Charles C. Price

During the course of this interview, Charles Price discusses his life and career as a chemist. Initially, he recalls his childhood, early education, and undergraduate life at Swarthmore College. Price then speaks about his teachers and colleagues at Harvard University, where he did graduate work. Considerations about his work at the University of Illinois, his first faculty appointment, and research for the National Defense Research Committee during the war follow. Price explains why he assumed the chairmanship of the department of chemistry at the University of Notre Dame and why he convened the first Conference on Organic Reaction Mechanisms, a landmark in the development of physical organic chemistry. Price elucidates his research at Notre Dame and then at the University of Pennsylvania, where, as chairman, he helped to rebuild the department of chemistry. The interview concludes with Price discussing his more recent chemical research, the current state of physical organic chemistry, his family, and his political and sporting activities.

University of Illinois

1936 - 1946 Assistant Professor to Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry

Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn

1945 - 1945 Visiting Lecturer

University of Notre Dame

1946 - 1954 Professor and Chairman of Department of Chemistry

National Research Council

1947 - 1951 Member of Subcommittee on Plastics

University of Pennsylvania

1951 - 1955 Member of Committee on Mathematics, Physics, and Engineering Science Department of Chemistry

University of Pennsylvania

1954 - 1966 Blanchard Professor and Chairman

University of Pennsylvania

1966 - 1978 University Professor

University of Pennsylvania

1978 - Present Emeritus professor of chemistry

Leon B. Gortler

Leon Gortler is a professor of chemistry at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. He holds A.B. and M.S. degrees from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. from Harvard University where he worked with Paul Bartlett. He has long been interested in the history of chemistry, in particular the development of physical organic chemistry, and has conducted over fifty oral and videotaped interviews with major American chemists.