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Heinrich Oscar Hofman was an American metallurgist and educator. He served as a professor of mining and metallurgy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and was the author of works on metallurgy.
Background
Heinrich Oscar Hofman was born on August 13, 1852 in Heidelberg, Germany. He was was the son of Professor Carl Hofman of Heidelberg and Sophia Proctor, an English woman. Born into an academic atmosphere he turned naturally to the scholarly rather than the practical aspects of metallurgy. By personal contact and correspondence, however, he kept in close touch with the metallurgists who were determining prevailing practice, and he thus became the recognized authority in his particular field of lead-smelting and refining.
Education
In his student days at Heidelberg and at the Mining Academy at Clausthal, from which he was graduated with honors in 1877, and also as a mining and metallurgical engineer, Hofman maintained a companionship with such eminent German teachers as Kirchoff and Bunsen.
Career
After four years of practical work in Germany, Hofman emigrated to America and was, for the next four years, employed for brief periods successively at Mine La Motte; the Kansas City Smelting & Refining Company; the Delaware Lead Works, Philadelphia; the Grand View Smelting Company, Rice, Colorado; and the Carmen Mining Company in Mexico. In 1886 he was invited to deliver a course of lectures at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where for one year he was lecturer on metallurgy. In 1887 he became professor of metallurgy and assaying at the South Dakota School of Mines, returning in 1889 to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as assistant professor of mining and metallurgy. Upon the retirement of Professor R. H. Richards in 1915, Hofman was made head of the department, and in 1922 upon his automatic retirement, became emeritus professor.
His first book, The Metallurgy of Lead and the Desilverization of Base Bullion, was published in 1892 and ran through several editions, becoming an accepted standard. It was entirely rewritten in 1918. He also wrote An Outline of the Metallurgy of Iron and Steel (1904); General Metallurgy (1913); Metallurgy of Copper (1914); Metallurgy of Zinc and Cadmium (1922); and an unpublished study on the metallurgy of gold and silver and of minor metals. In addition, he furnished annually, from 1892 until 1919, notes on current progress in the metallurgy of lead for Mineral Industry. With assistance of his first wife he wrote Metallurgy of Lead in English.
Achievements
Hofman is remembered as a prominent metallurgist and educator. He is noted for his prolific work as a professor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and author on works of metallurgy, several of which became accepted standarts.
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Personality
Hofman was by nature a profound student and was endowed with remarkable power of concentration and an unlimited capacity for work, so that little in the current scientific and technical literature escaped his notice and discriminating consideration. He thus had instant command of this great store of knowledge, whether in the lecture room, in simple friendly converse with congenial friends from the metallurgical field, or in the compilation of the manuscripts for his publications. He was a persistent worker, allowing himself but short vacations.
Interests
Hofman's principal relaxation was music.
Connections
Hofman was married in 1883 to Josephine Loughead of Philadelphia, whose acquaintance he had made during his student days in Germany. She lived, however, only a few years after their marriage, and on August 5, 1902, Hofman married Fannie E. Howell of Boston, who with one son and one daughter survived him.
