Crusading for Chemistry: The Professional Career of Charles Holmes Herty - Hardcover

Reed, Germaine M.

9780820316710: Crusading for Chemistry: The Professional Career of Charles Holmes Herty

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0820316717 ISBN 13: 9780820316710

Publisher: Univ of Georgia Pr, 1995

Charles Holmes Herty (1867-1938) was born in Milledgeville, Georgia. After receiving his Ph.D. in chemistry from the Johns Hopkins University, Herty taught at the University of Georgia and at the University of North Carolina. He also spent two years in the United States Department of Agriculture's Bureau of Forestry, developing an improved system of turpentining that revolutionized the American naval stores industry and won him an international reputation.
As president of the American Chemical Society, editor of its industrial journal, adviser to the Chemical Foundation, and as a private consultant, Herty continued to promote southern industrial development through chemistry. On a national level, he urged military preparedness on the Wilson administration, lobbied Congress for protection of war-born chemical industries, and promoted continued cooperation and research by business, government, and universities. Finally, in 1932, he established a pulp and paper laboratory at Savannah, Georgia, to prove that cheap, fast-growing southern pine could replace Canadian spruce in the manufacture of newsprint and white paper. As a direct result of Herty's research and his missionary-like zeal, construction of South's first newsprint plant was begun near Lufkin, Texas, in 1938.
This exhaustively researched biography enhances our understanding of how American science-based industries developed in the early twentieth century.

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About the Author:

Germaine M. Reed is an associate professor of history at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Review:

A thorough account of an important man who left his mark on American chemistry and the chemical industry.

(Technology and Culture)

Reed’s book, most significant as a contribution to the history of science, is also valuable for shedding light on the process by which scientists inserted themselves into debates over public policy.

(Business History Review)

Reed has written a first-rate historical study that does much to characterize not only one ‘big’ man but also his professional community. It is a fine example of contemporary interdisciplinary scholarship.

(American Historical Review)

Reed’s thoroughly researched biography . . . is carefully crafted to analyze not only Herty’s work but also his impact on the chemical profession and American Industry. Reed’s success with the latter objective adds enormously to the value of this volume.

(Journal of Southern History)

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