Papers of Howard B. Bishop

Howard Berkey Bishop (1878-1961) was an American chemist, chemical company executive, and founder of the Human Engineering Foundation. Born in Bloomington, Illinois on January 24, 1878, Bishop attended the Armour Institute of Technology and the University of Michigan. After a brief involvement in running a photographic studio and working for smaller chemical firms, he began working for General Chemical Company as an analytical chemist in 1902.

While employed by General Chemical, he patented several important processes and inventions, including a new method for the production of hydrofluoric acid and the electrotitrimeter, a device for measuring percentages of acid. He was also instrumental in the founding of the Laurel Hill Laboratory Analytical Council, a group designed to study and brainstorm solutions to everyday industrial problems. In 1906, Bishop was awarded the Nichols Medal for his paper “The Estimation of Minute Quantities of Arsenic.”

While still an employee of General Chemical, Bishop co-founded several small chemical consulting and manufacturing businesses, chief of which was Sterling Products Company of Easton, Pennsylvania, a firm that specialized in chemicals useful to the laundry industry. Between 1921 and 1929, Bishop was also President of John C. Wiarda Chemical Company, a small chemical works in Brooklyn, New York that also specialized, as did Sterling, in chemicals useful to the laundry industry.

In 1940, having sold his interest in Sterling Products Company to Pennsylvania Salt Manufacturing Company, Bishop embarked upon the second phase of his career. He had always been interested in social welfare issues and was an ardent campaigner against smoking and drinking, so he founded the Human Engineering Foundation to propagate his anti-alcohol, anti-nicotine, and anti-caffeine views. While running the foundation, he also managed a small chemical engineering consulting firm, Service Engineering Company.

Howard B. Bishop died in Summit, New Jersey after a brief illness on February 6, 1961.



Sources

Howard B. Bishop Papers, National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, Maryland. https://oculus.nlm.nih.gov/cgi/f/findaid/findaid-idx?c=nlmfindaid;idno=bishop562;view=reslist;didno=bishop562;subview=standard;focusrgn=bioghist;cc=nlmfindaid;byte=45838879

Papers of Howard B. Bishop, Science History Institute Archives, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.