Oral history interview with John C. Warner
- 1984-Feb-08
Oral history interview with John C. Warner
- 1984-Feb-08
John C. Warner begins the interview with a discussion of his family and childhood years growing up on a farm. He developed an interest in science in high school due to the encouragement of his science teacher, G. W. Warner. He enrolled in Indiana University in 1915. There, he received his A.B. in chemistry in 1919, his M.A. in 1920, and his Ph.D. in 1923. While in college, Warner worked for the Barrett Company working on synthetic phenol processing. As a graduate student, he was a research chemist for the Cosden Oil Company. After working for Cosden for just under a year, he returned to Indiana University as a chemistry instructor while completing his graduate studies.
In 1926, he joined the faculty of the Carnegie Institute of Technology (Carnegie-Mellon University) as a chemistry instructor. Warner spent the rest of his career at Carnegie. He rose through the university ranks, eventually becoming president of the Carnegie-Mellon in 1950. Warner restructured and developed the University's chemistry department. During his time at Carnegie, he worked closely with Charles Thomas on the chemistry, metallurgy, and plutonium purification aspects of the Manhattan Project. He also served as a liaison between Oak Ridge Laboratories and Monsanto Company for this project. Warner became a board member of Jones and Laughlin, Pittsburgh Plate Glass, and served as director of Spang and Company. Warner concludes the interview with a discussion of his family and reflections on his role in the advanced educational development in Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
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Rights | Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License |
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About the Interviewer
John A. Heitmann holds a BS degree in chemistry from Davidson College and an MA degree in history from Clemson University. From 1971 to 1977, he worked as a chemist in the metallurgical industry. He then studied at the Johns Hopkins University under Owen Hannaway and received his doctorate in the history of science in 1983.
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Oral history number | 0044 |
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Interviewee biographical information
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Education
Year | Institution | Degree | Discipline |
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1919 | Indiana University | AB | Chemistry |
1920 | Indiana University | MA | Chemistry |
2016 | Indiana University | PhD | Chemistry |
Professional Experience
Barrett Company
- 1918 to 1919 Chemist
Cosden Oil Company
- 1920 to 1921 Research Chemist
Indiana University
- 1922 to 1923 Chemistry Instructor
Wayne Chemicals Corporation
- 1924 to 1926 Research Chemist
Carnegie Institute of Technology
- 1926 to 1928 Chemistry Instructor
- 1928 to 1933 Assistant Professor of Chemistry
- 1933 to 1936 Associate Professor of Theoretical Chemistry
- 1936 to 1938 Associate Professor of Metallurgy
- 1938 to 1949 Professor of Chemistry and Department Head
- 1945 to 1949 Dean of Graduate Studies
- 1949 to 1950 Vice President and President Elect
- 1950 to 1965 President
- 1965 to 1989 President-Emeritus
Honors
Year(s) | Award |
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1958 | Pittsburgh Junior Chamber of Commerce Man of the Year Award |
1963 | Pittsburgh Graphic Arts Council Award |
1964 | Horatio Alger Award |
1965 | Western Pennsylvania Board of Industrial Realtors Award |
1966 | Pennsylvania Award for Excellence in Education |
1968 | Distinguished Alumnus Award, Indiana University |
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Complete transcript of interview
warner_jc_0044_FULL.pdf
The published version of the transcript may diverge from the interview audio due to edits to the transcript made by staff of the Center for Oral History, often at the request of the interviewee, during the transcript review process.