Chemical engineering originated in land-grant colleges in the early 20th century as a result of the recognition of the need for trained personnel in the nascent chemical industry of the United States. MIT, Purdue, Minnesota, Wisconsin and other land-grant colleges initiated contacts with leading firms in that industry, imported techniques using consulting, interning, and other forms of personnel exchange to import knowledge which they then disseminated outside of industrial channels. Among the most important patrons of chemical engineering were members of the DuPont family and George Eastman at MIT, although local industries and agricultural interests fostered innovation in many other land-grant colleges where the new discipline was instituted. The rise of the car culture stimulated others to seize upon petroleum as the process of choice for the renovation of their departments. Chemical engineering escaped its industrial captivity when it became a true engineering science in the 1950s, after the development of new technologies in the government sector during World War II put a greater premium on mathematics and the physical sciences. The prestige of the discipline suffered, however, when Bhopal and other industrial disasters discredited international conglomerates like Union Carbide.

Catalyst or synthesis? The rise of chemical engineering in the land grant college system

244th National Meeting (2012)

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