formal links with a religious or faith-based organisation. The term is most commonly applied to state-funded fait ...
s that he observed in Australia during his visit there in 1951. He called for increased federal spending on education, and higher taxes to redistribute wealth. His thinking was outlined in his books ''Education in a Divided World'' in 1948, and ''Education and Liberty'' in 1951. In 1952, he went further and endorsed the dismissal of academics who invoked the
Fifth under questioning by the
House Un-American Activities Committee.
A sign of Conant's declining influence occurred in 1950, when he was passed over for the post of President of the National Academy of Sciences in favor of
Detlev Bronk
Detlev Wulf Bronk (August 13, 1897 – November 17, 1975) was a prominent American scientist, educator, and administrator. He is credited with establishing biophysics as a recognized discipline. Bronk served as president of Johns Hopkins Universi ...
, the President of
Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consi ...
, after a "revolt" by scientists unhappy with Conant. The GAC was enormously influential throughout the late 1940s, but the opposition of Oppenheimer and Conant to the development of the
hydrogen bomb, only to be overridden by Truman in 1950, diminished its stature. It was reduced further when Oppenheimer and Conant were not reappointed when their terms expired in 1952, depriving the GAC of its two best-known members. Conant was appointed to the National Science Board, which administered the new
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...
, and was elected its chairman, but this body had little financial or political clout. In April 1951, Truman appointed Conant to the
Science Advisory Committee, but it would not develop into an influential body until the Eisenhower administration.
Conant's experience with the Manhattan Project convinced him that the public needed a better understanding of science, and he moved to revitalize the
history and philosophy of science
The history and philosophy of science (HPS) is an academic discipline that encompasses the philosophy of science and the history of science. Although many scholars in the field are trained primarily as either historians or as philosophers, there ...
program at Harvard. He took the lead personally by teaching a new undergraduate course, Natural Science 4, "On Understanding Science". His course notes became the basis for a book of the same name, published in 1948. In 1952, he began teaching another undergraduate course, Philosophy 150, "A Philosophy of Science". In his teachings and writing on the philosophy of science, he drew heavily on those of his Harvard colleague
Willard Van Orman Quine
Willard Van Orman Quine (; known to his friends as "Van"; June 25, 1908 – December 25, 2000) was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition, recognized as "one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century" ...
. Conant contributed four chapters to the 1957 ''Harvard Case Histories in Experimental Science'', including an account of the overthrow of the
phlogiston theory
The phlogiston theory is a superseded scientific theory that postulated the existence of a fire-like element called phlogiston () contained within combustible bodies and released during combustion. The name comes from the Ancient Greek (''burni ...
. In 1951, he published ''Science and Common Sense'', in which he attempted to explain the ways of scientists to laymen. Conant's ideas about scientific progress would come under attack by his own protégés, notably
Thomas Kuhn
Thomas Samuel Kuhn (; July 18, 1922 – June 17, 1996) was an American philosopher of science whose 1962 book '' The Structure of Scientific Revolutions'' was influential in both academic and popular circles, introducing the term ''paradig ...
in ''
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
''The Structure of Scientific Revolutions'' (1962; second edition 1970; third edition 1996; fourth edition 2012) is a book about the history of science by philosopher Thomas S. Kuhn. Its publication was a landmark event in the history, philoso ...
''. Conant commented on Kuhn's manuscript in draft form.
High Commissioner
![Dr](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/Dr._James_B_Conant_1953_Berlin.jpeg)
In April 1951 Conant had been approached by the
Secretary of State,
Dean Acheson, about replacing
John J. McCloy
John Jay McCloy (March 31, 1895 – March 11, 1989) was an American lawyer, diplomat, banker, and a presidential advisor. He served as Assistant Secretary of War during World War II under Henry Stimson, helping deal with issues such as German sa ...
as
United States High Commissioner for Germany, but had declined. However, after Eisenhower was elected president in 1952, Conant was again offered the job by the new Secretary of State,
John Foster Dulles, and this time he accepted. At the
Harvard Board of Overseers The Harvard Board of Overseers (more formally The Honorable and Reverend the Board of Overseers) is one of Harvard University's two governing boards. Although its function is more consultative and less hands-on than the President and Fellows of Harv ...
meeting on January 12, 1952, Conant announced that he would retire in September 1953 after twenty years at Harvard, having reached the pension age of sixty.
In Germany, there were major issues to be decided. Germany was still occupied by the Soviet Union, the United States, Great Britain and France. Dealing with the wartime allies was a major task for the high commissioner. West Germany, made up of the zones occupied by the three western powers, had been granted control of its own affairs, except for defense and foreign policy, in 1949. While most Germans wanted a neutral and reunited Germany, the Eisenhower administration sought to reduce its defense spending by rearming Germany and replacing American troops with Germans. Meanwhile, the House Un-American Activities Committee slammed Conant's staff as communist sympathizers and called for books by communist authors held in
United States Information Agency
The United States Information Agency (USIA), which operated from 1953 to 1999, was a United States agency devoted to " public diplomacy". In 1999, prior to the reorganization of intelligence agencies by President George W. Bush, President Bil ...
(USIA) libraries in Germany to be burned.
The first crisis to occur on Conant's watch was the
uprising of 1953 in East Germany
The East German uprising of 1953 (german: Volksaufstand vom 17. Juni 1953 ) was an uprising that occurred in East Germany from 16 to 17 June 1953. It began with a strike action by construction workers in East Berlin on 16 June against w ...
. This brought the reunification issue to the fore.
Konrad Adenauer
Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer (; 5 January 1876 – 19 April 1967) was a German statesman who served as the first chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1949 to 1963. From 1946 to 1966, he was the first leader of the Christian Dem ...
's deft handling of the issue enabled him to handily win re-election as
Chancellor of West Germany
The chancellor of Germany, officially the federal chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany,; often shortened to ''Bundeskanzler''/''Bundeskanzlerin'', / is the head of the federal government of Germany and the commander in chief of the Ge ...
in September, but this also strengthened his hand in negotiations with Conant. Adenauer did not want his country to become a bargaining chip between the United States and the Soviet Union, nor did he want it to become a nuclear battlefield, a prospect raised by the arrival of American tactical nuclear weapons in 1953 as part of the Eisenhower administration's
New Look policy. Conant lobbied for the
European Defense Community
The Treaty establishing the European Defence Community, also known as the Treaty of Paris, is an unratified treaty signed on 27 May 1952 by the six 'inner' countries of European integration: the Benelux countries, France, Italy, and West German ...
, which would have established a
pan-European military. This seemed to be the only way that German rearmament would be accepted, but opposition from France killed the plan. In what Conant considered a minor miracle, France's actions cleared the way for West Germany to become part of
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
with its own army.
At noon on May 6, 1955, Conant, along with the high commissioners from Britain and France, signed the documents ending Allied control of West Germany, admitting it to NATO, and allowing it to rearm. The office of the United States High Commissioner was abolished and Conant became instead the first
United States Ambassador to West Germany
The United States has had diplomatic relations with the nation of Germany and its principal predecessor nation, the Kingdom of Prussia, since 1835. These relations were broken twice (1917 to 1921, and 1941 to 1955) while Germany and the United St ...
. His role was now to encourage West Germany to build up its forces, while reassuring the Germans that doing so would not result in a United States withdrawal. Being fluent in German, Conant was able to give speeches to German audiences. He paid numerous visits to German educational and scientific organizations.
While high commissioner, Conant approved the release of many major and other German war criminals after serving only a fraction of their sentences, against protests from American political leaders and veterans' organizations (some of those sentenced had murdered American prisoners), accusing him of "moral amnesia". Such criticism continued when as ambassador he supported the West German government's leniency toward former Nazis.
Later life
![Atomic Pioneers Awards Washington DC (7649993674)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/Atomic_Pioneers_Awards_Washington_DC_%287649993674%29.jpg)
Conant returned to the United States in February 1957, and moved to an apartment on the
Upper East Side
The Upper East Side, sometimes abbreviated UES, is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 96th Street to the north, the East River to the east, 59th Street to the south, and Central Park/Fifth Avenue to the wes ...
of New York. Between 1957 and 1965, the
Carnegie Corporation of New York gave him over a million dollars to write studies of education. In 1959 he published ''
The American High School Today'', better known as the Conant Report. This became a best seller, resulting in Conant's appearance on the cover of
''Time'' magazine on September 14, 1959. In it, Conant called for a number of reforms, including the consolidation of high schools into larger bodies that could offer a broader range of curriculum choices. Although it was slammed by critics of the American system, who hoped for a system of education based on the European model, it did lead to a wave of reforms across the country. His subsequent ''Slums and Suburbs'' in 1961 was far more controversial in its treatment of racial issues. Regarding
busing as impractical, Conant urged Americans "to accept ''de facto'' segregated schools". This did not go over well with civil rights groups, and by 1964 Conant was forced to admit that he had been wrong. In ''The Education of American Teachers'' in 1963, Conant found much to criticize about the training of teachers. Most controversial was his defense of the arrangement by which teachers were certified by independent bodies rather than the teacher training colleges.
President
Lyndon Johnson presented Conant with the
Presidential Medal of Freedom
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest civilian award of the United States, along with the Congressional Gold Medal. It is an award bestowed by the president of the United States to recognize people who have made "an especially merit ...
, with special distinction, on December 6, 1963. He had been selected for the award by President
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination ...
, but the ceremony had been delayed, and went ahead after Kennedy's assassination in November 1963. In February 1970, President
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...
presented Conant with the Atomic Pioneers Award from the Atomic Energy Commission. Other awards that Conant received during his long career included being made a Commander of
Légion d'honneur
The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon ...
by France in 1936 and an Honorary
Commander of the Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations,
and public service outside the civil service. It was established ...
by Britain in 1948, and he was awarded the Grand Cross of the
Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
The Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (german: Verdienstorden der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, or , BVO) is the only federal decoration of Germany. It is awarded for special achievements in political, economic, cultural, intellect ...
in 1957. He was also awarded over 50 honorary degrees, and was posthumously inducted into the Alpha Chi Sigma Hall of Fame in 2000.
Between 1965 and 1969, Conant, suffering from a heart condition, worked on his biography, ''My Several Lives''. He became increasingly infirm, and suffered a series of
strokes in 1977. He died in a nursing home in
Hanover, New Hampshire
Hanover is a town located along the Connecticut River in Grafton County, New Hampshire, United States. As of the 2020 census, its population was 11,870. The town is home to the Ivy League university Dartmouth College, the U.S. Army Corps of En ...
, on February 11, 1978. His body was cremated and his ashes interred in the Thayer-Richards family plot at
Mount Auburn Cemetery. He was survived by his wife and sons. His papers are in the Harvard University Archives. Among them was a sealed brown Manila envelope that Conant had given the archives in 1951, with instructions that it was to be opened by the President of Harvard in the 21st century. Opened by Harvard's 28th president,
Drew Faust
Catharine Drew Gilpin Faust (born September 18, 1947) is an American historian and was the 28th president of Harvard University, the first woman to serve in that role. She was Harvard's first president since 1672 without an undergraduate or gradu ...
, in 2007, it contained a letter in which Conant expressed his hopes and fears for the future. "You will... be in charge of a more prosperous and significant institution than the one over which I have the honor to preside", he wrote. "That
arvardwill maintain the traditions of academic freedom, of tolerance for heresy, I feel sure."
Legacy
Conant is the namesake of
James B. Conant High School
James B. Conant High School is a public four-year high school located in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, a northwest suburb of Chicago, Illinois, in the United States. It is part of Township High School District 211, which also includes William Fremd ...
in
Hoffman Estates, Illinois
Hoffman Estates is a village in Illinois, United States. The village is located primarily in Cook County, with a small section in Kane County. It is a suburb of Chicago. Per the 2020 census, the population was 52,530.
The village now serves a ...
, as well as
James B. Conant Elementary School in
Bloomfield Hills, Michigan
Bloomfield Hills is a small city (5.04 sq. miles) in Oakland County in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is a northern suburb of Metro Detroit and is approximately northwest of Downtown Detroit. Except a small southern border with the city of Bir ...
.
Graduate students
Former graduate students of Conant include:
*
Louis Fieser
Louis Frederick Fieser (April 7, 1899 – July 25, 1977) was an American organic chemist, professor, and in 1968, professor emeritus at Harvard University. He is known for inventing military effective napalm whilst he worked at Harvard in 194 ...
– organic chemist and professor emeritus at Harvard University renowned as the inventor of a militarily effective form of napalm. His award-winning research included work on blood-clotting agents including the first synthesis of vitamin K, synthesis and screening of quinones as antimalarial drugs, work with steroids leading to the synthesis of cortisone, and study of the nature of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.
*
Benjamin S. Garvey Dr. Benjamin St. John Garvey (1900–1973) was a chemist at BF Goodrich who worked under Waldo L. Semon on the development of synthetic rubber, contributed to understanding of vulcanization, and developed early techniques for small scale evaluation ...
– noted chemist at BF Goodrich who worked on the development of synthetic rubber, contributed to understanding of vulcanization, and developed early techniques for small scale evaluation of rubbers.
*
Frank Westheimer – was the Morris Loeb Professor of Chemistry Emeritus at Harvard University.
Bibliography
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For a complete list of his published scientific papers, see .
Notes
References
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* Wayne J. Urban, Scholarly Leadership in Higher Education: An Intellectual History of James Bryan Conant (Bloomsbury, 2021)
External links
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1965 Audio Interview with James B. Conant by Stephane GroueffVoices of the Manhattan Project
* Correspondence between Conant and
Linus Pauling.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Conant, James Bryant
1893 births
1978 deaths
Conant family
Ambassadors of the United States to Germany
American physical chemists
Commandeurs of the Légion d'honneur
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
Fellows of the Royal Institute of Chemistry
Foreign Members of the Royal Society
Grand Crosses 1st class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
Harvard College alumni
Harvard University faculty
Honorary Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
Manhattan Project people
Medal for Merit recipients
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
People from Boston
Presidents of Harvard University
U.S. Synthetic Rubber Program
Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients
20th-century American diplomats
Burials at Mount Auburn Cemetery
20th-century American academics