I was born in Montreal in 1939, the second son of poor immigrants. My mother worked in a textile mill and my father in a grocery store before they met and married. It was from them that I learned that hard work in stable surroundings could yield rewards, even if only in infinitesimally small increments.…

Wilhelm Ostwald was born on September 2, 1853, in Riga, Latvia, as the son of master-cooper Gottfried Wilhelm Ostwald and Elisabith Leuckel. He was educated at the “Real gymnasium” there and in 1872 was admitted to Dorpat University to read chemistry. After taking his final examinations three years later, he obtained the post of assistant…

Linus Carl Pauling was born in Portland, Oregon, on 28th February, 1901, the son of a druggist, Herman Henry William Pauling, who, though born in Missouri, was of German descent, and his wife, Lucy Isabelle Darling, born in Oregon of English-Scottish ancestry. Linus attended the public elementary and high schools in the town of Condon…

Grandfather Josef, a shoemaker, immigrated to the U.S. from Bohemia in 1913. My other grandparents, also of Czech origin, were first-generation Americans. My father was and is a physician, my mother the homemaker. I was born in Chicago on December 8, 1947. The safe streets and good schools of Iowa City, Iowa provided the backdrop…

Otto Wallach was born on March 27, 1847, in Königsberg, Germany, the son of Gerhard Wallach and his wife, née Otillie Thoma. His father was a high-ranking civil servant, who later became Auditor General at Potsdam. During his early school years at the humanistic “Gymnasium” at Potsdam, Wallach had a profound liking for history and…

Vincent du Vigneaud was born in Chicago, Illinois, on 18th May, 1901, the son of the late inventor and machine designer Alfred J. du Vigneaud and his wife, Mary Theresa. He studied under Professor C.S. Marvel at The University of Illinois and took his B.Sc. degree in 1923 and M.Sc. in 1924. During the year…

My birth in July 1928 in Methuen, Massachusetts was followed just eighteen months later by the death of my father, Elias, a successful business man in that community 30 miles north of Boston. My mother, Fatina (née Hasham), changed my name from William to Elias shortly after my father’s passing. I do not remember my…

Hans von Euler-Chelpin was born on February 15, 1873, at Augsburg. His father, who was then a captain in the Royal Bavarian Regiment, was transferred to Munich and von Euler-Chelpin spent most of his childhood not far away with his grandmother at Wasserburg. After going to school at Munich, Wurzburg and Ulm, he studied art…

I was born the eldest of three sons of Ryokichi Fukui, a foreign trade merchant and factory manager, and Chie Fukui, in Nara, Japan, on October 4, 1918. In my high school years, chemistry was not my favourite subject, but the most decisive occurrence in my educational career came when my father asked the advice…

Carl Bosch was born at Cologne on August 27, 1874, and grew up there. From 1894 to 1896 he studied metallurgy and mechanical engineering at the Technische Hochschule in Charlottenburg, but started reading chemistry at Leipzig University in 1896. He graduated under Professor Wislicenus with a paper on organic chemistry in 1898. He entered the…