William L. Everitt
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William Littell Everitt (April 14, 1900 – September 6, 1986) was a noted American
electrical engineer Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...
, educator, and founding member of the National Academy of Engineering. He received his Ph.D. from The Ohio State University in 1933. He was adviser of numerous outstanding scientists at OSU including Karl Spangenberg, and Nelson Wax. His PhD adviser was Frederic Columbus Blake.


Biography

Everitt was born in
Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was ...
. From 1918-1919 he served in the United States Marine Corps, then joined Cornell University to study electrical engineering where he received his E.E. degree in 1922. From 1922-1924 he worked at the North Electric Manufacturing Company of Galion, Ohio, on telephony switchboards, then studied electrical engineering at the University of Michigan where he received his M.A. in 1926. He then joined Ohio State University (OSU) as assistant professor, becoming associate professor (1929) and full professor (1933) when he received that institution's Ph.D. under Frederic Blake. His dissertation was entitled ''The Calculation and Design of Alternating Current Networks Employing Triodes Operating During a Portion of a Cycle''. While at OSU he developed the theory of Class B and Class C
electronic amplifier An amplifier, electronic amplifier or (informally) amp is an electronic device that can increase the magnitude of a Signal (information theory), signal (a time-varying voltage or Electric current, current). It may increase the power (physics ...
s. In 1940 Everitt was appointed to the National Defense Research Committee's Communications Section, and in 1942 became director of operations research with the United States Army Signal Corps, for which he received the Exceptionally Meritorious Civilian Award (1946). He was then professor of electrical engineering and head of department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1944–49) and dean (1949–68). One of the engineering buildings there bears his name. In his long career, Everitt was a radar pioneer and author of basic texts on radio engineering and communication. He invented automatic telephone equipment, a "time compressor" to accelerate recorded speech, high-power radio amplification, a frequency modulation radio altimeter, and several antenna matching and feeding systems. His textbook ''Communications Engineering'', first published in 1932, was a classic in the field. Everitt became Institute of Radio Engineers Fellow (1938), President (1945), and received its IEEE Medal of Honor in 1954 "for his distinguished career as author, educator and scientist; for his contributions in establishing electronics and communications as a major branch of electrical engineering; for his unselfish service to his country; for his leadership in the affairs of the Institute of Radio Engineers." He was named to the National Academy of Engineering in 1964. Everitt was also a Fellow of AIEE, and a member of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...
, the American Society for Engineering Education, the Acoustical Society of America, Eta Kappa Nu, the National Council of
Tau Beta Pi The Tau Beta Pi Association (commonly Tau Beta Pi, , or TBP) is the oldest engineering honor society and the second oldest collegiate honor society in the United States. It honors engineering students in American universities who have shown a ...
, and Sigma Xi, and received 10 honorary doctorate degrees. Everitt's daughter, Barbara Everitt Bryant, became the first woman to direct the United States Census Bureau.. Includes links to detailed biography and to PDF interview, January 19, 1993.


Selected works

* ''Communication engineering'', 1st ed., New York London, McGraw-Hill, 1932.


Notes


References


IEEE History Center biography

National Academy of Engineering biography

American Institute of Physics. Early 1930s Ph.D.s Project. Responses to Early Ph.D.s Survey, 1980

Mathematics Genealogy Project

SMU Honorary Degrees



UIUC Library Archive collection


* {{DEFAULTSORT:Everitt, William Littell 1900 births 1986 deaths 20th-century American engineers Founding members of the United States National Academy of Engineering IEEE Medal of Honor recipients Cornell University College of Engineering alumni Ohio State University faculty University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign faculty University of Michigan College of Engineering alumni Fellow Members of the IEEE Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Microwave engineers