Anna J. Harrison

Anna Jane Harrison (December 23 1912 - August 8 1998) was an American organic chemist and a professor of chemistry at Mount Holyoke College for nearly forty years.

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Background

She was born in Benton City, Missouri. Her parents were farmers, Albert Harrison and Mary Katherine Jones Harrison. She attended high school in Mexico, Missouri where she became interested in science. She received her B.A. in 1933, a M.A. in 1937, and her Ph.D. in 1940 in chemistry, all from the University of Missouri–Columbia.

She died in Holyoke, Massachusetts at the age of eighty-five.

Career

She taught chemistry at at Sophie Newcomb College where she worked from 1940 to 1945. During World War II, she was employed by the National Defense Research Council, working on toxic smoke.

In 1945, she joined the chemistry department at Mount Holyoke College. She became a full professor in the department in 1950 and serverd as the chair from 1960-66. She retired from Mount Holyoke in 1979.

In 1978 she became the first woman president of the American Chemical Society. She also served as president of the AAAS in 1983. In 1989 she co-authored a textbook with colleague Edwin Weaver entitled "Chemistry: A Search to Understand."

References

• Anna J. Harrison papers, Mt Holyoke College