Walker, Arthur

Fifteen prominent chemical engineers first met in New York more than 60 years ago to plan a continuing literature for their rapidly growing profession. From industry came such pioneer practitioners as Leo H. Baekeland, Arthur D. Litde, Charles L. Reese, John V. N. Dorr, M. C. Whitaker, and R. S. McBride. From the universities came such eminent educators as William H. Walker, Allred H. White, D. D. Jackson, J. H. James, Warren K. Lewis, and Harry A. Curtis. H. C. Parmelee, then editor of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering, served as chairman and was joined subsequently by S. D. Kukpatrick as consulting editor. 

Russell-Jones, G. J., Arthur, L., Walker, H. Vitamin B12-mediated transport of nanoparticles across Caco-2 cells. Int. J. Pharm. 179 247-255, 1999. 

To more firmly establish exposure of students to industrial problems, Walker and his younger colleague, Warren K. Doc Lewis, an MIT chemistry undergraduate with a Ph.D. from Breslau, founded the School of Chemical Engineering Practice in 1916, again with support from Arthur D. Little. Students gained access to the expensive industrial facilities required to relate classroom instruction in unit operations to industrial practices while still retaining faculty supervision. 

Little was a consultant who had formed in 1900 in Boston the firm of Little and Walker, later to become Arthur D. Little, Inc. Although not a faculty member at MIT, he was an influential alumnus (having graduated from the chemistry course in 1885) and a close associate of William Walker, who played a key role in the establishment of chemical engineering at that institution (see below) [16]. He served as President of AIChE in 1919. 

Sponsoring Editor Arthur Biderman Production Supervisor Pamela Pelton Editing Supervisor Maureen B. Walker... 

Another name closely associated with chemical engineering during the early years of its development was that of Arthur D. Little, M.I.T. 85. Little was not a member of the feculty, but he was interested deeply in chemical engineering education. For several years he and Walker carried on the firm of Little and Walker in Boston, one of the early industrial consulting firms. Later the firm of Little and Walker became Arthur D. Little, Inc. Both Walker and Little had extraordinary vision and a capability for clear and forceful expression. They enunciated four fundamental concepts which formed the foundation upon which chemical engineering at M.I.T. has been built. 

Even with such an outstanding nucleus, it is doubtful if chemical engineering at M.I.T. could have attained its position of prestige without the help of an administration, under President MacLaurin, which was most sympathetic to the aims of education and research. President MacLaurin wholeheartedly backed Walker and Lewis and with the aid of Arthur D. Little, was successful in having George Eastman donate 300,000 to establish the first School of Chemical Engineering Practice. 

Professor Walker, a farm boy from the hill country near Pittsburgh, received his bachelor s degree from Pennsylvania State University in 1890 and his PhD under Otto Wallach at Gottingen in 1892. After two years as an instructor at Penn State College he came to M.LT. as an instructor of analytical chemistry. In 1900 he resigned to join Arthur D. Little in Little and Walker, consulting chemists. Two years later he was... 

By 1905 the concept of unit operations implicitly informed the curriculum of a new chemical engineering course at what was to become MIT. From 1900, William K. Walker, the course instructor, had a close association with the Arthur D. Little engineering consultancy. John Servos has discussed the currency of the notion of unit operations in the US in this early period, showing that Little was linked closely with such concepts in the curricula of American institutions before 1915. 

---