Crusading for chemistry : the professional career of Charles Holmes Herty /

Herty (1867-1938) was a key figure in the chemical industrialization of the US. Broad experience in academic research, government service, editorial work, and service with chemical industry associations gave him a profound understanding of the relationship between basic science and industrial development. Early in his career, he saved the naval stores industry from depleting the southern long-leaf pine by introducing improved collection and manufacturing methods of turpentine and rosin. Near its end, he established the American pulp and paper industry. In between, he lobbied effectively for US dyestuff, pharmaceutical, and synthetic organic chemical companies. The central section of the book forms a significant contribution to the history of modern chemistry. The merits of protective tariffs for a national industry can be debated; the factual basis for any such debate is here laid out clearly and in scholarly detail, with thorough documentation in 75 pages of notes, a bibliography, and an excellent analytical index. The book is accessible to the general reader, but its greater value will be as a source for the serious student of the 20th-century history of chemistry in the US. General; undergraduate through professional. C. W. Beck; emeritus, Vassar College