James Lewis Howe
James Lewis Howe (born August 4, 1859 in Newburyport , Massachusetts , † December 20, 1955 in Washington, DC ) was an American chemist.
Life
Howe was the son of a doctor and studied physics and chemistry at Amherst College with a bachelor's degree in 1880. He then studied at the University of Göttingen with Hans Huebner , Friedrich Wöhler and J. Post, where he received his doctorate in 1882 with Huebner (his dissertation was also his only contribution to organic chemistry), and at the University of Berlin. Back in the USA he taught at the Brooks Military Academy in Cleveland (Ohio) and from 1883 professor of chemistry, physics and geology at Central University in Richmond (Kentucky) . In 1894 he became professor of chemistry at Washington and Lee University in Lexington (Virginia) . In 1938 he retired, but taught chemistry and German again during the Second World War.
Howe was a pioneer in the chemistry of platinum metals and was particularly concerned with compounds of ruthenium (ruthenium tetrachloride, cyanoruthenates, hexachlororuthenates, tetrachlororuthenates, ruthenium chlorides and their reaction with organic bases). In the USA he was considered the specialist for the platinum group and from 1917 was chairman of a special subcommittee on these at the National Research Council. He is known for his monumental bibliography of platinum metals.
In 1883 he married Henrietta Leavenworth Marvine, with whom he had a son and two daughters.
In 1886 he received an honorary doctorate from the Hospital College of Medicine in Louisville, Kentucky . In 1937 he received the Charles H. Herty Medal from the Georgia Section of the American Chemical Society.
Fonts
- Bibliography of Metals of the Platinum Group 1748–1896, Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Washington, DC 1897
- The second volume, which dealt with literature from 1748 to 1917, was published in 1919 (with Hendrick Coenraad Holtz as co-author), volume 3 with literature from 1918 to 1930 was published in 1947 by Baker et al. Co. in Newark, followed by two further bibliographies by the same publisher, one in 1949 for the decade 1931 to 1940, the other in 1956 for 1941 to 1950. Howe worked on the sequel until 1955, but it never appeared.
- with Francis Preston Venable: Inorganic chemistry according to the periodic law, The Chemical Publ. Company, 1898, Archive
literature
- George B. Kauffman: Platinum metal pioneer: James Lewis Howe (1859-1955), Journal of Chemical Education, Vol. 45, 1968, p. 804.
- George B. Kauffman: The work of James Lewis Howe, Platinum Metals Review, Volume 16, 1972, pp. 140-144.
- Winfried R. Pötsch (lead), Annelore Fischer, Wolfgang Müller: Lexicon of important chemists . Harri Deutsch 1989, ISBN 3-8171-1055-3 , p. 214.
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Howe, James Lewis |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American chemist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 4th August 1859 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Newburyport , Massachusetts |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 20, 1955 |
| Place of death | Washington, DC |