Robert Kennedy Duncan

Background

Robert Kennedy Duncan was born on November 1, 1868. He was the son of Robert Augustus Kennedy Duncan, an Irishman who had settled at Brantford, Ontario, and of Susan Hawley, a Canadian.

Education

Duncan became interested in science in his preparatory-school days, and later at the University of Toronto specialized in physics and chemistry.

Following his graduation from Toronto, in 1892 he secured a fellowship in Clark University, where he remained a year. He studied abroad in 1900-01.

Career

Duncan was then appointed instructor in physics and chemistry in the Academic High School at Auburn, New York.

In 1895 he resigned to accept a better opportunity in Dr. Julius Sachs’s Collegiate Institute, New York City, where he took advantage of his location to pursue supplemental graduate work in chemistry at Columbia College in 1897-98. He was an instructor at the Hill School of Pottstown, Pennsylvania in 1898 and was appointed professor of chemistry in Washington and Jefferson College, Washington, Pennsylvania, in 1901. He occupied this chair until 1906, continuing his European studies at intervals during this period. His preparatory-school experience and his general educational observations had made clear to him that there existed a great need for writings on chemistry and other sciences that would acquaint the lay public with notable discoveries through plain, easily understood translations of technical papers. He gave special attention to this useful literary work and about 1900 became a contributor to several New York periodicals. In the summer of 1901, after his articles had commanded favor, he was sent abroad by McClure’s Magazine, to study radioactivity, particularly in the laboratory of Pierre and Marie Curie, in Paris. Two years later A. S. Barnes & Co. assigned him to collect in Europe material that would be suitable for use in preparing the manuscript of a book on new scientific knowledge, and in 1905 and 1906 he made for Harper’s Magazine a comprehensive study of the relations of modern chemistry to industry in various European countries. His books, The New Knowledge (1905), The Chemistry of Commerce (1907), and Some Chemical Problems of Today (1911), were of the highest scientific accuracy, but were so composed as to hold the lay reader’s attention.

Through his studies abroad Duncan became aware of the relative inferiority of the American chemical industry in the utilization of scientific research, and in 1906 he decided to devote the rest of his life to the creation of a system of industrial fellowships. The first fellowship of the kind was established in January 1907 in the University of Kansas, where Duncan had become professor of industrial chemistry on his return from Europe in 1906.

By 1910, his great work at Kansas created a demand for his services in Pittsburgh, which, as a large industrial center, offered him special opportunities. He therefore accepted an invitation from Dr. Samuel Black McCormick, then chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh, to inaugurate his system in this institution in a department of industrial research, and the operation of the fellowships was begun in a temporary building, 1911.

Duncan served the University of Pittsburgh as professor of industrial chemistry as well as director of industrial research from the fall of 1910 until his death. He was also director of industrial research at the University of Kansas, 1907-12, and visiting lecturer at Clark University, 1911-14. Andrew W. Mellon and Richard B. Mellon, citizens of Pittsburgh and sons of Judge Thomas Mellon of the class of 1837 at the University of Pittsburgh, noted the practical success of Duncan’s educational experiment and saw in his system an apparently sound method of benefiting American industry by the study of manufacturing problems under suitable conditions and by training young men for technical service. In consequence of this interest, in March 1913, they founded Mellon Institutetrial fellowship system of Industrial Research at the University of Pittsburgh, and later placed the induson a permanent basis, as a memorial to their father (1813 - 1908) and also to Duncan. The present home of the institute, which is adjacent to the central group of the University of Pittsburgh, was occupied in February a year after Duncan’s death, by the twenty-three fellowships then in operation. The institute was incorporated in 1927, and its affairs are managed by its own board of trustees. At present (1930) the building is filled to approximate capacity with sixty fellowships. The industrial research is organized on a contract basis, the problem being set by a person, firm, or association interested in its solution, the scientific worker being found and engaged by the institute, and an industrial fellowship being assigned for a period of at least one year. Each holder (fellow) of an industrial fellowship is given for the time being the broadest facilities for accomplishing a defined piece of research, and all results obtained by him belong exclusively to the founder (donor) of the fellowship. Only one investigation is carried out on a particular subject at any one time, and hence there is no duplication of the research activities of the fellowships in operation. By the application of the industrial fellowship system, the institute has been successful in demonstrating to American manufacturers, irrespective of size, that industrial research, properly conducted, is profitable to them.

Achievements

• Duncan сreated a system of industrial fellowships.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The New Knowledge: A Simple Exposition of the New Physics and the New Chemistry in Their Relation to the New Theory of Matter

    ( About the Book Books dealing with State and local histo...)

  • Some Chemical Problems of Today

    (Leopold is delighted to publish this classic book as part...)

  • The Chemistry of Commerce, a Simple Interpretation of Some New, Chemistry in Its Relation to Modern Industry (Classic Reprint)

    (But the interpretation of science is by no means easy; it...)

Connections

Duncan married Charlotte M. Foster of Brantford on December 27, 1899.

Father:

Robert Augustus Kennedy Duncan

Mother:

Susan Hawley

Spouse:

Charlotte M. Foster