Collection context
Summary
- Creators:
- Bergstrom, Francis William, 1897-1946.
- Extent:
- 0.5 Linear feet
- Language:
- The materials are in English .
Background
- Biographical / historical:
-
Born in Bloomington, Indiana, January 10, 1897, the boy Francis came to Stanford with his parents in 1908 when his father was appointed Professor of Educational Psychology here. He attended the Palo Alto schools and then entered Stanford University as a student in 1914, specializing in chemistry and allied engineering subjects. Receiving the Bachelor's degree in 1918, he continued with graduate studies under the inspiration and guidance of the late Professor E. C. Franklin. As a result of this work he was awarded the degrees of Engineer in Chemical Engineering in 1919 and Doctor of Philosophy in 1922. Then followed three years of postdoctoral studies with the aid of a National Research Fellowship in Chemistry. This period was spent mainly at Clark and Brown Universities, where the young Doctor Bergstrom collaborated with Professor Charles A. Kraus, who in turn had been one of Professor Franklin's very first students at the University of Kansas.
In 1925 Bergstrom was appointed Instructor in the Chemistry Department of Stanford University. In the due course of time he passed through the ranks of Assistant and Associate Professor and in 1942 he became a full Professor. He was thus directly connected with the Stanford Chemistry Department as a student or a faculty member for a total of twenty-nine years. During 1934 he was honored by a Guggenheim Fellowship award for study in Europe and on this basis he spent about eight months abroad, mainly at Oxford and Heidelberg.
Throughout his career Dr. Bergstrom was a most enthusiastic and industrious scientific investigator. He worked especially with nitrogen compounds, both of the inorganic and organic types. His numerous researches were characterized by great experimental skill, especially in glassblowing, and by clear and logical thinking. Approximately seventy scientific papers, published in the most important scientific journals, attest to his outstanding research abilities. Largely as a result of these accomplishments he was appointed as an associate editor of the Journal of Organic Chemistry, when this publication was started in 1936, and he continued in this capacity until his death. During the period July 1, 1943 to January 1, 1946, he also served as the responsible investigator and supervisor for an important project on antimalarial compounds, sponsored by the Committee on Medical Research of the Office of Scientific Research and Development.
Francis William Bergstrom, Professor of Chemistry, died in the Stanford University Hospital on March 29, 1946, at the age of forty-nine years. His death was caused by a brain tumor, which manifested its early symptoms during the preceding January and which developed with amazing rapidity; his period of real illness was thus mercifully short. He was unmarried and the only child of parents, now deceased, who in turn were only children; consequently he leaves no close relatives.
- Rules or conventions:
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Indexed terms
- Subjects:
- Slides.
Access and use
- Location of this collection:
-
Stanford University Archives, Green Library557 Escondido MallStanford, CA 94305-6064, US
- Contact:
- (650) 725-1022