Unlike the other preceptors in this Symposium, Paul Bartlett of Harvard and Texas Christian Universities never succeeded in writing a textbook. He eventually consigned his incomplete efforts to a file entitled “Life’s Too Short.” Nonetheless, he deserves the designation Preceptor for having released a burgeoning new field, mechanistic organic chemistry, from the confines of the academic laboratory into industrial laboratories and production lines. He also promoted its establishment and growth beyond the Anglophone chemical community. The acknowledged “father” of mechanistic, or physical, organic chemistry, C. K. Ingold of University College London, was uninterested in its possible applications. Bartlett, by contrast, worked out mechanisms for several reactions vital to the World War II military effort. One of these involved free radical chemistry, an area neglected by the Ingold group. Furthermore, during the postwar era Bartlett taught courses on organic mechanisms for several industrial firms. His laboratories hosted numerous foreign students, especially from Germany and Japan. Speaking in German, Bartlett lectured at several German universities in 1954 on contemporary developments in organic mechanistic studies. Although there had been several isolated German chemists doing notable mechanistic investigations, the formation of a German physical organic research community was galvanized by Bartlett’s visit.

Paul Doughty Bartlett: Evangelist for mechanistic organic chemistry

251st National Meeting (2016)

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