Mark F. Adams (1914-2004) attended Washington State College where he received his bachelor's degree in 1940 and became a Research Chemist for the college in 1942. Adams later earned his master's degree in chemistry and was appointed a job at the State Conservation and Development Department. While working on his doctorate, he conducted research for a project on extracting aluminum from clay, which he worked on with Dr. Otto Redlich (1896-1978) from the University of Vienna. Adams earned his doctor of philosophy degree in 1951 and became Head of the Chemical Research Section at Washington State College.
Dr. Otto Redlich was born in Vienna, Austria, 1896. Following a four year military service, Redlich began studying chemistry at the University of Vienna in 1919. In March of 1922, he earned his doctoral degree with honors. Redlich spent several years as a professor in Vienna until his relocation to the United States where he was appointed as a Chemistry Research Associate at Washington State College. He worked closely with Mark F. Adams, a chemical engineer at the college. The Austrian physical chemist and chemical engineer is highly recognized for his developments on the ideal gas equation, known as the "Redlich-Kwong equation." He died in 1978.
This collection consists of correspondence, articles, drafts, notes, and other papers relating to four reports collected by Mark F. Adams as part of his research: "The Light Metals: an Economic and Industrial Marketing Appraisal of Aluminum and Magnesium"; "Chemical Analysis of Magnesium Casting Alloys"; "Preliminary Report: Excelsior High-Alumina Clay Deposit"; and "National Water Quality Network Report on Analytical Reference Sample."
The first report, "The Light Metals," consists of twenty chapters, however drafts of only eight chapters are present in this collection. This project was completed by the Bureau of Business Research, College of Economics and Business at the University of Washington with the cooperation of the United States Department of Commerce and other federal and state agencies. It was published by Irwin and the Inland Press, Incorporated in 1945. Leading researchers and authors of the report are Nathanael Howard Engle (1893- ), Director of Bureau of Business Research at the University of Washington, Professor Homer Ewart Gregory (1886- ) from the University of Washington, and Robert Mosse (1906-1973). The team of researchers sent drafts of their report for criticism to Dr. Otto Redlich (1896-1978), Research Associate of the College of Sciences and Arts at Washington State University.
The "Preliminary Report: Excelsior High-Alumina Clay Deposit" was conducted and written by Dr. Vernon Edward Scheid (1906-1987) of the U.S. Geological Survey at University Station, Moscow, Idaho. The research was done in Spokane County, Washington and was part of the federal government's "Strategic Minerals Investigations" designed to obtain information on the nation's mineral resources for aid in war. The report was published in 1945 by the U.S. Department of the Interior, Geological Survey.
The "National Water Quality Network Report on Analytical Reference Sample" was managed by the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Public Health Service, and authored by Robert A. Taft of the Sanitary Engineering Center. It was published by the U.S. government, circa1960.
This collection is arranged in a single series.
This collection is open and available for research use.
Copyright restrictions apply.
Mark F. Adams Papers, 1943-1962
Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections Washington State University Libraries Pullman, WA
This collection was donated to the Washington State University Libraries in 1974 by Mark F. Adams.
Simon Reif-Acherman, "Otto Redlich: Chemist and Gentleman from the Old School," Quimica Nova 31, no. 7 (1908); Joseph Lintz, Jr., "Memorial of Vernon Edward Scheid," American Mineralogist 74 (1989), 494-496; Oral history interview of Mark F. Adams, WSU Centennial Oral Histories (Archives 202), Washington State University Archives.