 |
Interview no.: 0263
Date of interview: 30 May 1991, 13 September 2002, and 22 November 2002
Location: Harvard Medical School, Harvard School of Public Health, and Cambridge, Massachusetts
No. of pages: 64
Interviewer:
James J. Bohning, Arnold Thackray
Minutes:
Sponsor: Rollin M. Gerstacker Foundation
Access level: Free Access. Users may view, quote from, cite, or reproduce the oral history with the permission of CHF. Users citing interviews for purposes of publication are obliged under the terms of the CHF Oral History Program to notify CHF of publication and credit CHF using the following format: [Name of interviewee], interview by [name of interviewer] at [interview location], [interview date] (Philadelphia: Chemical Heritage Foundation, Oral History Transcript # [interview number]).
|
Elkan R. Blout begins the interview with a description of his family and childhood. Growing up in Manhattan as an only child, Blout was cared for by his parents, aunts, and uncles. He attended DeWitt Clinton High School, in the Bronx, earning marks that were high enough to skip three grades. Blout was still too young to attend college when he graduated, so he enrolled in the Philips Exeter Academy. The school was tough both scholastically and socially, but he made it through by attending his classes regularly, and playing bridge. After a year at Exeter, Blout attended Princeton University, becoming one of only twelve Jewish students accepted in 1935. As a Jewish student, Blout struggled against discrimination from both the University and the students. He graduated in 1939, and married Joan E. Dreyfus that same year. In 1942, Blout received his Ph.D. in chemistry from Columbia University. He then accepted a fellowship at Harvard University, where he worked with Louis Feiser and R. B. Woodward. After a year, Edwin H. Land offered Blout a position at the Polaroid Company. At Polaroid, he helped develop the instant photographic process and the color translating microscope. At the same time, he received a research grant to study synthetic polypeptides, and established a spectroscopy laboratory at Children’s Hospital of Boston. In 1961, Blout left Polaroid for more academic pursuits at Harvard Medical School. During his long, fruitful relationship with Harvard University, Blout has done much to improve both Harvard’s Medical School and Harvard’s School of Public Health. In 1984, Blout divorced Joan Dreyfus and married Gail Ferris. In 1991, Blout became the senior science advisor for the Food and Drug Administration. Blout concludes the interview by expressing gratitude for the John Philips Award, which he was awarded in 1998.
|
| Title & Description |
|
Page No. |
|
|
|
Childhood, Education, and Marriage
Growing up as an only child in Manhattan during the Great Depression. Attending P.S. 52 elementary school and DeWitt Clinton High School. The Phillips Exeter Academy. John Hogg. Princeton University. Running the Campus Sales Agency. Marriage in 1939 to Joan E. Dreyfus. Post-graduate work at Columbia University. NRC Fellowship. Robert C. Elderfield. Working with the Beckman DU. Louis F. Fieser. Robert B. Woodward. William Doering. |
|
1 |
|
|
|
Career at Polaroid
Quinine work. Jim Sprague and Sharp & Dohme. Edwin H. “Din” Land. Description of early Polaroid Company. Doering and Columbia University. Robert D. Conrad. The color-translating microscope. Julius Silver and the board of trustees. Success with black and white instant photography. Din presses for instant color photography. Howard G. Rogers. Experimenting with dyes. Maurice Pechet. Sidney Farber. Working at Children’s Hospital Medical Center. Polypeptide work. Jack Dreyfus. William J. McCune. As vice president and a millionaire. Harvard University. Living with Sidney Farber. |
|
13 |
|
|
|
From Polaroid to the American Academy
Working to create instant-color film. Polaroid’s patent suit against Eastman Kodak. Shock research. As full professor at Harvard. Election to NAS. The CHON Corporation. The Bay Biochemical Research non-profit organization. Pierre Crabbé. As dean of the School of Public Health. Howard H. Hiatt. NAS treasurer and international affairs committee. Frank Press. Samuel O. Thier. Paul Samuelson. NAS study of immune deficiency diseases. The National Research Council. Bruce Alberts. The American Academy’s lack of purpose. |
|
21 |
|
|
|
The Industry and the Arts
Derek Bok. Barry Bloom. Enanta Pharmaceuticals, Inc. The Novirex Company. The IOCD and the IIVD. The Affymax Corporation. Alejandro Zaffaroni. Founding the Journal of Biopolymers. Working as a CBR trustee. The Marine Protein Corporation. The Big Drop with Carl Djerassi. I Remember Mama. Consulting for the Monsanto-Washington University research agreement. Arnold Levine. |
|
33 |
|
|
|
Reflections on Life and Career
Norman Simmons. Ephraim K. Katzir. Linus C. Pauling. Polaroid’s recent decline. Stanley Calderwood. Elkan Blout’s current relationship with William McCune. Edwin Land and the American Academy. |
|
40 |
|
|
|
Conclusion
Marriage to Joan Dreyfus, and their three children. Vacationing in Cuttyhunk, Massachusetts. Nomad and Peptide. Separation and divorce. Marrying Gail Ferris. Adopting Darya. Living in Cambridge and Marion. David Kessler. The positives and negatives of working for the FDA. Hobbies. The Elkan Blout Foundation. Winning the John Phillips Award. |
|
45 |
|
|
|
Notes
|
|
57 |
|
|
|
Index
|
|
58 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 1939 |
|
B.A., chemistry, Princeton University |
|
|
|
| 1942 |
|
Ph.D., chemistry, Columbia University |
|
|
|
| Columbia University |
| 1939-1942 |
|
Research Assistant |
|
|
|
| Harvard University |
| 1942-1943 |
|
Research Fellow in Chemistry |
|
|
|
| The Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts |
| 1950-1962 |
|
Research Associate, The Children’s Cancer Research Foundation |
|
|
|
| Polaroid Corporation |
| 1943-1962 |
|
Chemist, Research Division |
| 1948-1958 |
|
Associte Director of Research |
| 1958-1962 |
|
Vice President and General Manager of Research |
|
|
|
| National Academy of Science |
| 1980-1990 |
|
Treasurer |
|
|
|
| Harvard School of Public Health |
| 1978-1989 |
|
Dean for Academic Affairs |
| 1986-1988 |
|
Chairman, Department of Environmental Science and Physiology |
| 1987-1990 |
|
Director, Division of Biological Sciences |
|
|
|
| Harvard Medical School |
| 1950-1952 |
|
Research Associate in Pathology |
| 1956-1960 |
|
Research Associate in Pathology |
| 1960-1962 |
|
Lecturer in Biophysics |
| 1962-1964 |
|
Professor of Biological Chemistry |
| 1964-1990 |
|
Edward S. Harkness Professor of Biological Chemistry |
| 1965-1969 |
|
Chairman, Department of Biological Chemistry |
| 1990- |
|
Edward S. Harkness Professor of Biological Chemistry, Emeritus |
|
|
|
| 1942 |
|
National Research Council Fellow, Harvard University
|
|
|
|
| 1954 |
|
Fellow, New York Academy of Sciences
|
|
|
|
| 1955 |
|
Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
|
|
|
|
| 1958 |
|
Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science
|
|
|
|
| 1962 |
|
A.M. (honorary), Harvard University
|
|
|
|
| 1963 |
|
Fellow, Optical Society of America
|
|
|
|
| 1969 |
|
Member, National Academy of Sciences
|
|
|
|
| 1970 |
|
Class of 1939 Achievement Award, Princeton University
|
|
|
|
| 1976 |
|
D.Sc. (honorary), Loyola University
|
|
|
|
| 1976 |
|
Foreign Member, USSR Academy of Sciences
|
|
|
|
| 1979 |
|
Member, Institute of Medicine
|
|
|
|
| 1982 |
|
Honor Scroll Award, Massachusetts Institute of Chemists, Division of the American Institute of Chemists
|
|
|
|
| 1990 |
|
National Medal of Science
|
|
|
|
| 1990 |
|
Elkan R. Blout Professorship in the Biological Sciences, Harvard University Medical School and School of Public Health
|
|
|
|
| 1991 |
|
Ralph F. Hirschmann Award in Peptide Chemistry, American Chemical Society
|
James J. Bohning is professor emeritus of chemistry at Wilkes University, where he was a
faculty member from 1959 to 1990. He served there as chemistry department chair from 1970
to 1986 and environmental science department chair from 1987 to 1990. Bohning was chair of
the American Chemical Society’s Division of the History of Chemistry in 1986; he received the
division’s Outstanding Paper Award in 1989 and has presented more than forty papers at
national meetings of the society. Bohning was on the advisory committee of the society’s
National Historic Chemical Landmarks Program from its inception in 1992 through 2001 and is
currently a consultant to the committee. He developed the oral history program of the Chemical
Heritage Foundation, and he was the foundation’s director of oral history from 1990 to 1995.
From 1995 to 1998, Bohning was a science writer for the News Service group of the American
Chemical Society. He is currently a visiting research scientist and CESAR Fellow at Lehigh
University. In May 2005, he received the Joseph Priestley Service Award from the
Susquehanna Valley Section of the American Chemical Society.
Arnold Thackray is president of the Chemical Heritage Foundation. He majored in the physical sciences before turning to the history of science, receiving a Ph.D. from Cambridge University in 1966. He has held appointments at Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, the Institute for Advanced Study, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 1983 he received the Dexter Award from the American Chemical Society for outstanding contributions to the history of chemistry. He served on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania for more than a quarter of a century. There, he was the founding chairman of the Department of History and Sociology of Science, where he is the Joseph Priestley Professor Emeritus.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|