Orville A. Beath was a professor of chemistry and leader of a team (Irene Rosenfeld, Carl S. Gilbert and Harold F. Eppson) at the University of Wyoming which researched plant chemistry, poisonous constituents of western range plants, seleniferous vegetation, chemical valuation of native forage plants and the geology of selenium distribution. Beath was an internationally known authority on the toxicity of selenium and authored or coauthored fifty-nine publications on this and related subjects. His major publications were: Selenium, coauthored with Sam F. Trelease of Columbia University, New York, 1949; The Story of Selenium in Wyoming, 1963; Selenium: Geobotany, Biochemistry, Toxicity, Nutrition, coauthored with Irene Rosenfeld, Academic Press, 1964.

Orville A. Beath was born on a farm near Verona, Wisconsin, November 9, 1884. His university degrees were from the University of Wisconsin, a B.A., 1908 and M.A. in chemistry, 1912. He was an instructor in chemistry at the University of Kansas until he began as an assistant research chemist at the University of Wyoming in 1914. His post graduate studies included a Fritzsche Fellowship and research assistantship, 1921-1922, at Wisconsin.

In 1916, Beath began his laboratory and field research on the geologic source of the element selenium which, when taken up from the soil into plants and water, becomes toxic to birds, humans and livestock. Beath headed a team including Harold Eppson, Carl Gilbert, and Irene Rosenfeld that studied plant chemistry, poisonous constituents of western range plants, seleniferous vegetation, chemical valuation of native forage plants and the geology of selenium distribution. The University of Wyoming named Beath head of the Department of Research Chemistry in 1922. He held this position until June 1955 and acceded to professor emeritus where he continued to work on selenium as part of a 50-year career at the University of Wyoming. Orville A. Beath died in 1965.

Scope and Content

The Orville A. Beath collection includes correspondence, manuscripts, printed matter, reports, subject files, and audiovisual material concerning Beath's life and work as a chemist and authority on plants and selenium in the Western United States. The subject files contain important material about selenium poisoning and uptake. The photographic materials include glass plate negatives, slides, photoprints and photonegatives of vegetation and geological formations, seleniferous plants, other toxic plants and the effects of selenium toxicity. Some of the papers and materials are focused on Mary E. Beath and her work in memorializing and contributing to her father's work. The papers also include personal materials, such as photographs, of the Beath family.