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Frank Clifford Whitmore was born October 1, 1887 in North Attleboro, Massachussets, the oldest of four children - three sons and a daughter - of Frank Hale Whitmore, a sewing machine salesman, and Lena Avilla (Thomas) Whitmore. His father was a native of Iowa, his mother of Rhode Island. The elder Whitmore's business took the family to Williamsport, Pa. , and then to Atlantic City, N. J.
In Atlantic City Frank attended public schools. In 1907 he entered Harvard. He arrived with neither friends nor funds, but with his usual vast energy and enthusiasm he supported himself by odd jobs and by tutoring the sons of the wealthy. He concentrated in chemistry, and after graduating in 1911, B. A. magna cum laude, he remained at Harvard for graduate study under the direction of Charles L. Jackson and later of Elmer P. Kohler and received his Ph. D. degree in 1914.
For several years after receiving his doctorate, Whitmore continued his tutoring, which provided him a comfortable living; during 1916-1917 he also taught organic chemistry at Williams College on a part-time basis. The following year he was an instructor at Rice Institute in Houston, Texas. This was during World War I, and while at Rice he worked on toxic gases for the Chemical Warfare Service. After a year and a half at the University of Minnesota as assistant professor, Whitmore in January 1920 was appointed professor of organic chemistry at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. In 1929 he moved to Pennsylvania State College (later Pennsylvania State University) as dean of the School of Chemistry and Physics. He remained there until his death, becoming research professor of organic chemistry in 1937. Whitmore's earliest research interests centered on the organic compounds of mercury. He devised new methods for the production of mercurials and demonstrated their use in synthesizing other types of organic compounds. He summed up his findings in his Organic Compounds of Mercury (1921), which became a standard reference work. After 1929 Whitmore devoted himself chiefly to discovering the nature of intramolecular rearrangements of organic molecules, a problem that had long bafflled organic chemists. In a seminal article on this subject in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (August 1932), he formulated an electronic theory of rearrangement that gained wide acceptance among scientists. As an important factor in this process, Whitmore theorized the presence of carbonium ions, a presence that has since been verified by nuclear magnetic resonance and mass spectrometry. Whitmore's major hypotheses about the actual role of these ions in rearrangements, elimination and addition reactions, substitution reactions, olefin polymerization, and other types of organic chemical reactions are still valid decades after their formulation. In another important article, published posthumously in Chemical and Engineering News (Mar. 8, 1948), Whitmore described seven different methods for generating carbonium ion reaction intermediates, and the type of reaction each undergoes, with emphasis on those that were important in petroleum chemistry. Other subjects on which Whitmore worked include steric hindrance in Grignard reactions, and fundamental research on the synthesis, reactions, and mechanisms of organosilicon compounds. In 1937 he published Organic Chemistry, a monumental work that emphasized the new fields of aliphatic and alicyclic chemistry. Throughout his career, Whitmore served as a consultant to both private industry and the federal government. He was chairman of the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Technology of the National Research Council in 1927-1928. During World War II, as an advisor to the government's chemical warfare research group, he carried out research for the National Defense Research Committee on superexplosives like "RDX. " His wartime research, conducted at Penn State, also included the production of penicillin, the synthesis of antimalarial drugs, and the analysis of hydrocarbons as standards for the development of aviation fuels. Whitmore died suddenly of a coronary thrombosis at his home in State College, Pa. , at the age of fifty-nine; he was buried in Memorial Park, Centre, Pa.
He was an inspiring teacher and administrator, well liked by both students and colleagues. Among his honors were the presidency of the American Chemical Society (1938), receipt of the William H. Nichols and Willard Gibbs medals (1937, 1945), and election to the National Academy of Sciences (1946). He submitted significant evidence for the existence of carbocation mechanisms in organic chemistry.
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A modest, friendly man, known to his friends as "Rocky, " Whitmore was a tireless worker who often arrived at his office at 3 A. M.
On June 22, 1914 he married Marion Gertrude Mason, a Radcliffe graduate in chemistry who provided wise counsel during Whitmore's career. They had five children: Frank Clifford, Mason Thomas, Harry Edison, Marion Mason, and Patricia Joan (who died in infancy).
