View source for James B. Conant

{{short description|American chemist (1893–1978)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2013}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| honorific_suffix  = {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|ForMemRS}}
| image               = James Conant 1932.jpg
| image_size          = 
| caption             = Conant in 1932
| alt                 = Head and shoulders of smiling man in suit and tie with round dark-rimmed glasses. This is a detail from the picture below.
| order               = 1st
| ambassador_from     = United States
| country             = West Germany
| president           = [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]]
| term_start          = May 14, 1955
| term_end            = February 19, 1957
| predecessor         = [[Leland B. Morris]] (as ''chargé d'affaires'', 1941)
| successor           = [[David K. E. Bruce]]
| title2              = 23rd [[President of Harvard University]]
| term_start2         = October 9, 1933
| term_end2           = 1953
| predecessor2        = [[Abbott Lawrence Lowell]]
| successor2          = [[Nathan Marsh Pusey]]
| birth_name          = James Bryant Conant
| birth_date          = {{Birth date|1893|3|26}}
| birth_place         = [[Dorchester, Massachusetts]], U.S.
| death_date          = {{death date and age|1978|2|11|1893|3|26}}
| death_place         = [[Hanover, New Hampshire]], U.S.
| alma_mater          = 
| education           = [[Harvard University]] ([[Bachelor of Arts|AB]], [[PhD]])
| residence           = 
| profession          = 
| religion            = 
| spouse              = {{marriage|Patty Thayer Richards|April 17, 1920}}
| children            = 2
| relations           = [[Conant family]]
| signature           = James B. Conant signature.jpg
| allegiance          = United States
| branch              = [[Chemical Warfare Service]]
| serviceyears        = 1917–1919
| rank                = [[Major (rank)|Major]]
| unit                = 
| commands            = 
| battles             = [[World War I]]
| awards              = [[American Institute of Chemists Gold Medal]] (1934)<br>Commandeur, [[Légion d'honneur]] (1936)<br>[[Benjamin Franklin Medal (American Philosophical Society)|Benjamin Franklin Medal]] (1943)<br>[[Priestley Medal]] (1944)<br>[[Medal for Merit]] (1946)<br>[[Kentucky colonel]] (1946)<br>Honorary [[Commander of the Order of the British Empire]] (1948)<br>Grand Cross of the [[Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany]] (1957)<br>[[Presidential Medal of Freedom]] with Distinction (1963)<br>[[Sylvanus Thayer Award]] (1965)<br>[[Clark Kerr Medal]] (1977)<br>[[Fellow of the Royal Society]]<ref name="frs" />
}}

'''James Bryant Conant''' (March 26, 1893&nbsp;– February 11, 1978) was an American [[chemist]], a [[President of Harvard University]], and the first [[United States Ambassador to West Germany|U.S. Ambassador to West Germany]]. 

During [[World War I]], he served in the [[United States Army|U.S. Army]], where he worked on the development of [[Chemical weapons in World War I|poison gases]], especially [[lewisite]]. He became an assistant professor of chemistry at Harvard University in 1919 and the Sheldon Emery Professor of Organic Chemistry in 1929. He researched the physical structures of [[natural product]]s, particularly [[chlorophyll]], and he was one of the first to explore the sometimes complex relationship between [[chemical equilibrium]] and the [[reaction rate]] of chemical processes. He studied the [[biochemistry]] of [[oxyhemoglobin]] providing insight into the disease [[methemoglobinemia]], helped to explain the structure of [[chlorophyll]], and contributed important insights that underlie modern theories of [[acid-base chemistry]].

In 1933, Conant became the president of Harvard University with a reformist agenda that included dispensing with a number of customs, including class rankings and the requirement for Latin classes. He abolished [[athletic scholarships]], and instituted an "[[up or out]]" policy, under which untenured faculty who were not promoted were terminated. His egalitarian vision of education required a diversified student body, and he promoted the adoption of the [[Scholastic Aptitude Test|Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT)]] and co-educational classes. During his presidency, women were admitted to [[Harvard Medical School]] and [[Harvard Law School]] for the first time.

Conant was appointed to the [[National Defense Research Committee]] (NDRC) in 1940, becoming its chairman in 1941. In this capacity, he oversaw vital wartime research projects, including the development of synthetic rubber and the [[Manhattan Project]], which developed the first [[atomic bomb]]s.  On July 16, 1945, he was among the dignitaries present at the [[Holloman Air Force Base|Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range]] for the [[Trinity (nuclear test)|Trinity nuclear test]], the first detonation of an atomic bomb, and was part of the [[Interim Committee]] that advised President [[Harry S. Truman]] to use atomic bombs on Japan. After the war, he served on the Joint Research and Development Board (JRDC) that was established to coordinate burgeoning defense research, and on the influential General Advisory Committee (GAC) of the [[United States Atomic Energy Commission|Atomic Energy Commission]] (AEC); in the latter capacity he advised the president against starting a development program for the [[hydrogen bomb]].

In his later years at Harvard, Conant taught undergraduate courses on the [[history and philosophy of science]], and wrote books explaining the [[scientific method]] to laymen. In 1953, he retired as president of Harvard University and became the [[Allied High Commission|United States High Commissioner]] for Germany, overseeing the restoration of German sovereignty after [[World War II]], and then was Ambassador to West Germany until 1957. On returning to the United States, Conant criticized the education system in ''[[The American High School Today]]'' (1959), ''Slums and Suburbs'' (1961), and ''The Education of American Teachers'' (1963). Between 1965 and 1969, Conant authored his autobiography, ''My Several Lives'' (1970). He became increasingly infirm, had a series of [[stroke]]s in 1977, and died in a nursing home in [[Hanover, New Hampshire]], the following year.

==Early life and education==
Conant was born in [[Dorchester, Massachusetts]], on March 26, 1893, the third child and only son of James Scott Conant, a [[photoengraver]], and his wife Jennett Orr (née Bryant).{{sfn|Bartlett|1983|pp=91–92}} In 1904, Conant was one of 35 boys who passed the competitive admission exam for the [[Roxbury Latin School]] in [[West Roxbury, Massachusetts]], and he graduated near the top of his class from the school in 1910.{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|pp=17–18}} 

Encouraged by his science teacher, Newton H. Black, in September of that year he entered [[Harvard College]],{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|p=20}} where he studied [[physical chemistry]] under [[Theodore W. Richards]] and [[organic chemistry]] under [[Elmer P. Kohler]]. He was also an editor of ''[[The Harvard Crimson]]''. He joined the [[Signet Society]] and [[Delta Upsilon]],{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|pp=27–31}} and was initiated as a brother of the Omicron chapter of [[Alpha Chi Sigma]] in 1912.<ref name="alpha chi sigma">{{Cite web |title=Fraternity – Awards – Hall of Fame – Alpha Chi Sigma |url=http://www.alphachisigma.org/page.aspx?pid=268 |access-date=April 24, 2013 |publisher=Alpha Chi Sigma Fraternity}}</ref> He graduated [[Phi Beta Kappa]] with his [[Bachelor of Arts]] in June 1913.{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|pp=27–31}} He then went to work on his doctorate, which was an unusual double dissertation. The first part, supervised by Richards, concerned "The Electrochemical Behavior of Liquid Sodium Amalgams"; the second, supervised by Kohler, was "A Study of Certain [[Cyclopropane]] Derivatives".{{sfn|Saltzman|2003|p=86}} Harvard awarded Conant his [[Doctor of Philosophy]] degree in 1916.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Halberstam |first=Michael J. |author-link=Michael J. Halberstam |date=June 19, 1952 |title=James Bryant Conant: The Right Man |work=[[The Harvard Crimson]] |url=http://www.thecrimson.com/printerfriendly.aspx?ref=483890 |access-date=April 25, 2012}}</ref>

==Career==
In 1915, Conant entered into a business partnership with two other Harvard chemistry graduates, [[Stanley Pennock]] and Chauncey Loomis, to form the LPC Laboratories. They opened a plant in a one-story building in [[Queens]], New York City, where they manufactured chemicals used by the pharmaceutical industry like [[benzoic acid]] that were selling at high prices on account of the interruption of imports from Germany due to [[World War I]]. In 1916, the departure of organic chemist [[Roger Adams]] created a vacancy at Harvard that was offered to Conant. Since he aspired to an academic career, Conant accepted the offer and returned to Harvard. On November 27, 1916, an explosion killed Pennock and two others and completely destroyed a subsequent and newly opened plant in Newark, New Jersey. A contributing cause was Conant's faulty test procedures.{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|pp=38–39}}{{sfn|Conant|1970|pp=44–45}}

===U.S. Army===
Following the [[United States declaration of war on Germany (1917)|United States declaration of war on Germany]] that launched U.S. involvement in [[World War I]], Conant was commissioned as a [[second lieutenant]] in the [[United States Army|U.S. Army]] Sanitary Corps on September 22, 1917. He went to the [[Camp American University]], where he worked on the development of [[poison gas]]es. Initially, his work concentrated on [[mustard gas]], but in May 1918, Conant took charge of a unit concerned with the development of [[lewisite]]. He was promoted to [[Major (rank)|major]] on July 20, 1918. A pilot plant was built, and then a full-scale production plant in [[Cleveland]], but the war ended before lewisite could be used in battle.{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|pp=44–48}}

===Harvard University professor===
Conant was appointed an assistant professor of chemistry at Harvard in 1919. The following year he became engaged to Richards's daughter, Grace (Patty) Thayer Richards. They were married in the [[Appleton Chapel]] at Harvard on April 17, 1920, and had two sons, James Richards Conant, born in May 1923, and Theodore Richards Conant, born in July 1928.{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|pp=50–53}}

Conant became an associate professor in 1924.<ref name="aip">{{Cite web |title=Array of Contemporary American Physicists&nbsp;– James Conant |url=http://www.aip.org/history/acap/biographies/bio.jsp?conantj |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100830074634/http://www.aip.org/history/acap/biographies/bio.jsp?conantj |archive-date=August 30, 2010 |access-date=April 28, 2012 |publisher=[[American Institute of Physics]] |df=mdy-all}}</ref>{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|p=55}} In 1925, he visited Germany, then the heart of chemical research,{{sfn|Conant|1970|p=30}} for eight months. He toured the major universities and laboratories there and met many of the leading chemists, including [[Theodor Curtius]], [[Kazimierz Fajans]], [[Hans Fischer]], [[Arthur Hantzsch]], [[Hans Meerwein]], [[Jakob Meisenheimer]], [[Hermann Staudinger]], [[Adolf Windaus]] and [[Karl Ziegler]]. After Conant returned to the United States, [[Arthur Amos Noyes]] made him an attractive offer to move to [[Caltech]]. The president of Harvard, [[Abbott Lawrence Lowell]], made a counter offer: immediate promotion to professor, effective September 1, 1927, with a salary of $7,000 (roughly equivalent to {{currency|{{Inflation|US|7000|1927}}}} as of {{inflation/year|US}}{{Inflation-fn|US}}) and a grant of $9,000 per annum for research. Conant accepted and stayed at Harvard.{{sfn|Saltzman|2003|pp=89–90}} In 1929, he became the Sheldon Emery Professor of Organic Chemistry, and then, in 1931, the chairman of the chemistry department.<ref name="aip" />

Between 1928 and 1933, Conant published 55 papers.{{sfn|Saltzman|2003|pp=89–90}} Much of his research, like his double thesis, combined [[natural product]] chemistry with [[physical organic chemistry]]. Based on his exploration of [[reaction rate]]s in [[chemical equilibrium|chemical equilibria]], Conant was one of the first to recognise that the [[chemical kinetics|kinetics]] of these systems is sometimes straightforward and simple, yet quite complex in other cases.{{sfn|Bartlett|1983|pp=94–97}} Conant studied the effect of [[haloalkane]] structure on the rate of [[substitution reaction|substitution]] with inorganic [[iodide]] [[salt (chemistry)|salts]]<ref>Conant published a series of three papers on the reaction of inorganic iodide with organic halides:
*{{Cite journal |last1=Conant |first1=J. B. |last2=Kirner |first2=W. R. |year=1924 |title=The Relation between the Structure of Organic Halides and the Speed of Their Reaction with Inorganic Iodides. I. The Problem of Alternating Polarity in Chain Compounds |journal=[[Journal of the American Chemical Society]] |issn=0002-7863 |volume=46 |issue=1 |pages=232–252 |doi=10.1021/ja01666a031|bibcode=1924JAChS..46..232C |ref=none}}
*{{cite journal |title=The Structure of Organic Halides and the Speeds of their Reaction with Inorganic Iodides. II. A Study of the Alkyl Chlorides|first1=J. B. |last1=Conant |first2=R. E. |last2=Hussey |journal=[[Journal of the American Chemical Society]] |issn=0002-7863|date=February 1925 |volume=47 |issue=2 |pages=476–488 |doi=10.1021/ja01679a031|ref=none}}
*{{cite journal |title=The Structure of Organic Halides and The Speeds of their Reaction with Inorganic Iodides. III. The Influence of Unsaturated Groups |first1=J. B. |last1=Conant |first2=W. R. |last2=Kirner |first3=R. E. |last3=Hussey |journal=[[Journal of the American Chemical Society]] |issn=0002-7863 |date=February 1925 |volume=47 |issue=2 |pages=488–501 |doi=10.1021/ja01679a032|ref=none}}</ref> which, together with earlier work,<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Finkelstein |first=H. |date=April–October 1910 |title=Darstellung organischer Jodide aus den entsprechenden Bromiden und Chloriden |url=https://zenodo.org/record/1426411 |journal=[[Berichte der deutschen chemischen Gesellschaft]] |issn=0365-9496 |volume=43 |issue=2 |pages=1528–1532 |doi=10.1002/cber.19100430257}}</ref> led to what is now known as either the Conant-Finkelstein reaction or more commonly simply the [[Finkelstein reaction]].{{sfn|Wang|2010|pp=1060–1063}}  A recent application of this reaction involved the preparation of an iodinated [[polyvinyl chloride]] from regular PVC.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Moulay |first1=S. |last2=Zeffouni |first2=Z. |date=August 2006 |title=Application of the Conant-Finkelstein Reaction to the Modification of PVC: Iodinated PVC |journal=Journal of Polymer Research |issn=1572-8935 |volume=3 |issue=4 |pages=267–275 |doi=10.1007/s10965-005-9034-6 |s2cid=95486966|ref=none}}</ref> A combination of Conant's work on the kinetics of [[hydrogenation]] and [[George Kistiakowsky]]'s work on the [[enthalpy change]]s of these reactions<ref>Kistiakowsky published a series of six papers in the ''Journal of the American Chemical Society'' on the heats of organic reactions; the first and last papers in that series are:
*{{Cite journal |last1=Kistiakowsky |first1=G. B. |last2=Romeyn Jr. |first2=H. |last3=Ruhoff |first3=J. R. |last4=Smith |first4=H. A. |last5=Vaughan |first5=W. E. |date=January 1935 |title=Heats of Organic Reactions. I. The Apparatus and the Heat of Hydrogenation of Ethylene |journal=[[Journal of the American Chemical Society]] |issn=0002-7863 |volume=57 |issue=1 |pages=65–75 |doi=10.1021/ja01304a019|bibcode=1935JAChS..57...65K |ref=none}}
*{{cite journal |title=Heats of Organic Reactions. VI. Heats of Hydrogenation of Some Oxygen-containing Compounds |first1=M. A. |last1=Dolliver |first2=T. L. |last2=Gresham|first3=G. B. |last3=Kistiakowsky |first4=Elgene A. |first5=W. E. |last5=Vaughan |journal=[[Journal of the American Chemical Society]] |issn=0002-7863 |date=February 1938|volume=60 |issue=2 |pages=440–450 |doi=10.1021/ja01269a060 |last4=Smith|bibcode=1938JAChS..60..440D |ref=none}}</ref> supported the later development of the theory of [[hyperconjugation]].{{sfn|Kistiakowsky|Westheimer|1979|p=213}}

Conant's investigations helped in the development of a more comprehensive understanding of the nature of acids and bases.{{sfn|Kistiakowsky|Westheimer|1979|p=212}} He investigated the properties of certain [[acid]]s which were many times [[acid strength|stronger]] than [[mineral acid]] solutions in water. Conant christened them "[[superacid]]s"{{sfn|Hall|Conant|1927|p=3047}} and laid the foundation for the development of the [[Hammett acidity function]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Hammett |first1=L. P. |last2=Deyrup |first2=A. J. |year=1932 |title=A Series of Simple Basic Indicators. I. The Acidity Functions of Mixtures of Sulfuric and Perchloric Acids with Water |journal=[[Journal of the American Chemical Society]] |issn=0002-7863 |volume=54 |issue=7 |pages=2721–2739 |doi=10.1021/ja01346a015|bibcode=1932JAChS..54.2721H }}</ref> These investigations used [[acetic acid]] as the [[solvent]] and demonstrated that [[sodium acetate]] behaves as a [[base (chemistry)|base]] under these conditions.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Conant |first1=J. B. |last2=Hall |first2=N. F. |year=1927 |title=A Study of Superacid Solutions. II. A Chemical Investigation of the Hydrogen-Ion Activity of Acetic Acid Solutions |journal=[[Journal of the American Chemical Society]] |issn=0002-7863 |volume=49 |issue=12 |pages=3062–3070 |doi=10.1021/ja01411a011|bibcode=1927JAChS..49.3062C }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Conant |first1=J. B. |last2=Werner |first2=T. H. |year=1930 |title=The Determination of the Strength of Weak Bases and Pseudo Bases in Glacial Acetic Acid Solutions |journal=[[Journal of the American Chemical Society]] |issn=0002-7863  |volume=52 |issue=11 |pages=4436–4450 |doi=10.1021/ja01374a038|bibcode=1930JAChS..52.4436C }}</ref>  This observation is consistent with [[Brønsted–Lowry acid–base theory]] published in 1923,{{sfn|Stoker|2012|pp=272–275}} but cannot be explained under older [[Acid–base reaction#Arrhenius definition|Arrhenius theory approaches]]. Later work with George Wheland<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Conant |first1=J. B. |last2=Wheland |first2=G. W. |year=1933 |title=The Structure of the Acids Obtained by the Oxidation of Tri-isobutylene |journal=[[Journal of the American Chemical Society]] |issn=0002-7863 |volume=55 |issue=6 |pages=2499–2504 |doi=10.1021/ja01333a043|bibcode=1933JAChS..55.2499C }}</ref> and extended by William Kirk McEwen<ref>{{Cite journal |last=McEwen |first=W. K. |year=1936 |title=A Further Study of Extremely Weak Acids |journal=[[Journal of the American Chemical Society]] |issn=0002-7863 |volume=58 |issue=7 |pages=1124–1129 |doi=10.1021/ja01298a017|bibcode=1936JAChS..58.1124M }}</ref> looked at the properties of [[hydrocarbon]]s as very weak acids, including [[acetophenone]], [[phenylacetylene]], [[fluorene]] and [[diphenylmethane]]. Conant can be considered alongside [[Johannes Nicolaus Brønsted|Brønsted]], [[Thomas Martin Lowry|Lowry]], [[Gilbert N. Lewis|Lewis]], and [[Louis Plack Hammett|Hammett]] as a developer of modern understanding of acids and bases.{{sfn|Kistiakowsky|Westheimer|1979|p=212-213}}

Between 1929 and his retirement from chemical research in 1933,{{sfn|Kistiakowsky|Westheimer|1979|p=214}} Conant published papers in ''[[Science (journal)|Science]]'',<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Conant |first1=J. B. |last2=Hyde |first2=J. F. |date=August 9, 1929 |title=The Relationship of Chlorophyll to the Porphyrins |journal=[[Science (journal)|Science]] |volume=70 |issue=1806 |page=149 |bibcode=1929Sci....70..149C |doi=10.1126/science.70.1806.149 |issn=0036-8075 |jstor=1654542 |pmid=17836678}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Conant |first1=J. B. |last2=Dietz |first2=E. M. |last3=Kamerling |first3=S. E. |date=March 6, 1931 |title=The Dehydrogenation of Chlorophyll and the Mechanism of Photosynthesis |journal=[[Science (journal)|Science]] |volume=73 |issue=1888 |page=268 |bibcode=1931Sci....73..268. |doi=10.1126/science.73.1888.268 |issn=0036-8075 |jstor=1655595 |pmid=17755309|s2cid=41018863 }}</ref> ''[[Nature (journal)|Nature]]'',<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Conant |first1=J. B. |last2=Dietz |first2=E. M. |year=1933 |title=Structural Formulæ of the Chlorophylls |journal=[[Nature (journal)|Nature]] |volume=131 |issue=3300 |page=131 |bibcode=1933Natur.131..131C |doi=10.1038/131131a0 |issn=0028-0836 |s2cid=4103199|doi-access=free }}</ref> and the ''[[Journal of the American Chemical Society]]''  about [[chlorophyll]] and its structure.<ref>Conant published a series of fourteen papers in the ''Journal of the American Chemical Society'' on chlorophyll; the first and last papers in that series are:
*{{Cite journal |last1=Conant |first1=J. B. |last2=Hyde |first2=J. F. |year=1929 |title=Studies in the Chlorophyll Series. I. The Thermal Decomposition of the Magnesium-Free Compounds |journal=[[Journal of the American Chemical Society]]  |issn=0002-7863 |volume=51 |issue=12 |pages=3668–3674 |doi=10.1021/ja01387a032|bibcode=1929JAChS..51.3668C |ref=none}}
*{{cite journal|doi = 10.1021/ja01325a060|year = 1934|last1 = Conant|first1 = J. B.|last2 = Chow|first2 = B. F.|last3 = Dietz|first3 = E. M.|journal = [[Journal of the American Chemical Society]]  |issn=0002-7863 |volume = 56|issue = 10|pages =2185–2189|title = Studies in the Chlorophyll Series. XIV. Potentiometric Titration in Acetic Acid Solution of the Basic Groups in Chlorophyll Derivatives| bibcode=1934JAChS..56.2185C |ref=none}}</ref>{{sfn|Kistiakowsky|Westheimer|1979|p=213}}  Though the complete structure eluded him, his work did support and contribute to [[List of Nobel laureates in Chemistry|Nobel laureate]] [[Hans Fischer]]'s ultimate determination of the structure in 1939.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Fischer |first1=H. |last2=Wenderoth |first2=H. |year=1939 |title=Zur Kenntnis von Chlorophyll |journal=[[Justus Liebigs Annalen der Chemie]] |language=de |volume=537 |issue=1 |pages=170–177 |doi=10.1002/jlac.19395370114 |issn=0075-4617}}</ref> Conant's work on chlorophyll was recognised when he was inducted as a foreign [[Fellow of the Royal Society]]<ref name="frs">{{harvnb|Kistiakowsky|Westheimer|1979|p=208}}</ref> on May 2, 1941.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Conant, James Bryant&nbsp;–&nbsp;Proposal for Foreign Membership |url=http://royalsociety.org/DServe/dserve.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqDb=Catalog&dsqSearch=RefNo==%27EC%2F1941%2F22%27&dsqCmd=Show.tcl |access-date=December 25, 2012 |publisher=[[Royal Society]]}}</ref> He also published three papers describing the [[polymerisation]] of [[isoprene]] to prepare [[synthetic rubber]].{{sfn|Bartlett|1983|pp=94–97}}

Another line of research involved the [[biochemistry]] of the [[hemoglobin|hemoglobin-oxyhemoglobin]] system.{{sfn|Bartlett|1983|pp=94–97}} Conant ran a series of experiments with [[electrochemistry|electrochemical]] oxidation and reduction, following in the footsteps of the famous German chemist and Nobel laureate [[Fritz Haber]].{{sfn|Conant|1970|p=60}} He determined that the [[iron]] centre in [[methemoglobin]] is a [[ferric]] (Fe<sup>III</sup>) centre, unlike the [[ferrous]] (Fe<sup>II</sup>) centre found in normal hemoglobin,<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Conant, J. B. |year=1923 |title=An Electrochemical Study Of Hemoglobin |journal=[[Journal of Biological Chemistry]] |volume=57 |issue=2 |pages=401–414 |doi=10.1016/S0021-9258(18)85503-X |issn=0021-9258|doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Conant, J. B. |last2=Fieser, L. F. |year=1925 |title=Methemoglobin |journal=[[Journal of Biological Chemistry]] |volume=62 |issue=3 |pages=595–622 |doi=10.1016/S0021-9258(18)85044-X |issn=0021-9258|doi-access=free }}</ref> and this difference in [[oxidation state]] is the cause of [[methemoglobinemia]], a medical condition which causes [[tissue hypoxia]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Bodansky, O. |year=1951 |title=Methemoglobinemia And Methemoglobin-Producing Compounds |journal=[[Pharmacological Reviews]] |volume=3 |issue=2 |pages=144–191 |issn=0031-6997 |pmid=14843826}}</ref>

Conant wrote a chemistry textbook with his former science teacher Black, entitled ''Practical Chemistry'', which was published in 1920, with a revised edition in 1929. This was superseded in 1937 by their ''New Practical Chemistry'', which in turn had a revised edition in 1946.{{sfn|Bartlett|1983|pp=121–124}} The text proved a popular one; it was adopted by 75 universities, and Conant received thousands of dollars in [[royalties]].{{sfn|Saltzman|2003|p=93}} For his accomplishments in chemistry, he was awarded the [[American Chemical Society]]'s Nichols Medal in 1932,{{sfn|Saltzman|2003|p=93}} [[Columbia University]]'s Chandler Medal in 1932,<ref>{{Cite news |date=January 22, 1932 |title=Nichols Chemistry Medal Given Conant for Research |work=[[The Harvard Crimson]] |url=http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1932/1/22/nichols-chemistry-medal-given-conant-for/ |access-date=April 28, 2012}}</ref> and the American Chemical Society's highest honor, the [[Priestley Medal]], in 1944.<ref>{{Cite news |date=September 12, 1944 |title=President Conant Wins Priestley Medal of ACS |work=[[The Harvard Crimson]] |url=http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1944/9/12/president-conant-wins-priestley-medal-of/ |access-date=April 28, 2012}}</ref> He also received the society's [[Charles Lathrop Parsons Award]] in 1955, for public service.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Charles Lathrop Parsons Award |url=http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/funding-and-awards/awards/national/bytopic/charles-lathrop-parsons-award.html |access-date=2016-01-14 |website=American Chemical Society}}</ref>  He was elected a Fellow of the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]] in 1924,<ref name="AAAS">{{Cite web |title=Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter C |url=http://www.amacad.org/publications/BookofMembers/ChapterC.pdf |access-date=April 14, 2011 |publisher=American Academy of Arts and Sciences}}</ref> a Member of the [[National Academy of Sciences]] in 1929,<ref name="aip" /> and a Member of the [[American Philosophical Society]] in 1935.<ref>{{Cite web |title=APS Member History |url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=James+B.+Conant&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced |access-date=2023-06-07 |website=search.amphilsoc.org}}</ref> Notable students of Conant's included [[Paul Doughty Bartlett]], George Wheland, and [[Frank Westheimer]].{{sfn|Saltzman|2003|pp=89–90}} In 1932 he was also honored by membership of the [[German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Mitgliederverzeichnis |url=http://www.leopoldina.org/de/mitglieder/mitgliederverzeichnis/member/3157/ |access-date=March 27, 2013 |publisher=[[German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina|Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina]] |language=de}}</ref>

===Harvard University president===
{{Further|Harvard University}}
After some months of lobbying and discussion, Harvard's ruling body, the [[Harvard Corporation]], announced on May 8, 1933, that it had elected Conant as the next President of Harvard.{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|pp=70–75}} [[Alfred North Whitehead]], Harvard's eminent professor of philosophy disagreed with the decision, declaring, "The Corporation should not have elected a chemist to the Presidency." "But," Corporation member [[Grenville Clark]] reminded him, "[[Charles William Eliot|Eliot]] was a chemist, and our best president too." "I know," replied Whitehead, "but Eliot was a ''bad'' chemist."{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|p=75}} Clark was very much responsible for Conant's election.{{sfn|Hill|2014|pp=85-86}}

On October 9, 1933, Conant became the [[President of Harvard University]] with a low-key installation ceremony in the Faculty Room of [[University Hall (Harvard University)|University Hall]].<ref name="prez">{{Cite web |title=James Bryant Conant |url=http://www.harvard.edu/history/presidents/conant |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120415033205/http://www.harvard.edu/history/presidents/conant |archive-date=April 15, 2012 |access-date=April 28, 2012 |publisher=Harvard University}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=https://guides.library.harvard.edu/ld.php?content_id=43282995 |title=President Conant Is Installed in Office |website=Harvard Library Guides |date=October 13, 1933 |access-date=January 4, 2024}}</ref> This set the tone for Conant's presidency as one of informality and reform. At his inauguration, he accepted the charter and seal presented to [[John Leverett the Younger]] in 1707, but dropped a number of other customs, including the singing of ''[[Gloria Patri]]'' and the Latin Oration.{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|p=77}} While, unlike some other universities, Harvard did not require Greek or Latin for entrance, they were worth double credits towards admission, and students like Conant who had studied Latin were awarded an [[Artium Baccalaureus|A.B.]] degree while those who had not, received an [[Scientiæ Baccalaureus|S.B]]. One of his first efforts at reform was to attempt to abolish this distinction.{{sfn|Conant|1970|pp=419–420}} But in 1937 he wrote:{{blockquote|I do not see how one can make very much headway as a student&nbsp;... of history and literature without a reading knowledge of Latin. I do not see how a person can go very far in any branch of science without a thorough understanding of mathematics, and if the underpinning was bad in school, probably the necessary [[calculus]] and so forth would not have been taken during the college years. I know that a man cannot be a research chemist without a reading knowledge of German. It is hard to acquire it as the first language in college.{{sfn|Conant|1970|p=189}}}}

As a first step to improving the faculty, Conant established a mandatory retirement age of sixty-six, with exceptional faculty members able to remain until age seventy-six. The latter affected two of the university's most eminent scholars, [[Frank Taussig]] and [[George Lyman Kittredge|George Kittredge]], who were persuaded to retire voluntarily rather than under the new rule.{{sfn|Urban|2020|p=26}} His longest and most bitter battle was over [[tenure (academic)|tenure]] reform, shifting to an "[[up or out]]" policy, under which scholars who were not promoted were terminated. A small number of extra-departmental positions was set aside for outstanding scholars.{{sfn|Bartlett|1983|p=98}} This policy led junior faculty to revolt, and nearly resulted in Conant's dismissal in 1938.{{sfn|Bartlett|1983|pp=107–109}} Conant was fond of saying: "Behold the turtle. It makes progress only when it sticks its neck out."{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|p=89}}

[[File:Oppenheimer Marshall Conant Bradley and others at Harvard.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|[[Honorary degree]]s recipients pose at the 1947 Harvard University commencement in Cambridge, Massachusetts, June 5, 1947. 

Front row (left to right):  [[Robert Oppenheimer]], Ernest Cadman Collwell,  [[George C. Marshall]], President James B. Conant of Harvard, [[Omar N. Bradley]], T.S. Eliot and James Wadsworth.

Back row (left to right): William Addison Dwiggins, George Henry Chase, William Hodding Carter Jr, Ivor Armstrong Richards, William F Gibbs and Frank L Boyden.|alt=Thirteen men pose for a formal picture. Seven are sitting and six standing. There are all wearing either suits or academic gowns, except Bradley, who is in his Army uniform with a garrison cap.]]
Other reforms included the abolition of class rankings and [[athletic scholarships]].{{sfn|Bartlett|1983|p=98}} Conant added new graduate degrees in education, history of science and public policy,{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|p=79}} and he introduced the [[Nieman Fellowship]] for journalists to study at Harvard,{{sfn|Conant|1970|pp=399–402}} the first of which was awarded in 1939.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Nieman Fellowships&nbsp;– Alumni Fellows |work=Nieman Reports |url=http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/NiemanFoundation/NiemanFellowships/MeetTheFellows/AlumniFellows.aspx |access-date=December 21, 2012 |publisher=Nieman Foundation}}</ref> He supported the "meatballs", as [[Working class|lower class]] students were called.{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|p=80}} He instituted the Harvard national scholarships for underprivileged students.<ref name="prez" /> [[Dudley House (Harvard College)|Dudley House]] was opened to provide non-resident students with increased opportunities for socialization (opportunities provided to resident undergraduates by the [[Harvard_College#House_system|twelve Harvard College residential houses]]).{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|p=80}}

Conant asked two of his assistant deans, [[Henry Chauncey]] and William Bender, to determine whether the [[Scholastic Aptitude Test|Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT)]] was a good measure of academic potential. When they reported that it was, Conant adopted it.{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|p=81}} He waged a ten-year campaign for the consolidation of testing services, which resulted in the creation of the [[Educational Testing Service]] in 1946, with Chauncey as its director.{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|p=707}} [[Theodore H. White]], a Boston Jewish "meatball" who received a personal letter of introduction from Conant so that he could report on the [[Chinese Civil War]], noted that "Conant was the first president to recognize that meatballs were Harvard men too."{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|p=80}}
Lowell, Conant's predecessor, had imposed a 15 percent quota on Jewish students in 1922, something Conant had voted to support.{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|pp=58–59}}

This quota was replaced with geographic distribution preferences, which had the same effect of limiting Jewish admission.{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|pp=81–83}}{{sfn|Norwood|2004|p=191}} Conant's cool response to the plight of the Jewish academic refugees from Hitler suggests that he shared the [[anti-semitism]] common to his social group and time.{{sfn|Keller|Keller|2001|p=49}} When [[DuPont]] asked him for an appraisal of the German chemist [[Max Bergmann]], Conant wrote back that Bergmann was "definitely of the Jewish type—rather heavy" with "none of the earmarks of genius".{{sfn|Conant|2017|p=143}}{{sfn|Norwood|2004|p=192}} Harvard awarded honorary degrees to two notable displaced scholars, [[Thomas Mann]] and [[Albert Einstein]], in 1935,{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|p=88}} but Conant declined to participate in the Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced German Scholars.{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|p=84}} His vision of building Harvard's faculty involved hiring promising American scholars rather than helping refugees. The two most prominent refugee scholars at Harvard, [[Walter Gropius]] and Robert Ulich, were not Jewish.{{sfn|Urban|2020|p=45}} Writing in 1979, historian [[William M. Tuttle Jr.]] concluded that "Conant's position reflected not only a failure of foresight, but also a failure of compassion and political sensitivity",{{sfn|Tuttle|1979|p=54}} but added that "Conant was one of the more outspoken anti-Nazis in the United States from 1933 to the outbreak of war in Europe in 1939.{{sfn|Tuttle|1979|p=60}} [[Stephen H. Norwood]], writing in 2004, observed that "This, however, was hardly the case."{{sfn|Norwood|2004|p=189}} Norwood noted that while Conant was not an apologist for the Nazi regime, he repeatedly failed to speak out.{{sfn|Urban|Smith|2015|p=159}}

In 1934, Harvard-educated German businessman [[Ernst Hanfstaengl]] attended the 25th anniversary reunion of his class of 1909, and gave a number of speeches.{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|pp=85–86}} In his inaugural [[commencement address]] in 1934, Conant spoke out against the Nazi threat to [[academic freedom]] in Germany. His speech was interrupted by two female students who had chained themselves to the stands near the speaker's platform and chanted "Down with Hitler!" and "Down with Hanfstaengl!"{{sfn|Conant|2017|p=138}} Hanfstaengl wrote out a check for {{Reichsmark|2,500|link=yes}} ({{Inflation|US|10500|1934|r=-4|fmt=eq}}) to Conant for a scholarship to enable an outstanding Harvard student to study for a year in Germany.<ref>{{Cite news |date=June 8, 1934 |title=Corporation Will Decide Upon Fate of Hanfstaengl Donation |newspaper=[[The Harvard Crimson]] |url=http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1934/6/8/corporation-will-decide-upon-fate-of/ |access-date=April 30, 2012}}</ref>{{sfn|Conant|1970|p=142}} At the next meeting of the Corporation in October, Conant persuaded it to reject the offer due to Hanfstaengl's Nazi associations.{{sfn|Conant|1970|p=144}} When the issue of Hanfstaengl's scholarship came up again in 1936, Conant turned the money down a second time.<ref>{{Cite news |date=February 13, 1936 |title=Hanfstaengl |newspaper=[[The Harvard Crimson]] |url=http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1936/2/13/hanfstaengl-pnaturally-harvard-should-support-president/ |access-date=April 30, 2012}}</ref> Hanfstaengl's presence on campus prompted a series of anti-Nazi demonstrations, in which a number of Harvard and [[MIT]] students were arrested. Conant made a personal plea for clemency that resulted in two women being acquitted, but six men and a woman were sentenced to six months in jail.<ref>{{Cite news |date=October 24, 1934 |title=Sentences Given to Seven in The Anti-Hanfstaengl Case |newspaper=[[The Harvard Crimson]] |url=http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1934/10/24/sentences-given-to-seven-in-the/ |access-date=April 30, 2012}}</ref> They were later pardoned by the [[Governor of Massachusetts]], [[Joseph B. Ely]].{{sfn|Conant|2017|p=140}}

When the [[University of Berlin]] awarded an [[honorary degree]] in 1934 to American legal scholar and Dean of Harvard Law School [[Roscoe Pound]], who had toured Germany earlier that year and made no secret of his admiration for the Nazi regime,<ref>{{Cite news |date=October 19, 1934 |title=Beard Fears That German Propagandists Seek Support of Harvard And Other Universities |newspaper=[[The Harvard Crimson]] |url=http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1934/10/19/beard-fears-that-german-propagandists-seek/ |access-date=December 24, 2012}}</ref> Conant refused to order Pound not to accept it, and attended the informal award ceremony at Harvard where Pound was presented with the degree by [[Hans Luther]], the German ambassador to the United States.{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|p=87}}<ref>{{Cite news |date=September 20, 1934 |title=Dean Pound Gets Degree |newspaper=[[The Harvard Crimson]] |url=http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1934/9/20/dean-pound-gets-degree-pthe-honorary/ |access-date=December 24, 2012}}</ref>

What Conant feared most was disruption to Harvard's tercentennial celebrations in 1936, but there was no trouble despite the presence of [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]], the [[President of the United States]], and a Harvard graduate of the class of 1904, whom many fellow Harvard graduates regarded as a [[socialist]] and a [[class traitor]].{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|pp=90–91}}{{sfn|Conant|2017|p=151}} Privately, Conant approved of the [[New Deal]] and expressed admiration for Roosevelt's goals. He invited Roosevelt to speak at the tercentennial celebrations.{{sfn|Conant|2017|p=151}} This did not sit well with Lowell, and it was only with difficulty that Lowell was persuaded to be presiding officer at an event at which Roosevelt spoke.{{sfn|Conant|1970|p=153}} The parallels between Roosevelt's New Deal and Conant's advocacy of meritocracy and of education as a means of social mobility did not escape notice.{{sfn|Conant|2017|pp=150–151}}<ref>{{cite news |title=Dr. Conant Urges College For All |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date=January 26, 1934 |page=19 |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1934/01/26/94486203.html?pageNumber=19 |access-date=August 4, 2023}}</ref> Conant recognized that education in America contributed to social stratification rather than breaking it down, and that educational opportunity needed to be extended to areas where it was deficient, such as rural areas, small towns and inner cities. He advocated for federal interventions, since these areas were often poor and lacking in the funds needed to improve education, and that they were economically and socially stratified with political and taxation structures that reinforced social stratification.{{sfn|Urban|2020|pp=90–91}}

Conant sought to enhance the [[liberal education]] of Harvard students. He toyed with the notion of requiring PhD candidates to study an area outside their speciality.{{sfn|Urban|2020|pp=59, 105}} One obstacle was the organization of faculty into specialized departments that had little contact with each other.{{sfn|Urban|2020|p=103}} In 1935, he attempted to break down the specialization of academic by creating non-departmental university professorships for scholars whose research crossed the boundaries of multiple disciplines.{{sfn|Urban|2020|pp=36–37}}<ref>{{cite web |title=University Professorships  |publisher=Harvard University |url=https://www.harvard.edu/about/university-professorships/ |access-date=16 September 2023}}</ref> Undergraduates were required to take general education courses, of which a proportion had to be outside their area of concentration. He took a particular interest in establishing a history of science graduate program and a history of science course for nonscientists.{{sfn|Urban|2020|pp=114–121}}

Although he had no daughters and little interest in the education of women, the exigencies of [[World War II]] meant reduced numbers of male students, and this propelled Conant in that direction. In June 1943, he concluded an agreement with [[Radcliffe College]], the women's college associated with Harvard, for Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences to assume responsibility for the instruction of Radcliffe students. Initially there were separate but identical undergraduate courses for Harvard and Radcliffe students, but this gave way to coeducational classes.{{sfn|Urban|2020|p=78}}{{sfn|Bartlett|1983|p=98}} It was during his presidency that the first class of women were admitted to [[Harvard Medical School]] in 1945, and [[Harvard Law School]] in 1950.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Women's History Month 2012 |url=http://www.nwhp.org/titleix.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120604120536/http://www.nwhp.org/titleix.pdf |archive-date=June 4, 2012 |access-date=April 29, 2012 |publisher=[[Department of Defense Education Activity]] |df=mdy-all}}</ref>

===National Defense Research Committee===
{{Further|National Defense Research Committee}}
[[File:Lawrence Compton Bush Conant Compton Loomis 83d40m March 1940 meeting UCB.JPG|thumb|[[Ernest O. Lawrence]], [[Arthur H. Compton]], [[Vannevar Bush]], Conant, [[Karl T. Compton]], and [[Alfred Lee Loomis|Alfred L. Loomis]] at the [[University of California, Berkeley]] in 1940|alt=A group of in suits men sit around, laughing. On the blackboard behind is a discarded plan for assembling a uranium core.]]
In June 1940, with [[World War II]] already raging in Europe, [[Vannevar Bush]], the director of the [[Carnegie Institution of Washington]], recruited Conant to the [[National Defense Research Committee]] (NDRC),{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|p=126}} although he remained president of Harvard.{{sfn|Stewart|1948|p=26}} Bush envisaged the NDRC as bringing scientists together to "conduct research for the creation and improvement of instrumentalities, methods and materials of warfare."{{sfn|Stewart|1948|p=8}} Although the United States had not yet entered the war, Conant was not alone in his conviction that [[Nazi Germany]] had to be stopped, and that the United States would inevitably become embroiled in the conflict. The immediate task, as Conant saw it, was therefore to organize American science for war.{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|p=126}} He became head of the NDRC's Division B, the division responsible for bombs, fuels, gases and chemicals.{{sfn|Stewart|1948|p=10}} On June 28, 1941, Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8807, which created the [[Office of Scientific Research and Development]] (OSRD),<ref>{{Cite web |last=Roosevelt |first=Franklin |author-link=Franklin D. Roosevelt |date=June 28, 1941 |title=Executive Order 8807 Establishing the Office of Scientific Research and Development |url=http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=16137 |access-date=June 28, 2011 |publisher=The American Presidency Project, [[University of California at Santa Barbara]]}}</ref> with Bush as its director. Conant succeeded Bush as chairman of the NDRC, which was subsumed into the OSRD. [[Roger Adams]], a contemporary of Conant's at Harvard in the 1910s, succeeded him as head of Division B.{{sfn|Stewart|1948|pp=36–38}} Conant became the driving force of the NDRC on personnel and policy matters.{{sfn|Stewart|1948|p=68}} The NDRC would work hand in hand with the Army and Navy's research efforts, supplementing rather than supplanting them.{{sfn|Stewart|1948|p=8}} It was specifically charged with investigating [[nuclear fission]].{{sfn|Stewart|1948|p=9}}

In February 1941, Roosevelt sent Conant to Britain as head of a mission that also included [[Frederick L. Hovde]] from [[Purdue University]] and [[Carroll L. Wilson]] from MIT, to evaluate the research being carried out there and the prospects for cooperation.{{sfn|Stewart|1948|pp=168–169}} The 1940 [[Tizard Mission]] had revealed that American technology was some years behind that of Britain in many fields, most notably [[radar]], and cooperation was eagerly sought. Conant had lunch with Prime Minister [[Winston Churchill]] and [[Frederick Lindemann]], his leading scientific adviser, and an audience with [[King George VI]] at [[Buckingham Palace]]. At a subsequent meeting, Lindemann told Conant about British progress towards developing an [[atomic bomb]]. What most impressed Conant was the British conviction that it was feasible.{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|pp=144–146}} That the British program was ahead of the American one raised the possibility in Conant's mind that the [[German nuclear energy project]] might be even further ahead, as Germany was generally acknowledged to be a world leader in nuclear physics.{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|pp=160–162}} Later that year, Churchill, as Chancellor of the [[University of Bristol]], conferred an honorary [[Doctor of Laws]] degree on Conant ''in absentia''.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Price of Greatness |url=http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/speeches/speeches-of-winston-churchill/118-the-price-of-greatness |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120510003323/http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/speeches/speeches-of-winston-churchill/118-the-price-of-greatness |archive-date=May 10, 2012 |access-date=May 3, 2012 |publisher=[[The Churchill Centre]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=April 14, 1941 |title=In Battle-Scarred Bristol |page=1 |work=[[The Examiner (Tasmania)|The Examiner]] |location=Launceston, Tasmania |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article52412370 |access-date=December 21, 2012 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref>

Conant subsequently moved to restrict cooperation with Britain on nuclear energy, particularly its post-war aspects, and became involved in heated negotiations with [[Wallace Akers]], the representative of [[Tube Alloys]], the British atomic project.{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|pp=173–174}} Conant's tough stance, under which the British were excluded except where their assistance was vital, resulted in British retaliation, and a complete breakdown of cooperation.{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|pp=181–187}} His objections were swept aside by Roosevelt, who brokered the 1943 [[Quebec Agreement]] with Churchill, that restored full cooperation.{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|pp=190–191}} After the [[Quebec Conference, 1943|Quebec Conference]], Churchill visited Conant at Harvard, where Conant returned the 1941 gesture and presented Churchill with an honorary Doctor of Laws degree.<ref>{{Cite news |date=September 6, 1943 |title=Winston Churchill Stresses Importance of Post-War Anglo-American Cooperation |work=[[The Harvard Crimson]] |url=http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1943/9/6/winston-churchill-stresses-importance-of-post-war/ |access-date=May 3, 2012}}</ref> After the United States entered the war in December 1941, the OSRD handed the atomic bomb project, better known as the [[Manhattan Project]],<ref name="NYT">{{Cite news |last=Broad |first=William J. |date=October 30, 2007 |title=Why They Called It the Manhattan Project |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/30/science/30manh.html |access-date=October 27, 2010}}</ref> over to the Army, with Brigadier General [[Leslie R. Groves]] as project director. A meeting that included Conant decided Groves should be answerable to a small committee called the Military Policy Committee, chaired by Bush, with Conant as his alternate. Thus, Conant remained involved in the administration of the Manhattan Project at its highest levels.{{sfn|Hewlett|Anderson|1962|pp=78–83}}
[[File:Hanford Site Selection Team.jpg|thumb|left|[[Vannevar Bush]], Conant, Major General [[Leslie Groves]] and Colonel [[Franklin Matthias]] at the [[Hanford Engineer Works]] in July 1945]]

In August 1942, Roosevelt appointed Conant to the Rubber Survey Committee. Chaired by [[Bernard M. Baruch]],  a trusted adviser and confidant of Roosevelt, the committee was tasked with reviewing the synthetic rubber program.<ref name="acs-rubber">{{Cite web |title=U.S. Synthetic Rubber Program |url=http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/syntheticrubber.html |access-date=2014-02-21 |website=National Historic Chemical Landmarks |publisher=American Chemical Society}}</ref> Corporations used [[patent law]]s to restrict competition and stifle innovation.{{sfn|Kevles|1977|p=6}} When the [[Japanese occupation of Malaya, North Borneo and Sarawak]], followed by the [[Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies]], cut off 90 percent of the supply of natural rubber,<ref name="acs-rubber" />  the rubber shortage became a national scandal,{{sfn|Kevles|1977|p=8}} and the development of synthetic substitutes, an urgent priority.<ref name="acs-rubber" /> Baruch dealt with the difficult political issues;{{sfn|Conant|1970|pp=311–317}} Conant concerned himself with the technical ones. There were a number of different synthetic rubber products to choose from. In addition to [[DuPont]]'s [[neoprene]], [[Standard Oil of New Jersey|Standard Oil]] had licensed German patents for a [[copolymer]] called [[Buna-N]] and a related product, [[Buna-S]]. None had been manufactured on the scale now required, and there was pressure from agricultural interests to choose a process which involved making raw materials from farm products.{{sfn|Conant|1970|pp=319–320}} The Rubber Survey Committee made a series of recommendations, including the appointment of a rubber director, and the construction and operation of 51 factories to supply the materials needed for synthetic rubber production.<ref name="acs-rubber" /> Technical problems dogged the program through 1943, but by late 1944 plants were in operation with an annual capacity of over a million tons, most of which was Buna-S.{{sfn|Conant|1970|p=327}}

In May 1945, Conant became part of the [[Interim Committee]] that was formed to advise the new president, [[Harry S. Truman]] on nuclear weapons.{{sfn|Hewlett|Anderson|1962|pp=344–345}} The Interim Committee decided that the atomic bomb should be used against an industrial target in Japan as soon as possible and without warning.{{sfn|Hewlett|Anderson|1962|pp=360–361}} On July 16, 1945, Conant was among the dignitaries present at the [[Holloman Air Force Base|Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range]] for the [[Trinity (nuclear test)|Trinity nuclear test]], the first detonation of an atomic bomb.{{sfn|Hewlett|Anderson|1962|p=378}} After the war, Conant became concerned about growing criticism in the United States of the [[bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki]]  by figures like [[Norman Cousins]] and [[Reinhold Niebuhr]]. He played an important behind-the-scenes role in shaping public opinion by instigating and then editing an influential February 1947 ''[[Harper's Magazine|Harper's]]'' article entitled "The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb". Written by former Secretary of War [[Henry L. Stimson]] with the help of [[McGeorge Bundy]],{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|pp=294–299}} the article stressed that the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were used to avoid the possibility of "over a million casualties",{{sfn|Stimson|1947|p=102}} from a figure found in the estimates given to the [[Joint Chiefs of Staff]] by its Joint Planning Staff in 1945.{{sfn|Giangreco|1997|pp=536–537}}

===Cold War===
[[File:Truman, Bush and Conant.jpg|thumb|[[Vannevar Bush]] watches as U.S. President [[Harry S. Truman]] presents Conant with the civilian [[Medal for Merit]] (with bronze palm) in 1948.|alt=Three smiling men in suits ]]
The [[Atomic Energy Act of 1946]] replaced the wartime [[Manhattan Project]] with the [[United States Atomic Energy Commission|Atomic Energy Commission]] (AEC) on January 1, 1947. The Act also established the General Advisory Committee (GAC) within the AEC to provide it with scientific and technical advice. It was widely expected that Conant would chair the GAC, but the position went to [[Robert Oppenheimer]], the wartime director of the [[Los Alamos National Laboratory]] that had designed and developed the first atomic bombs. At the same time, the Joint Research and Development Board (JRDC) was established to coordinate defense research, and Bush asked Conant to head its atomic energy subcommittee, on which Oppenheimer also served.{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|pp=305–309}} When the new AEC chairman [[David E. Lilienthal]] raised security concerns about Oppenheimer's relationships with [[communist]]s, including Oppenheimer's brother [[Frank Oppenheimer]], his wife Kitty and his former girlfriend [[Jean Tatlock]], Bush and Conant reassured Lilienthal that they had known about it when they had placed Oppenheimer in charge at Los Alamos in 1942. With such expressions of support, AEC issued Oppenheimer a [[Q clearance]], granting him access to atomic secrets.{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|pp=316–319}}

By September 1948, the [[Red Scare]] began to take hold, and Conant called for a ban on hiring teachers who were communists, although not for the dismissal of those who had already been hired. A debate ensued over whether communist educators could teach apolitical subjects.{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|p=424}} Conant was a member of the Educational Policies Commission (EPC), a body to which he had been appointed in 1941.{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|p=430}} When it next met in March 1949, Conant's push for a ban was supported by the president of Columbia University, [[General of the Army]] [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]]. The two found common ground in their belief in ideology-based education,{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|p=443}} which Conant called "democratic education". He did not see public education as a side effect of American democracy, but as one of its principal driving forces,{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|pp=401–403}} and he disapproved of the public funding of [[denominational school]]s that he observed in Australia during his visit there in 1951.{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|pp=586, 592}} He called for increased federal spending on education, and higher taxes to redistribute wealth.{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|pp=401–403}} His thinking was outlined in his books ''Education in a Divided World'' in 1948,{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|pp=366–367}} and ''Education and Liberty'' in 1951.{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|p=587}} In 1952, he went further and endorsed the dismissal of academics who invoked the [[Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fifth]] under questioning by the [[House Un-American Activities Committee]].{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|p=625}}
[[File:National Science Board Members, July 1951.jpg|thumb|left|National Science Board Members in July 1951. Conant is front and center.]]

A sign of Conant's declining influence occurred in 1950, when he was passed over for the post of President of the National Academy of Sciences in favor of [[Detlev Bronk]], the president of [[Johns Hopkins University]], after a "revolt" by scientists unhappy with Conant.{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|pp=484–486}} The GAC was enormously influential throughout the late 1940s, but the opposition of Oppenheimer and Conant to the development of the [[hydrogen bomb]], only to be overridden by Truman in 1950, diminished its stature.{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|p=482}} It was reduced further when Oppenheimer and Conant were not reappointed when their terms expired in 1952,  depriving the GAC of its two best-known members.{{sfn|Hewlett|Duncan|1969|pp=518–519}} Conant was appointed to the National Science Board, which administered the new [[National Science Foundation]], and was elected its chairman, but this body had little financial or political clout.{{sfn|Hewlett|Duncan|1969|p=560}} In April 1951, Truman appointed Conant to the [[United States President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology|Science Advisory Committee]], but it would not develop into an influential body until the Eisenhower administration.{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|pp=566–567}}

Conant's experience with the Manhattan Project convinced him that the public needed a better understanding of science, and he moved to expand the nascent [[history and philosophy of science]] program at Harvard. He took the lead personally by teaching a new undergraduate course, Natural Science 4, "On Understanding Science". His course notes became the basis for a book of the same name, published in 1948.{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|pp=409–411}} In 1952, he began teaching another undergraduate course, Philosophy 150, "A Philosophy of Science".{{sfn|Hewlett|Duncan|1969|p=587}} In his teachings and writing on the philosophy of science, he drew heavily on those of his Harvard colleague [[Willard Van Orman Quine]].{{sfn|Biddle|2011|p=552}} Conant contributed four chapters to the 1957 ''Harvard Case Histories in Experimental Science'', including an account of the overthrow of the [[phlogiston theory]].{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|pp=409–411}} In 1951, he published ''Science and Common Sense'', in which he attempted to explain the ways of scientists to laymen.{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|pp=556–557}} Conant's ideas about scientific progress would come under attack by his own protégés, notably [[Thomas Kuhn]] in ''[[The Structure of Scientific Revolutions]]''. Conant commented on Kuhn's manuscript in draft form.{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|pp=409–411}}

===Allied High Commissioner===
In April 1951, Conant was approached by [[United States Secretary of State|U.S. Secretary of State]] [[Dean Acheson]] about replacing [[John J. McCloy]] as [[Allied High Commission|United States High Commissioner]] for Germany, but he declined.  However, after [[Dwight Eisenhower]] was elected president in 1952, Conant was again offered the job by the new Secretary of State, [[John Foster Dulles]], and this time he accepted. At the [[Harvard Board of Overseers]] meeting on January 12, 1952, Conant announced that he would retire in September 1953 after twenty years at Harvard, having reached the pension age of sixty.{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|pp=638–646}}{{sfn|Conant|1970|pp=533–537}}

In Germany, there were major issues to be decided. Germany was still occupied by the Soviet Union, the United States, Great Britain and France. Dealing with the wartime allies was a major task for the high commissioner. West Germany, made up of the zones occupied by the three western powers, had been granted control of its own affairs, except for defense and foreign policy, in 1949. While most Germans wanted a neutral and reunited Germany, the Eisenhower administration sought to reduce its defense spending by rearming Germany and replacing American troops with Germans. Meanwhile, the House Un-American Activities Committee slammed Conant's staff as communist sympathizers and called for books by communist authors held in [[United States Information Agency]] (USIA) libraries in Germany to be burned.{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|pp=654–657}}

The first crisis to occur on Conant's watch was the [[uprising of 1953 in East Germany]]. This brought the reunification issue to the fore. [[Konrad Adenauer]]'s deft handling of the issue enabled him to handily win re-election as [[Chancellor of Germany (Federal Republic of Germany)|Chancellor of West Germany]] in September, but this also strengthened his hand in negotiations with Conant. Adenauer did not want his country to become a bargaining chip between the United States and the Soviet Union, nor did he want it to become a nuclear battlefield, a prospect raised by the arrival of American tactical nuclear weapons in 1953 as part of the Eisenhower administration's [[New Look (policy)|New Look policy]].{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|pp=659–666}} Conant lobbied for the [[European Defense Community]], which would have established a [[pan-European military]]. This seemed to be the only way that German rearmament would be accepted, but opposition from France killed the plan. In what Conant considered a minor miracle, France's actions cleared the way for West Germany to become part of [[NATO]] with its own army.{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|p=685}}

At noon on May 6, 1955, Conant, along with the high commissioners from Britain and France, signed the documents ending Allied control of West Germany, admitting it to NATO, and allowing it to rearm. The office of the United States High Commissioner was abolished and Conant became instead the first [[United States Ambassador to West Germany]].{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|p=687}} His role was now to encourage West Germany to build up its forces, while reassuring the Germans that doing so would not result in a United States withdrawal.{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|pp=693–694}} Being fluent in German, Conant was able to give speeches to German audiences. He paid numerous visits to German educational and scientific organizations.{{sfn|Kistiakowsky|Westheimer|1979|p=224}}

While high commissioner, Conant approved the release of many major and other German war criminals after serving only a fraction of their sentences, against protests from American political leaders and veterans' organizations (some of those sentenced had murdered American prisoners), accusing him of "moral amnesia".  Such criticism continued when as ambassador he supported the West German government's leniency toward former Nazis.{{sfn|Norwood|2009|p=243-50}}

===Carnegie Corporation grant recipient and author===
[[File:Atomic Pioneers Awards Washington DC (7649993674).jpg|thumb|[[Glenn Seaborg]], President [[Richard Nixon]], presents the 1969 [[Atomic Pioneers Award]] to the three recipients, [[Vannevar Bush]], Conant and [[Leslie Groves]], on February 27, 1970.<ref>{{cite web |title=Remarks on Presenting the Atomic Pioneers Award  |publisher= The American Presidency Project |url=https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-presenting-the-atomic-pioneers-award |access-date=2 August 2023}}</ref> ]]
Conant returned to the United States in February 1957, where he leased an apartment on the [[Upper East Side]] in [[New York City]].{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|pp=706–709}} 

Between 1957 and 1965, the [[Carnegie Corporation of New York]] gave him over a million dollars to write studies of education.{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|p=740}}  In 1959 he published ''[[The American High School Today]]'', better known as the Conant Report. This became a best seller, resulting in Conant's appearance on the cover of [[Time (magazine)|''Time'' magazine]] on September 14, 1959.{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|pp=714}}<ref>{{Cite magazine |title=Time Magazine Cover: James Bryant Conant&nbsp;– September 14, 1959 |url=http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19590914,00.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080307053752/http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19590914,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=March 7, 2008 |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time magazine]] |access-date=December 22, 2014}}</ref> In it, Conant called for a number of reforms, including the consolidation of high schools into larger bodies that could offer a broader range of curriculum choices. Although it was slammed by critics of the American system, who hoped for a system of education based on the European model, it did lead to a wave of reforms across the country.{{sfn|Kistiakowsky|Westheimer|1979|p=225}} 

His subsequent ''Slums and Suburbs'' in 1961 was far more controversial in its treatment of racial issues. Regarding [[Desegregation busing in the United States|busing]] as impractical, Conant urged Americans "to accept ''de facto'' segregated schools".{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|pp=726}}{{sfn|Urban|2020|pp=170–172}} This did not go over well with civil rights groups, and by 1964 Conant was forced to admit that he had been wrong.{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|pp=726}} In ''The Education of American Teachers'' in 1963, Conant found much to criticize about the training of teachers. Most controversial was his defense of the arrangement by which teachers were certified by independent bodies rather than the teacher training colleges.{{sfn|Kistiakowsky|Westheimer|1979|p=225}}

===Presidential Medal of Freedom and other recognition===
On December 6, 1963, President [[Lyndon Johnson]] presented Conant with the [[Presidential Medal of Freedom]], with special distinction. He was selected for the award by President [[John F. Kennedy]], but the ceremony was delayed prior to [[Assassination of John F. Kennedy|Kennedy's assassination]].{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|pp=735–736}} 

In February 1970, President [[Richard Nixon]]  presented Conant with the Atomic Pioneers Award from the Atomic Energy Commission.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Nixon |first=Richard |author-link=Richard Nixon |date=February 27, 1970 |title=Remarks on Presenting the Atomic Pioneers Award |url=http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2892 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130201012426/http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2892 |archive-date=February 1, 2013 |access-date=April 22, 2012 |publisher=The American Presidency Project, [[University of California at Santa Barbara]] |df=mdy-all}}</ref> Other awards that Conant received during his long career included being made a Commander of [[Légion d'honneur]] by France in 1936 and an Honorary [[Commander of the Order of the British Empire]] by Britain in 1948, and he was awarded the Grand Cross of the [[Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany]] in 1957. He was also awarded over 50 honorary degrees,{{sfn|Bartlett|1983|pp=110–112}} and was posthumously inducted into the Alpha Chi Sigma Hall of Fame in 2000.<ref name="alpha chi sigma" />

==Later years and death==
Between 1965 and 1969, Conant, living with a heart condition, worked on his biography, ''My Several Lives''.{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|pp=741–742}} He became increasingly infirm, and had a series of [[stroke]]s in 1977.{{sfn|Hershberg|1993|p=754}} He died in a nursing home in [[Hanover, New Hampshire]], on February 11, 1978.<ref>{{Cite news |date=February 12, 1978 |title=James B. Conant Is Dead at 84; Harvard President for 20 Years |page=1 |work=[[The New York Times]]}}</ref> His body was cremated and his ashes interred in the Thayer-Richards family plot at [[Mount Auburn Cemetery]]. He was survived by his wife and sons. His papers are in the Harvard University Archives.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Papers of James Bryant Conant, 1862–1987 : an inventory |url=http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~hua08998 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120128015339/http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~hua08998 |archive-date=January 28, 2012 |access-date=April 29, 2012 |publisher=Harvard University |df=mdy-all}}</ref> Among them was a sealed brown Manila envelope that Conant had given the archives in 1951, with instructions that it was to be opened by the president of Harvard in the 21st century. Opened by Harvard's 28th president, [[Drew Faust]], in 2007, it contained a letter in which Conant expressed his hopes and fears for the future. "You will{{nbsp}}... be in charge of a more prosperous and significant institution than the one over which I have the honor to preside", he wrote. "That [Harvard] will maintain the traditions of academic freedom, of tolerance for heresy, I feel sure."<ref>{{Cite journal |date=Fall 2007 – Winter 2008 |title=My Dear Sir: A Sealed Letter from the University Archives Reaches Drew Faust on the Occasion of Her Inauguration |url=http://hul.harvard.edu/publications/letters_fall07winter08.pdf |journal=Harvard University Library Letters |volume=2 |issue=5 |access-date=May 6, 2012 |archive-date=August 23, 2014 |archive-url=https://wayback.archive-it.org/5456/20140823152549/http://hul.harvard.edu/publications/letters_fall07winter08.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref>

== Legacy ==
Conant is the namesake of [[James B. Conant High School]] in [[Hoffman Estates, Illinois]],<ref>{{Cite web |title=James B. Conant High School - About Us |url=https://adc.d211.org/domain/177 |access-date=25 February 2019 |publisher=Township High School District 211}}</ref> and James B. Conant Elementary School in [[Bloomfield Hills, Michigan]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Conant Elementary School |publisher=Bloomfield Hills, Michigan |url=https://www.bloomfield.org/schools/conant-elementary-school |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150410051834/http://www.bloomfield.org/schools/conant-elementary-school |url-status=dead |archive-date=April 10, 2015 |access-date=31 July 2023 }}</ref>

== Graduate students ==
Former graduate students of Conant include:
* [[Louis Fieser]] – organic chemist and professor emeritus at Harvard University renowned as the inventor of a militarily effective form of napalm. His award-winning research included work on blood-clotting agents including the first synthesis of vitamin K, synthesis and screening of quinones as antimalarial drugs, work with steroids leading to the synthesis of cortisone, and study of the nature of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.<ref>{{cite journal|title = Louis Fieser: An Organic Chemist in Peace and War|first1 = D.|last1 = Lenoir|first2 = T. T.|last2 = Tidwell|journal =European Journal of Organic Chemistry |issn=1099-0690 |year = 2009|doi = 10.1002/ejoc.200800969|volume = 2009|pages = 481–491|issue = 4}}  Note: nice anecdote in supplementary info.</ref>
* [[Benjamin S. Garvey]] – noted chemist at BF Goodrich who worked on the development of synthetic rubber, contributed to understanding of vulcanization, and developed early techniques for small scale evaluation of rubbers.<ref>{{cite interview |interviewer=Herbert A. Endres |first=Benjamin S. |last=Garvey |title=Interview with Dr. Benjamin S. Garvey |publisher=Summit Memory |date=19 October 1965 |location=Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |url=https://www.summitmemory.org/digital/collection/rubber/id/48 |access-date=31 July 2023}}</ref>
* [[Frank Westheimer]] – was the Morris Loeb Professor of Chemistry Emeritus at Harvard University.<ref>{{Cite web |title=James Bryant Conant Family Tree |url=http://academictree.org/chemistry/tree.php?pid=48050 |access-date=22 November 2015 |publisher=Chemistry Tree}}</ref>

== Bibliography ==
* {{Cite book |last1=Conant |first1=J. B. |url=https://archive.org/details/laboratoryexperi00blacrich |title=Practical Chemistry: Fundamental Facts and Applications to Modern Life |last2=Black |first2=N. H. |publisher=Macmillan |year=1920 |location=New York |oclc=3639905 |ref=none |author-mask=— with}}
* {{Cite book |last=Conant |first=J. B. |title=Organic Chemistry |publisher=Macmillan |year=1928 |location=New York |ref=none |author-mask=1}}
* {{Cite book |last=Conant |first=J. B. |title=Equilibria and Rates of Some Organic Reactions |publisher=Columbia University Press |year=1932 |location=New York |ref=none |author-mask=1}}
* {{Cite book |last=Conant |first=J. B. |title=The Chemistry of Organic Compounds |publisher=Macmillan |year=1933 |location=New York |ref=none |author-mask=1}}
* {{Cite book |last1=Conant |first1=J. B. |title=Organic Chemistry |last2=Tishler |first2=Max |publisher=Macmillan |year=1936 |location=New York |ref=none |author-mask=— with |author-link2=Max Tishler}}
*  {{Cite book |last1=Conant |first1=J. B. |url=https://archive.org/details/newlaboratoryexp00blac_0 |title=New Practical Chemistry |last2=Black |first2=N. H. |publisher=Macmillan |year=1937 |location=New York |ref=none |author-mask=— with}}
* {{Cite book |last1=Conant |first1=J. B. |title=The Chemistry of Organic Compounds |last2=Tishler |first2=Max |publisher=Macmillan |year=1939 |location=New York |ref=none |author-mask=— with}}
* {{Cite book |last=Conant |first=J. B. |title=Our Fighting Faith |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=1944 |location=Cambridge |ref=none |author-mask=1}}
* {{Cite book |last1=Conant |first1=J. B. |title=The Chemistry of Organic Compounds |last2=Blatt |first2=A. H. |publisher=Macmillan |year=1947 |location=New York |ref=none |author-mask=— with}}
* {{Cite journal |last=Conant |first=J. B. |author-mask=1 |year=1948 |title=On Understanding Science, An Historical Approach |journal=[[American Scientist]] |issn=0003-0996 |location=New Haven |publisher=Yale University Press |volume=35 |issue=1 |pages=33–55 |pmid=20282982 |ref=none}}
* {{Cite book |last=Conant |first=J. B. |title=Education in a Divided World |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=1948 |location=Cambridge |ref=none |author-mask=1}}
* {{Cite book |last=Conant |first=J. B. |title=The Growth of Experimental Sciences: An Experiment in General Education |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=1949 |location=Cambridge |ref=none |author-mask=1}}
*  {{Cite book |last1=Conant |first1=J. B. |title=Fundamentals of Organic Chemistry |last2=Blatt |first2=A. H. |publisher=Macmillan |year=1949 |location=New York |ref=none |author-mask=— with}}
* {{Cite book |last=Conant |first=J. B. |url=https://archive.org/details/sciencecommonsen00cona |title=Science and Common Sense |publisher=Yale University Press |year=1951 |location=New Haven |ref=none |author-mask=1 |url-access=registration}}
* {{Cite book |last=Conant |first=J. B. |title=Education and Liberty |publisher=Doubleday |year=1953 |location=Garden City, New York |ref=none |author-mask=1}}
* {{Cite book |last=Conant |first=J. B. |title=Gleichheit der Chancen: Erziehung und Gesellschaftsordnung in den Vereinigten Staaten |publisher=[[Christian Verlag]] |year=1955 |location=Bad Manheim |ref=none |author-mask=1}}
* {{Cite book |last=Conant |first=J. B. |url=https://archive.org/details/citadeloflearnin013194mbp |title=The Citadel of Learning |publisher=Yale University Press |year=1956 |location=New Haven |ref=none |author-mask=1}}
* {{Cite book |last=Conant |first=J. B. |url=https://archive.org/details/harvardcasehisto02cona |title=Harvard Case Histories in Experimental Science |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=1957 |location=Cambridge |ref=none |author-mask=1 |url-access=registration}}
* {{Cite book |last=Conant |first=J. B. |title=Deutschland und die Freiheit |publisher=Ullstein |year=1958 |location=Frankfurt |ref=none |author-mask=1}}
* {{Cite book |last=Conant |first=J. B. |title=[[The American High School Today]] |publisher=McGraw-Hill |year=1959 |location=New York |ref=none |author-mask=1 }}
* {{Cite book |last=Conant |first=J. B. |url=https://archive.org/details/childparentan00cona |title=The Child, the Parent, and the State |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=1959 |location=Cambridge |ref=none |author-mask=1 |url-access=registration}}
* {{Cite book |last=Conant |first=J. B. |title=Education in the Junior High School Years |publisher=McGraw-Hill |year=1960 |location=New York |ref=none |author-mask=1}}
* {{Cite book |last=Conant |first=J. B. |url=https://archive.org/details/slumssuburbscomm00cona |title=Slums and Suburbs, A Commentary on Schools in Metropolitan Areas |publisher=McGraw-Hill |year=1961 |location=New York |ref=none |author-mask=1 |url-access=registration}}
* {{Cite book |last=Conant |first=J. B. |url=https://archive.org/details/thomasjefferson00cona |title=Thomas Jefferson and the Development of American Public Education |publisher=University of California Press |year=1962 |location=Berkeley |ref=none |author-mask=1 |url-access=registration}}
* {{Cite book |last=Conant |first=J. B. |title=Germany and Freedom, A Personal Appraisal |publisher=Capricorn Books |year=1962 |location=New York |ref=none |author-mask=1}}
* {{Cite book |last=Conant |first=J. B. |url=https://archive.org/details/educationofameri0000cona |title=The Education of American Teachers |publisher=McGraw-Hill |year=1963 |location=New York |ref=none |author-mask=1 |url-access=registration}}
* {{Cite book |last=Conant |first=J. B. |title=Shaping Educational Policy |publisher=McGraw-Hill |year=1964 |location=New York |ref=none |author-mask=1}}
* {{Cite book |last=Conant |first=J. B. |title=Two Modes of Thought |publisher=Trident Press |year=1964 |location=New York |ref=none |author-mask=1}}
* {{Cite book |last=Conant |first=J. B. |url=https://archive.org/details/comprehensivehig00cona |title=The Comprehensive High School, A Second Report to Interested Citizens |publisher=McGraw-Hill |year=1967 |location=New York |ref=none |author-mask=1 |url-access=registration}}
* {{Cite journal |last=Conant |first=J. B. |author-mask=1 |year=1967 |title=Scientific Principles and Moral Conduct |journal=[[American Scientist]] |issn=0003-0996 |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |volume=55 |issue=3 |pages=311–28 |pmid=6050417 |ref=none}}
* {{Cite book |last=Conant |first=J. B. |url=https://archive.org/details/myseverallivesme00cona |title=My Several Lives, Memoirs of a Social Inventor |publisher=Harper & Row |year=1970 |location=New York |oclc=58674 |ref=none |author-mask=1 |url-access=registration}}
*:For a complete list of his published scientific papers, see {{harvnb|Bartlett|1983|pp=113–121}}.

== Notes ==
{{Reflist|30em}}

== References ==
{{refbegin}}
* {{cite book |last=Bartlett |first=Paul D. |url=http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/conant-james-b-1893-1978.pdf |title=James Bryant Conant, 1893–1978: A Biographical Memoir |publisher=The National Academy Press |year=1983 |series=Biographical Memoirs |location=Washington, D.C. |oclc=41889424 |author-link=Paul Doughty Bartlett |access-date=April 27, 2012}}
* {{cite journal |last=Biddle |first=Justin |date=December 2011 |title=Putting Pragmatism to Work in the Cold War: Science, Technology, and Politics in the Writings of James B. Conant |url=http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/9241/1/Putting_Pragmatism_to_Work.pdf |journal=[[Studies in History and Philosophy of Science]] |volume=42 |issue=4 |pages=552–561 |doi=10.1016/j.shpsa.2011.07.002 |bibcode=2011SHPSA..42..552B |issn=0039-3681}}
* {{cite book |last=Conant |first=J. B. |url=https://archive.org/details/myseverallivesme00cona |title=My Several Lives, Memoirs of a Social Inventor |publisher=Harper & Row |year=1970 |location=New York |oclc=58674 |url-access=registration}}
* {{cite book |last=Conant |first=Jennet |author-link=Jennet Conant  |title=Man of the Hour: James B. Conant{{mdash}}Warrior Scientist |date=2017|publisher=Simon & Schuster |location=New York |isbn=978-1-4767-3088-2 |oclc=981640008  }}
* {{cite journal |last=Giangreco |first=D. M. |date=July 1997 |title=Casualty Projections for the U.S. Invasions of Japan, 1945–1946: Planning and Policy Implications |journal=[[Journal of Military History]] |volume=61 |issue=3 |pages=521–582 |doi=10.2307/2954035 |issn=1543-7795 |jstor=2954035 |s2cid=159870872}}
* {{cite journal |last1=Hall |first1=Norris F. |last2=Conant |first2=James B. |year=1927 |title=A Study of Superacid Solutions. I. The Use of the Chloranil Electrode in Glacial Acetic Acid and the Strength of Certain Weak Bases |journal=[[Journal of the American Chemical Society]] |volume=49 |issue=12 |pages=3062–3070 |doi=10.1021/ja01411a010 |bibcode=1927JAChS..49.3047H |issn=0002-7863}}
* {{cite book |last=Hershberg |first=James G. |url=https://archive.org/details/jamesbconantharv0000hers |title=James B. Conant: Harvard to Hiroshima and the Making of the Nuclear Age |publisher=Knopf |year=1993 |isbn=0-394-57966-6 |location=New York |oclc=27678159 |author-link=James Hershberg |url-access=registration}}
*{{cite book |last1=Hewlett |first1=Richard G. |url=https://www.governmentattic.org/5docs/TheNewWorld1939-1946.pdf |title=The New World, 1939–1946 |last2=Anderson |first2=Oscar E. |publisher=Pennsylvania State University Press |year=1962 |isbn=0-520-07186-7 |location=University Park |oclc=637004643 |author-link=Richard G. Hewlett |access-date=26 March 2013}}
* {{cite book |last1=Hewlett |first1=Richard G. |title=Atomic Shield, 1947–1952 |last2=Duncan |first2=Francis |publisher=Pennsylvania State University Press |year=1969 |isbn=0-520-07187-5 |series=A History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission |location=University Park |oclc=3717478}}
* {{cite book |last=Hill |first=Nancy Peterson |title=A Very Private Public Citizen: The Life of Grenville Clark |date=2014 |publisher=University of Missouri Press |location=Columbia, Missouri}}
* {{cite book |last1=Keller |first1=Morton |last2=Keller |first2=Phyllis |title=Making Harvard Modern: the rise of America's University |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2001 |isbn=0-19-514457-0 |location=New York |oclc=47045081}}
* {{cite journal |last=Kevles |first=Daniel J. |date=March 1977 |title=The National Science Foundation and the Debate over Postwar Research Policy, 1942–1945: A Political Interpretation of Science—The Endless Frontier |journal=[[Isis (journal)|Isis]] |publisher=The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science Society |volume=68 |issue=1 |pages=4–26 |doi=10.1086/351711 |issn=0021-1753 |jstor=230370 |pmid=320157 |s2cid=32956693}}
* {{cite journal |last1=Kistiakowsky |first1=George |author-link=George Kistiakowsky |last2=Westheimer |first2=Frank |author-link2=Frank Westheimer |year=1979 |title=James Bryant Conant |journal=[[Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society]] |volume=25 |pages=209–232 |doi=10.1098/rsbm.1979.0006 |issn=1748-8494 |s2cid=73248264}}
* {{cite book |last=Norwood |first=Stephen H. |url=https://assets.cambridge.org/97805217/62434/frontmatter/9780521762434_frontmatter.pdf |title=The Third Reich in the Ivory Tower: Complicity and Conflict on American Campuses |publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2009|location=Cambridge|isbn=978-0-521-76243-4|access-date=January 5, 2022}}
* {{cite journal |last=Norwood |first=Stephen H. |author-link=Stephen H. Norwood |title= Legitimating Nazism: Harvard University and the Hitler Regime, 1933–1937 |journal=American Jewish History |issn=1086-3141 |volume=92 |issue=2 |date=June 2004 |pages=189–223 |doi=10.1353/ajh.2006.0011 |jstor=23887353 }}
* {{cite journal |last=Saltzman |first=Martin D. |year=2003 |title=James Bryant Conant: The Making of an Iconoclastic Chemist |url=http://www.scs.illinois.edu/~mainzv/HIST/bulletin_open_access/v28-2/v28-2%20p84-94.pdf |journal=[[Bulletin for the History of Chemistry]] |volume=28 |issue=2 |issn=1053-4385 |access-date=May 2, 2012}}
* {{cite book |last=Stewart |first=Irvin |url=https://archive.org/details/organizingscient00stew |title=Organizing Scientific Research for War: The Administrative History of the Office of Scientific Research and Development |publisher=Little, Brown and Company |year=1948 |location=Boston |oclc=500138898 |access-date=April 1, 2012}}
* {{cite magazine |last=Stimson |first=Henry L. |author-link=Henry L. Stimson |date=February 1947 |title=The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb |magazine=[[Harper's Magazine]] |publisher=Harpers Magazine Foundation |pages=97–107 |issn=0017-789X}}
* {{cite book |last=Stoker |first=H. Stephen  |title=General, Organic, and Biological Chemistry |publisher=Cengage Learning |location=Southbank, Victoria, Australia |year=2012 |isbn=978-1-133-10394-3 |edition=6th |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FMuLzpHEhCwC&q=lowry-bronsted+theory+of+acids+and+bases&pg=PA273 |access-date=September 13, 2023 }}
* {{cite journal |last=Tuttle |first=William M. Jr. |author-link=William M. Tuttle Jr. |title=American Higher Education and The Nazis: The Case of James B. Conant and Harvard University's "Diplomatic Relations" with Germany |journal=American Studies |issn=0026-3079 |volume=20 |issue=1 |date=Spring 1979 |pages=49–70 |jstor=40641411 }}
* {{cite journal |last1=Urban |first1=Wayne J.  |last2=Smith |first2=Marybeth |date=February–April 2015 |title=Much ado about something? James Bryant Conant, Harvard University, and Nazi Germany in the 1930s |journal=Paedagogica Historica |issn=0030-9230 |volume=51 |issue=1–2 |pages=152–165 |doi=10.1080/00309230.2014.997754 }}
* {{cite book |last=Urban |first=Wayne J. |title=Scholarly Leadership in Higher Education: An Intellectual History of James Bryan Conant |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |location=London |isbn=978-1-350-12928-3 |oclc=1225197437 |year=2020 }}
* {{cite book |last=Wang |first=Zerong |title=Comprehensive Organic Name Reactions and Reagents |year=2010 |location=Chichester |publisher=Wiley  |isbn=978-0-470-63885-9 |oclc=933749360 |doi=10.1002/9780470638859.conrr231 }}
{{refend}}

== External links ==
{{Category commons}}
* {{Gutenberg author | id=566| name=James Bryant Conant}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=James Bryant Conant}}
* {{Cite news |last=Conant |first=Jennet |author-link=Jennet Conant |date=May 2, 2005 |title=My Grandfather and the Bomb |work=[[Los Angeles Times]] |url=http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0502-26.htm |url-status=dead |access-date=June 16, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120616232712/http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0502-26.htm |archive-date=June 16, 2012|ref=none}}
*[http://manhattanprojectvoices.org/oral-histories/james-b-conants-interview 1965 Audio Interview with James B. Conant by Stephane Groueff] Voices of the Manhattan Project
* {{Cite web |title=Participants: James Bryant Conant |url=http://osulibrary.oregonstate.edu/specialcollections/coll/pauling/bond/people/conant.html |access-date=June 16, 2012 |publisher=Oregon State University}} Correspondence between Conant and [[Linus Pauling]].

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  before=[[Abbott Lawrence Lowell]]|
  title=[[President of Harvard University|23rd President of Harvard University]]|
  years=1933–1953 |
  after=[[Nathan Marsh Pusey]]
}}
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  before=[[Anton J. Carlson]]|
  title=[[President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science]]|
  years=1945|
  after=[[C. F. Kettering]]
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{{s-bef | before = [[Vannevar Bush]] }}
{{s-ttl | title = [[National Defense Research Committee|Chairman, National Defense Research Committee]] | years = 1941–1947}}
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{{s-bef | before= [[John J. McCloy]]|}}
{{s-ttl
 | title=[[Allied High Commission|American High Commissioner for Occupied Germany]]
 |  years= 1953–1955
}}
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{{Succession box|
 title=[[United States Ambassador to Germany]]|
 before= [[Leland B. Morris]]<br />(as ''chargé d'affaires'' in 1941)|
 years= 1955–1957 |
 after= [[David K. E. Bruce]]
}}
{{s-ach|aw}}
{{succession box
| before = [[Robert A. Lovett]]
| title = [[Sylvanus Thayer Award| Sylvanus Thayer Award recipient]]
| years = 1965
| after = [[Carl Vinson]]}}
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{{US Ambassadors to Germany}}
{{Harvard University presidents}}
{{Presidents of the American Association for the Advancement of Science}}
{{Manhattan Project}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Conant, James Bryant}}
[[Category:1893 births]]
[[Category:1978 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century American academics]]
[[Category:20th-century American chemists]]
[[Category:20th-century American diplomats]]
[[Category:Ambassadors of the United States to Germany]]
[[Category:American physical chemists]]
[[Category:Burials at Mount Auburn Cemetery]]
[[Category:Commanders of the Legion of Honour]]
[[Category:Conant family|James]]
[[Category:Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences]]
[[Category:Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science]]
[[Category:Fellows of the Royal Institute of Chemistry]]
[[Category:Foreign members of the Royal Society]]
[[Category:Grand Crosses 1st class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany]]
[[Category:Harvard College alumni]]
[[Category:Harvard University faculty]]
[[Category:Honorary commanders of the Order of the British Empire]]
[[Category:Manhattan Project people]]
[[Category:Medal for Merit recipients]]
[[Category:Members of the American Philosophical Society]]
[[Category:Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences]]
[[Category:Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients]]
[[Category:Presidents of Harvard University]]
[[Category:U.S. Synthetic Rubber Program]]
[[Category:Delta Upsilon members]]
[[Category:Presidents of the American Association for the Advancement of Science]]