Background
Moddie Daniel Taylor was born on March 3, 1912, in Nymph, Conecuh County, Alabama, United States. He was a son of Herbert L. Taylor and Celeste Taylor. The family later moved to St. Louis where his father worked as a postal clerk.
Jefferson City, Missouri, United States
In 1935 Moddie Daniel Taylor received a Bachelor of Science degree from Lincoln University.
4248 Cottage Avenue St. Louis, Missouri 63113 United States
Moddie Daniel Taylor attended Charles H. Sumner High School, graduating in 1931.
Chicago, Illinois, United States
In 1939 Moddie Daniel Taylor obtained a Master of Science degree from the University of Chicago and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1943.
Moddie Daniel Taylor was born on March 3, 1912, in Nymph, Conecuh County, Alabama, United States. He was a son of Herbert L. Taylor and Celeste Taylor. The family later moved to St. Louis where his father worked as a postal clerk.
Moddie Daniel Taylor attended Charles H. Sumner High School, graduating in 1931. In 1935 Taylor received a Bachelor of Science degree from Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri. In 1939 he obtained a Master of Science degree from the University of Chicago and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1943.
Moddie Daniel Taylor began his teaching career in 1935, working as an instructor until 1939 and then as an assistant professor from 1939 to 1941 at Lincoln University, while also enrolled in the University of Chicago’s graduate program in chemistry.
It was during 1945 that Taylor began his two years as an associate chemist for the top-secret Manhattan Project based at the University of Chicago. Taylor’s research interest was in rare earth metals (elements which are the products of oxidized metals and which have special properties and several important industrial uses). His chemical contributions to the nation’s atomic energy research earned him a Certificate of Merit from the Secretary of War.
After the war he returned to Lincoln University until 1948 when he joined Howard University as an associate professor of chemistry, becoming a full professor in 1959 and head of the chemistry department in 1969. In 1960 Taylor’s First Principles of Chemistry was published.
Taylor retired as a professor emeritus of chemistry from Howard University on April 1, 1976, and died of cancer in Washington, D.C., on September 15, 1976.
Moddie Daniel Taylor was a member of the American Chemical Society, of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, of The New York Academy of Sciences, of the Sigma Xi, and of the Beta Kappa Chi. He was also a fellow of the American Institute of Chemists and the Washington Academy for the Advancement of Science.
On September 8, 1937, Moddie Daniel Taylor married Vivian Ellis. They had one son, Herbert Moddie Taylor.