Call Number:

02.001

Repository:

Science History Institute Archives

Extent:

55 photographic prints (1 box)

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

Photographs from the Papers of Charles Phelps Smyth, Chemical Heritage Foundation Archives, Philadelphia, PA.

Date:

1900-1970 (inclusive) and 1945-1954 (bulk)

Creator:

Smyth, Charles Phelps, 1895-1990

Form:

Photographs and Photograph collections

Abstract:

Black and white photographs documenting Charles Phelps Smyth's professional activities and achievements and photographs taken by Smyth in Germany during World War II.

Charles Phelps Smyth was born in Clinton, New York on February 10, 1895. He received his bachelors and masters degrees from Princeton University and his Ph.D. from Harvard University where he studied under the Nobel laureate Theodore W. Richards. Smyth served in the National Bureau of Standards and the Chemical Warfare Service during World War I, and from 1920 to 1963 he was a faculty member in the Princeton Department of Chemistry. His field of interest was dielectrics and atomic structure. During World War II, Smyth worked on the Manhattan Project, mostly from Princeton. At the end of the war he was sent to Germany as a member of the Office of Scientific Research and Development's ALSOS Mission to locate and secure scientists and equipment involved with Germany's uranium (nuclear energy) efforts. Smyth received the Medal of Freedom in 1947, the ACS Nichols Medal in 1954 and in 1955 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. He served as a consultant to the Office of Naval Research from 1963-1969 and 1971-1978. Smyth died in Bozeman, Montana on March 3, 1990.

For a more detailed inventory, please view this collection in our online library catalog: https://othmerlib.sciencehistory.org/record=b1075383~S6

This collection consists of black and white photographs of various sizes and some postcards and color prints documenting Charles Phelps Smyth's professional activities and achievements from circa 1918 through 1970. Photographs depicting towns, landscapes, and military personnel taken by Smyth in Germany in 1945 make up about half of the collection. Other photographs show conferences, seminars, and awards ceremonies, including Smyth receiving the Medal of Freedom in 1947, while the postcards are of a more personal nature. Of particular note are color prints of Smyth featured on the March 1954 covers of Chemical Engineering News and the American Chemical Society's magazine The Illustrator. A few pictures from Smyth's earlier years include a tintype of him as a child in 1900 and photographs of him during World War I and his time at Harvard. One photograph is stored in a flat file.