Theodore William Richards
1868 - 1928
Theodore William Richards was an American chemist. He was also the first American to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He was awarded the prize in 1914, "in recognition of his accurate determinations of the atomic weight of a large number of chemical elements".
Born in Germantown, Pennsylvania, Richards entered Haverford College in 1883, and graduated in 1885. He entered Harvard College, receiving degrees A.B., 1886, A.M., and Ph.D., 1888. After studying in Germany, he returned to Harvard, where he was appointed an Assistant in Chemistry, Instructor (1891), Assistant Professor (1894) and Professor (1901). In 1903, he became chair of the Department of Chemistry, and in 1912 he was appointed the Erving Professor of Chemistry and Director of the Wolcott Gibbs Memorial Laboratory.