Roger Adams

Chemical Research in the War and Postwar Periods: Head of Chemistry Department, University of Illinois, Urbana, Ill., and Chairman of Board of Directors, AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY

IT IS a real privilege to be here this evening to speak at the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ira Remsen. To him, the pioneer who introduced the spirit of chemical research into the laboratories of our country, the chemists are profoundly indebted. Ira Remsen as a young man was trained for the medical profession, but he felt a need and sought a more precise science for satisfying his inquiring mind. This he found in chemistry. After five years of study and research with leaders in Germany, he returned to the United States to begin independent investigations. He first taught at Williams College where, with scanty laboratory equipment and lack of interest on the part of administrative officers, conditions were discouraging. In spite of these handicaps he started experimentation with an unusual and unprecedented seriousness and published the results of this early work, nine papers in all, in foreign journals and ...