Oral history interview with Cheves Walling
- 1979-Sep-12
Oral history interview with Cheves Walling
- 1979-Sep-12
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.Cheves Walling begins this interview by describing his family, early education, and undergraduate days at Harvard. He then discusses his graduate education at the University of Chicago, stressing the major review article on the peroxide effect that he and Frank Mayo wrote in 1940. Walling next examines the research that he undertook at Du Pont, U.S. Rubber, and Lever Brothers, emphasizing the work that he did before 1950 at U.S. Rubber. Finally, Walling examines his academic career at Columbia and the University of Utah. Throughout the interview he reflects upon the emergence and maturation of physical organic chemistry.
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About the Interviewer
Leon Gortler is a professor of chemistry at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. He holds AB and MS degrees from the University of Chicago and a PhD 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.
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| Oral history number | 0009 |
Related Items
Interviewee biographical information
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Education
| Year | Institution | Degree | Discipline |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1937 | Harvard University | BA | Chemistry |
| 1939 | University of Chicago | PhD | Organic Chemistry |
Professional Experience
E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company
- 1939 to 1942 Research Chemist
United States Rubber Company
- 1943 to 1949 Research Chemist
Levers Brothers Company
- 1949 to 1952 Research Associate
Columbia University
- 1952 to 1970 Professor
- 1963 to 1966 Chairman
University of Utah
- 1970 Distinguished Professor
Honors
| Year(s) | Award |
|---|---|
| 1964 | Elected to National Academy of Sciences |
| 1965 | Elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences |
| 1971 | James Flack Norris Award, American Chemical Society |
| 1975 | Editor, Journal of the American Chemical Society |
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The published version of the transcript may diverge from the interview audio due to edits to the transcript made by staff of the Center for Oral History, often at the request of the interviewee, during the transcript review process.