Wolcott Gibbs

Background

Wolcott Gibbs was born on February 21, 1822, in New York City, to George and Laura Gibbs. His father, Colonel George Gibbs, was an ardent mineralogist, and his collection was finally bought by Yale College. Oliver was the younger brother of George Gibbs and older brother to Alfred Gibbs, who became a Union Army Brigadier General during the American Civil War.

Education

Entering Columbia College (now Columbia University) in 1837, Wolcott graduated in 1841. He next entered the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, qualifying as a doctor of medicine in 1845. He then studied in Germany and France and, while in Berlin, was particularly influenced by Heinrich Rose.

Career

After fourteen years teaching elementary students at what is now City College of the City University of New York, Gibbs became Rumford professor at Harvard in 1863. Until 1871, when the Lawrence Scientific School’s laboratory was combined with the Harvard College laboratory, Gibbs trained a good number of professional chemists by the German practice of research as a method of teaching.

Gibbs had neither laboratory nor chemistry students from 1871 until his retirement in 1887. He did, however, lecture in the physics department on heat and spectroscopy. Publicly, this was ascribed to economy; privately, it was explained by some as President Charles Eliot’s revenge for not getting the Rumford professorship himself. Recent scholars explain the event as part of the policy of progressively attenuating the scientific schools at both Yale and Harvard in favor of a unified liberal arts undergraduate and graduate faculty.

Gibbs specialized in analytic and inorganic chemistry. His work on the platinum metals and the development of the electrolytic method for the determination of copper are probably his principal contributions to the former. Gibbs was particularly interested in the structure of complex inorganic acids and their derivatives, especially those of tungsten, molybdenum, and vanadium.

Achievements

• Wolcott Gibbs was an eminent chemist. He is known for performing the first electrogravimetric analyses, namely the reductions of copper and nickel ions to their respective metals.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Biographical Memoir of Wolcott Gibbs, 1822-1908 1910

Membership

Gibbs was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was also the founder of The Union League Club in New York City.

Connections

Father:

George Gibbs

Mother:

Laura Gibbs

Spouse:

Josephine Mauran

Brother:

George Gibbs

Brother:

Alfred Gibbs

References

• Biographical Memoir of Wolcott Gibbs, 1822-1908. Washington: National Academy of Sciences, 1910.