Background

Wilder Dwight was born on Octoner 1, 1867 in Middletown, Rhode Island, the son of John Chandler and Louisa Denny Bancroft. His grandfather was the historian George Bancroft, who served as Secretary of the Navy under President James K. Polk and was founder of the Naval Academy at Annapolis; his father was a Boston stockbroker who later became a painter. Bancroft's mother died when he was four.

Education

He was enrolled at Adams Academy in Milton, Massachussets, and later prepared for college at Roxbury Latin School. He then entered Harvard, where he studied chemistry under Josiah Parsons Cooke and was a member of the football team. After receiving the A. B. in 1888 he became an assistant in chemistry at Harvard, but he left a year later to pursue graduate studies in Europe. Following a year at Strasbourg, Bancroft worked for two years in Wilhelm Ostwald's laboratory at the University of Leipzig, where he received the Ph. D. in 1892 with a dissertation entitled Oxidationsketten.

Career

The next year he spent in Amsterdam in the laboratory of Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff. In 1893 Bancroft resumed his assistantship at Harvard and became an instructor there a year later; then, in 1895, he began his long career at Cornell University as assistant professor of physical chemistry. Bancroft became a full professor at Cornell in 1903 and was World War Memorial Professor from 1919 until his retirement in 1937. The next year he served as Tallman professor at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. During World War I Bancroft was associated with the Chemical Warfare Service, holding the rank of lieutenant colonel. His work dealt with preparation and characteristics of poison gases, and he helped perfect the gas masks worn by American troops. The new discipline of physical chemistry, in which Ostwald and van't Hoff pioneered, was almost unknown in the United States at the time Bancroft began his long career at Cornell. He became a moving force in the advancement of the subject in North America through his teaching, research, and editorial work.

An enthusiastic promoter of chemistry, not merely as an academic discipline but also as the science centrally related to all the other sciences, Bancroft believed that chemistry should be taught for its cultural value, as a part of general education. He lectured widely to popular audiences to foster this point of view. In order to encourage the development of physical chemistry in the United States, Bancroft founded the Journal of Physical Chemistry in 1896; initially he was coeditor of the publication but in 1910 became sole editor, serving in that capacity until 1932. The journal operated at a deficit, which Bancroft covered with funds from his family fortune, but ultimately this proved too heavy a financial burden and in 1924 the publication was turned over to the American Chemical Society, the Faraday Society, and the Chemical Society (of London). Bancroft also served as editor of the Journal of the Franklin Institute and published more than 200 papers.

Bancroft's research interests were far ranging. With his students he made contributions in such diverse areas as electrochemistry, heterogeneous equilibrium, contact catalysis, and colloid chemistry. His electrochemical studies focused on the electrodeposition of metals, a subject of practical importance to the new industries developing in the United States at the beginning of the twentieth century; he was named president of the American Electrochemical Society in 1905 and again in 1919. In the field of heterogeneous equilibrium Bancroft directed his attention toward the phase rule, which, in a sense, he brought back to the United States after his stay in Holland. J. Willard Gibbs of Yale had introduced the rule in the 1870's, but its significance was first recognized by Ostwald and other Europeans; Bakhuis Roozeboom of Amsterdam gave the rule its first important application when he used it to clarify the components and phases of steel. Bancroft learned about this research during his postdoctoral year in Amsterdam, and after returning to the United States he published The Phase Rule (1897).

In his own research he studied freezing-point equilibriums in three-component systems and showed that the minima in boiling-point curves of binary liquid mixtures were caused by association of one or both components. It was in the field of colloid chemistry, however, that Bancroft's deepest interests lay, particularly after World War I. In 1921 he published the first American book on the subject. Applied Colloid Chemistry went through two revised editions in 1926 and 1931 and had considerable influence on industrial applications in the fields of emulsions and catalysis. Bancroft's own research was directed toward theories of dyeing and the chemistry of photography; he was interested in the color of colloidal systems and was frequently called upon to give a popular lecture entitled "Blue Skies and Blue Feathers. " In the latter part of his career Bancroft investigated colloidal phenomena associated with anesthesia, asthma, insanity, and drug addiction. He developed a theory of reversible coagulation of colloids of the nervous system by the anesthetic agent and extended his views to the subject of insanity. He advocated the use of peptizing agents, such as potassium thiocyanate, to bring about the restoration of normal nerve condition. Bancroft was involved in extensive controversy when other investigators failed to confirm his views. Although Bancroft had an important role in bringing physical chemistry to the United States, his disinterest in sophisticated mathematical treatment of physical chemical phenomena caused him to slip from the mainstream of the subject in his later years. His Journal of Physical Chemistry lost influence when he continued to publish descriptive research papers while more rigorous chemists turned to other vehicles for publication.

Bancroft died in Ithaca, New York.

Achievements

• Bancroft was trained by Wilhelm Ostwald and Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff, and introduced a number of thermodynamic and colloid-chemical concepts into American physicochemistry. He is known for the Bancroft rule: a predominantly hydrophilic emulsifier stabilizes an oil-in-water emulsion, whereas a predominantly hydrophobic emulsifier stabilizes a water-in oil emulsion. The lunar crater Bancroft is named in his honor.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Journal Of Physical Chemistry, Volume 5

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • Applied Colloid Chemistry: General Theory (Classic Reprint)

    (The earlier books on colloid chemistry presented the subj...)

  • The Phase Rule

    (The Phase Rule is an unchanged, high-quality reprint of t...)

  • The Journal of Physical Chemistry, 1908, Vol. 12 (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from The Journal of Physical Chemistry, 1908, Vol...)

  • The Journal Of Physical Chemistry, Volume 1

    ( This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923....)

Membership

He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1913, and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1920.

Personality

A large, self-confident, and good-humored man, Bancroft was a fluent speaker who dominated groups in which he was a participant.

Interests

• His interest in sports continued throughout his life and he became an ardent golfer and skater in his postcollege years.

Connections

On June 19, 1895, he married Katharine Bott; they had five children.

Father:

John Chandler Bancroft

Mother:

Louisa Denny Bancroft

Wife:

Katharine Bott

Daughter:

Mary Warner Bancrof