Thomas Bruce Freas was born on November 2, 1868, near Newark, Ohio. He was the son of Andrew and Mary (Bruce) Freas.
His father was a farmer. Both parents died while he was a child, and he was brought up in the family of his uncle, Royal Bruce, who was also a farmer.
Education
Freas attended the local country school, then studied at odd times at Ohio Wesleyan University and at the state normal school at Ada.
Following this training, he taught at various places in Kansas, continuing his education as he could afford to do so, first at the state normal school at Emporia and then for a semester at the state university at Lawrence.
He studied, engaged in research, and achieved his doctorate by 1911.
Career
The financial depression of the nineties in the Middle West induced him to wander out to California. There he found work on a great fruit farm during vacations and studied at the Leland Stanford Junior University, from which he graduated in the class of 1896. On attaining his degree, he accepted the post of principal of the high school at Hiawatha, Kansas, where he gave instruction in the classics, although he had majored in physical science.
In 1897, he joined the Western Electric Company'as the chemist in their Chicago establishment. The wastefulness and inadequacy of chemical laboratory control and administration having already aroused his interest, Freas was prevailed upon to accept the post of curator of chemistry at Chicago University by Prof. Alexander Smith, who held the chair of inorganic chemistry.
To improve his financial status and to get a closer insight into the production and costs of apparatus, he became manager of the scientific apparatus and supply house of Ernst Lietz at Chicago for two years. Then, he returned to the university, where he developed the art of laboratory control.
When Prof. Smith was called to New York to succeed Prof. Chandler at Columbia in 1911, he induced the trustees to offer an assistant professorship to Freas, which he accepted. Later, he became an associate professor, and finally full professor.
Also, he was a purchasing agent and head of the physical administration of the chemical laboratories, on which subject he gave instruction to advanced students, he lectured on chemical thermodynamics, in which he was at once learned and profoundly informed.
Believing that it might be possible to retain as free energy the heat developed in the liquefaction of air and to resolve this into an available form, Freas conceived of an apparatus which would, in effect, be operated by the heat of the sun, previously contributed to the air, of which the waste products would be cold air and moisture.
As far as he was able to carry out his computations, these were favorable rather than otherwise to the postulate that an engine, such as he had in mind, would develop and at the same time deliver several times the measure of its energy-cost as available energy.
Personality
Freas was a popular member of the faculty, and was singularly conscientious in the fulfilment of all his obligations. His concept of his duties to the university, to students, and also to his friends, at the expense of his own interests, impinged not only on his health but also caused him to leave unfinished a work which might have brought him a great reputation. This was an amazingly bold idea in the field of thermodynamics.
Two or three of the friends to whom he confided his ideas missed his concept of the apparatus as a sun-motor, and declared that he was merely chasing the will-o’- the-wisp of perpetual motion.
Since he was of an extremely sensitive nature, this increased his reticence. For fear of being made the subject of ridicule he spoke of his research, which did not get beyond the mathematical stage, to but few persons. It is a matter of regret that he did not feel able to devote sufficient time and attention to this study to reach a definite conclusion.
Connections
On December 28, 1898, Bruce married Mary Kuhn of Leavenworth, Kansas.