author
Edgar Fahs Smith
1854–1928
A leading American chemist and teacher, he helped shape the University of Pennsylvania and became one of the best-known historians of chemistry of his time. His love of scientific history also left behind a remarkable collection of books, portraits, and papers for later generations.
2 Audiobooks
Priestley in America, 1794-1804
by Edgar Fahs Smith
James Cutbush, an American Chemist, 1788-1823
by Edgar Fahs Smith
About the author
Born in York, Pennsylvania, in 1854, Edgar Fahs Smith studied at Pennsylvania College in Gettysburg and then continued his training in Germany, where he earned a doctorate at the University of Göttingen. He joined the University of Pennsylvania in the 1880s and built a long career there as a chemistry professor, department leader, and eventually provost from 1911 to 1920.
Smith was respected both as a working chemist and as a gifted academic leader. He was especially associated with analytical and electrochemistry, and he also played a major role in the American Chemical Society, serving as its president and later receiving the Priestley Medal, one of the society's highest honors.
What makes him especially memorable for many readers today is his passion for the history of chemistry. He collected books, manuscripts, portraits, and scientific memorabilia with extraordinary care, helping preserve the stories of earlier chemists. That lifelong interest became the foundation of the Edgar Fahs Smith Memorial Collection at the University of Pennsylvania.