C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

Noyes Laboratory:
One Hundred Years of Chemistry

A Century of Accomplishment
The Bare Facts
Nobel Prize Winners
ACS Presidents
Priestley Medal Winner

Fine Chemicals

The Illinois State Water Survey

Chemists and Chemistry at Noyes:
Roger Adams: "The Chief"
Ludwig F. Audrieth and Synthetic Sweeteners
John C. Bailar Jr. and Coordination Chemistry
St. Elmo Brady: Pioneer
George L. Clark and High-Intensity X-Ray Tubes
Willis H. Flygare and Microwave Spectrometry
Reynold C. Fuson: Teaching Chemistry
Herbert S. Gutowsky and NMR Spectroscopy
B. Smith Hopkins and the Chemistry of Rare Earths
Henry Fraser Johnstone and the Study of Air Pollution
Herbert A. Laitinen and Analytical Chemistry
Carl "Speed" Marvel: Advances in Polymer Chemistry
William A. Noyes: The Department Comes of Age
Arthur W. Palmer: The Early Years
Samuel W. Parr and Applied Chemistry
Charles C. Price III and Antimalarials
Worth H. Rodebush and Physical Chemistry
William C. Rose and Amino Acids
George F. Smith and the Aerosol Can
Harold R. Snyder and Antimalarials
Marion Sparks and Chemical Information

Landmark Designation

Born in Golden, Colorado, and educated at the universities of Colorado and Michigan, John Bailar became an instructor at the University of Illinois in 1928. It was the start of a sixty-three year career in the Department of Chemistry. As a graduate student he became interested in organic isomerism, but while teaching a general chemistry course he realized that isomerism, the occurrence of different compounds with the same chemical composition, could also exist among inorganic compounds.

Bailar went on to train several generations of coordination chemists, helping to make the University of Illinois as well known for inorganic chemistry as it was for organic. Ninety doctoral candidates, thirty-eight postdoctoral fellows, and numerous master’s and bachelor’s degree candidates studied under Bailar.

The growth of inorganic chemistry in the late 1940s and 1950s, known as "the renaissance of inorganic chemistry," owed much to Bailar’s pioneering work. As such, Bailar was responsible as well for the growing interest in coordination chemistry, and he came to be known as the "father of American coordination chemistry."

Bailar was best known for his work on the stereochemistry of coordination compounds. In 1934, along with a senior undergraduate, Robert W. Auten, Bailar discovered an inorganic counterpart of the well-known organic Walden inversion reaction. This work was the first installment in a 37-part series called "The Stereochemistry of Complex Compounds," issued from 1934-1985. In 1959 Bailar and future Nobel laureate Elias J. Corey wrote a classic article on octahedral complexes that pioneered the application of conformational analysis to coordination compounds.

Bailar contributed substantially to the development of heat-resistant inorganic polymers and to the field of homogeneous catalysis. He also studied the role of coordination compounds in electrochemical processes. His investigations included their stability in solution and their function in the electrodeposition of metals.

Bailar was involved in founding the monograph Inorganic Syntheses in 1939. In 1957 he helped establish the ACS Division of Inorganic Chemistry, serving as its first chairman. His efforts were rewarded when in 1962 the journal Inorganic Chemistry began publication. Bailar won the Priestley Medal in 1964 and served as President of the American Chemical Society in 1959.

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