James Flack Norris (b. 1871) received his Ph.D. with Ira Remsen at Johns Hopkins University (1895) and joined the Chemistry faculty at M.I.T. In 1904 he became the first chemistry professor at Simmons College, a college for women, in Boston. He was responsible for establishing the curriculum and laboratories at Simmons. He remained at Simmons until 1915, taking a one-year leave (1910-11) during which he spent a sabbatical year with Fritz Haber in Karlsruhe. Following one year at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, Norris rejoined the faculty at M.I.T. and spent the remainder of his career there until he died (1940). Professor Norris had married Anne Bent Chamberlin in 1902. When Mrs. Norris died in 1948, her will provided a bequest establishing the The Norris Fund, administered by the Northeast Section of the American Chemical Society. The James Flack Norris Award for Outstanding Achievement in Teaching was established in 1950 and awarded to George Shannon Forbe in 1951. The James Flack Norris Award in Physical Organic Chemistry was established in 1963. The first three awardees, Christopher K. Ingold (1965), Louis P. Hammett (1966), and George S. Hammond (1967) are prominent in every physical organic chemistry textbook well into the twenty-first century. Indeed, Hammett was the only recipient of Norris awards in teaching (1960) and physical organic chemistry. The presentation in this symposium will describe the impact of Norris as teacher and researcher in the context of his times (especially during the 1920s and 1930s).

James Flack Norris: A pioneer in chemical education and his early contributions in physical organic chemistry

247th National Meeting (2014)

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