Herman Francis Mark (1895–1992) used X-ray crystallography to show that natural polymers were indeed macromolecules, supporting the theories of Hermann Staudinger. Photograph by James J. Bohning, 1986. CHF Collections. Herman Francis Mark (1895–1992) Along with Hermann Staudinger and Wallace Carothers, Herman Mark can be credited as a cofounder of polymer science. In the 1920s his X-ray crystallographic studies of cellulose showed it to be made of giant molecules containing thousands of atoms, as Staudinger held. Mark also showed that most polymer molecules are made of flexible chains, while Staudinger had thought them to be rigid rods. The Mark-Houwink-Sakurada relationship describing the relationship between a polymer’s solution viscosity and its molecular weight was another of his early discoveries. Escaping into Switzerland after Austria was annexed by the Nazis in 1938, Mark made his way first to Canada and then to the United States, where he joined the faculty of Brooklyn Polytechnic. There he established a strong polymer program which included not only research but the first undergraduate polymer education in the United States. To this day, very few American polymer chemists cannot trace their academic lineage back to Mark and Brooklyn Polytechnic.