James Bryant Conant

Chemist, diplomat, and educator, born in Dorchester (now part of Boston), Massachusetts, USA. A Harvard-educated organic chemist noted for his work on chlorophyll and haemoglobin, he taught at Harvard (1916–33) and was president there (1933–53), where he strengthened the professional schools, increased the geographical and social diversity of students, opened the university to women, and introduced curricular reforms. He chaired the National Defense Research Committee (1941–6), which developed the atomic bomb, and was instrumental in the targeting of Hiroshima, Japan. He also helped found the National Science Foundation (1950). His diplomatic career in the 1950s included four years as high commissioner and ambassador to West Germany. Finally turning toward the reform of public education, he conducted an extensive Carnegie Corp study of American high schools which resulted in The American High School Today (1959). His many other educational contributions include Slums and Suburbs (1961), The Education of American Teachers (1963), and The Comprehensive High School (1967).

In 1933, Conant accepted an appointment as the President of Harvard University, a post he held until 1953. After World War II he was an advisor to both the National Science Foundation and the Atomic Energy Commission.

As the university's president, Conant was instrumental in transforming Harvard, until then widely perceived as a 'finishing school' for members of the New England upper class, into a world-class research university. Many American colleges followed Conant's lead, and this campaign led eventually to the adoption of the SAT. Conant also did much to move general undergraduate curriculum away from its traditional emphasis on the classics, and towards a more scientific and modern subject matter.

Conant also actively promoted the discipline of history of science, instituting the Harvard Case Histories in Experimental Science and including history of science in the General Education curriculum. For Conant, an approach to science history that emphasized the internal and intellectual dimensions of scientific development — as opposed to the so-called external factors of sociology, economics and politics — reinforced the American Cold War ideology and would help Americans understand the importance of science since the Second World War. During that time, American science (and especially the field of physics that Conant viewed as exemplary) was rapidly becoming dominated by military funding, and Conant sought to defuse concerns about the possible corruption of science. Conant was instrumental in the early career of Thomas Kuhn, whose The Structure of Scientific Revolutions has been extremely influential for the various fields of science studies.

Conant died in Hanover, New Hampshire in 1978. Conant High School in Hoffman Estates, Illinois was named after Conant, as was James B. Conant Elementary School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.