Background
Joseph Franklin was born in Natchez, Mississippi in 1906 but his family moved to Texas early in his life.
Joseph Franklin was born in Natchez, Mississippi in 1906 but his family moved to Texas early in his life.
He went to the University of Texas to study chemistry and received a Bachelor of Surgery degree in 1929, Master of Surgery in 1930, and Doctor of Philosophy in 1934. Franklin took a position at in Baytown, Texas in 1934 where he established a mass spectrometry research group. He recruited Frank Field to in 1952 and they co-wrote Electron Impact Phenomena and the Properties of Gaseous Ions in 1957.
Franklin took a two year leave 1957-1958 at the National Bureau of Standards in Washington, District of Columbia before returning to Humble.
In 1963, Franklin took a position as Robert A. Welch Professor of chemistry at He became an emeritus professor in 1976. He helped to found the American Society for Mass Spectrometry and became the first president of that organization in 1969.
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