Charles C. Price Papers

Charles Coale Price III was a chemist who taught at three universities in the United States and conducted research for the National Research Defense Committee during World War II. Price was born in Passaic, New Jersey on July 13, 1913. He received his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Swarthmore College in 1934 and his master’s degree in chemistry from Harvard University in 1935. In 1936, Price was awarded his Ph.D. in chemistry from Harvard University.

From 1936 to 1946, Price worked as an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Illinois. In 1945, he spent a year as a visiting lecturer at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, New York. Price conducted research for the National Defense Research Committee during World War II in the Rubber Reserve Company. After the war, he worked in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Notre Dame from 1946 to 1954 as a professor and chairman of the Department. From 1947 to 1951, Price was a member of the National Research Council’s Subcommittee on Plastics. From 1951 to 1979, he worked at the Department of Chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania. During his tenure at Penn, he was a member of the Committee on Mathematics, Physics, and Engineering Science, the Blanchard Professor of Chemistry, and Emeritus Professor of Chemistry.

Price was instrumental in the creation of the Center for the History of Chemistry, as the Science History Institute was originally called. Dr. Price was long active in the Nuclear Disarmament and World Federalism movements. Charles C. Price died at his home in Haverford, Pennsylvania on February 11, 2001.

Sources

Charles C. Price Papers, Science History Institute Archives, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.