George Braxton Pegram was born on October 24, 1876 in Trinity, Randolph County, North Carolina, United States. He was the son of William Howell Pegram, a professor at Trinity College (now a part of Duke University), and of Emma Lenore Craven, daughter of George Braxton Craven, founder and first president of Trinity.
Education
George Braxton Pegram received the B. A. from Trinity in 1895. Pegram received the Ph. D. from Columbia in 1903. His dissertation, with prophetic overtones for events that dominated the latter part of his life, was entitled "Secondary Radioactivity in the Electrolysis of Thorium Solutions. "
Career
George Braxton Pegram taught in secondary schools in North Carolina from 1895 to 1900, when he received an assistantship in physics at Columbia University. Pegram remained at Columbia the rest of his life, playing a key role as teacher, researcher, and administrator, and helping to bring about the rise of America to greatness in physics. He became an instructor at Columbia in 1905. Two years later a Tyndall Fellowship from Columbia enabled him to travel to several laboratories in Europe and round out his education, as was necessary at that time for any aspiring American student of science. During his year abroad, Pegram studied at Berlin and Cambridge universities, and visited twenty university and governmental physics laboratories in Europe. The Tyndall year proved to be important in Pegram's life in more ways than one.
Pegram moved rapidly up the academic ladder at a time when academic advancement was usually slow, becoming assistant professor of physics in 1909, associate professor in 1912, and a full professor in 1918. He assumed an increasing number of administrative roles. At Columbia he served as chairman of the physics department from 1913 to 1945, and was made acting dean of the School of Mines, Engineering and Chemistry in 1917 and dean in 1918, holding that post into 1930. He also became a member of the council of the American Physical Society in 1918, serving as treasurer from 1918 to 1957 and as president in 1941.
Pegram also played one of the most important roles in organizing the American Institute of Physics, drafting the bylaws of the institute and serving as its secretary from its founding in 1931 until 1945, and as treasurer from 1938 until 1956. Pegram was a quiet, relaxed administrator who, after all had voiced their opinions, would sum up with a solution that generally satisfied even the most belligerent opponents. Despite his administrative talents, he had little taste for the duties of the deanship at Columbia and resigned in 1930 to devote full time to his work in physics.
In 1936, however, his administrative burdens were once again increased when the dean of the Graduate Faculties died suddenly and Pegram was named to replace him. Pegram's activities during World War I forecast his involvement in World War II. He played a major role in the establishment of the student army training corps and conducted antisubmarine research. After intensive study the Columbia group headed by A. P. Wills decided to concentrate on the use of sound waves for detecting and locating submarines. By February 1918 the apparatus was completed and tested at Key West, Florida, with sufficiently promising results that the Naval Experimental Station took over the work. Soon after Pegram resigned as dean in 1930, the neutron was discovered and during the next few years Pegram and his group at Columbia were the first to reveal some of the major properties of neutrons and their interactions with other particles. Columbia became one of the world centers of neutron research.
Pegram often did not put his name first in the by-lines of the papers that originated from this work. In the late 1930's, Pegram learned of Enrico Fermi's desire to bring his family to the United States and invited Fermi to join the staff at Columbia. Two weeks after Fermi's arrival in January 1939, Neils Bohr brought news of the discovery of the fission of uranium under neutron bombardment. John R. Dunning, a member of Pegram's group at Columbia, soon demonstrated that energy could be released in microscopic amounts from uranium fission and that the isotope uranium 235 was the important isotope. Two groups were formed, one under Fermi to construct a "pile, " a lattice structure of graphite and uranium, and one under Dunning to separate the isotope uranium 235 from its more abundant sister uranium 238. Pegram's connection with the atomic project at Columbia was twofold. First, he assembled and coordinated the team of physicists who performed the crucial experiments and had operating responsibility for the role of Columbia as a major center of nuclear research. Second, he was a member of the advisory groups that originated the uranium project. The National Defense Research Committee (NDRC), formed in June 1940, awarded the first contract for the uranium project to Columbia along the lines recommended by Pegram.
The National Defense Research Committee (NDRC), formed in June 1940, awarded the first contract for the uranium project to Columbia along the lines recommended by Pegram. In the summer of 1941 the NDRC was absorbed by the Office of Scientific Research and Development. The uranium project became the Uranium Section, with Pegram as vice-chairman. The decision to launch an all-out effort for the uranium project resulted in the formation of the Manhattan Project to take over and administer the engineering aspects. Throughout the war Pegram headed the Columbia Committee on War Research, which directed various projects, of which those connected with undersea warfare were second in importance only to the atomic project. In 1941 he organized a group of scientists to begin a secret project that led to the invention and development of the magnetic airborne detector (MAD), which played a tremendous role in clearing the Atlantic of German submarines.
When the war ended, he became chairman of the Columbia Committee on Government-Aided Research, serving in that capacity from 1945 to 1950 and again from 1951 to 1956. He was also vice-president of the university from 1949 to 1950, when he retired and became vice-president emeritus and special adviser to the president. At the end of the war there were extensive discussions on how the research establishment spawned by the Manhattan District could continue to perform research for the benefit of the nation as a whole. Pegram was instrumental in the establishment of the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York, in 1946. He was one of the five incorporating trustees of Associated Universities that operates the laboratory for the U. S. Department of Energy. Pegram was a member of many scientific and academic organizations, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science (vice-president in 1938), the American Association of Physics Teachers, the American Philosophical Society, the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Association of University Professors (president in 1930). Pegram's health deteriorated steadily during the early 1950's. George Braxton died in Swarthmore, Pennsylavania on August 12, 1958.
Achievements
Connections
On his way to Europe, George Braxton Pegram met a young Wellesley graduate, Florence Bement, daughter of a wealthy Philadelphia art collector. Married on June 3, 1909, they had two sons.