Charles C. Price Photograph Collection

Charles Coale Price III was born in Passaic, New Jersey on July 13, 1913. At age six, Charles had his right hand blown away by an exploding box of dynamite caps. He received a B.A. in chemistry from Swarthmore College in 1934 and his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1936. His first faculty appointment was at the University of Illinois where he also did post graduate work under Roger Adams. In 1946, Price went to Notre Dame University where he taught and completed research for 8 years, becoming chair of the department of chemistry. While at Notre Dame, he convened the first conference on Organic Reaction Mechanisms in 1948. He accepted a position at the University of Pennsylvania in 1953, where he also taught and held the chemistry department chair position. During his tenure at Penn, he did research on polymers and helped to rebuild the department. Price was raised a Quaker and advocated nuclear disarmament and the creation of a global governing body for the purpose of world peace. He was the President of the American World Federalists (1958) and later chairman of the Federation for American Scientists and the Council for a Livable World. His involvement with these groups led Price to run for Senate (1950) and the House of Representatives (1952) in Indiana, but neither bid proved successful. He was the recipient of the ACS award in Pure Chemistry in 1946, the ACS award for Creative Invention (1974) and the ACS Parson award in 1973. Other achievements include receiving more than twenty patents and fourteen honorary degrees. Price was the founding board chair of the Center for the History of Chemistry (CHOC) which would later become the Chemical Heritage Foundation. While at Swarthmore, Price met his wife Mary Elma White and they married in 1936. They had four daughters and one son. White died in 1982 and Price married Anne Parker Gill in 1984. Charles C. Price died on February 11, 2001, at his home in Haverford, PA.