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George Braxton Pegram (October 24, 1876 - August 12, 1958) was an American
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 physicist
Physicist

A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many Physics#Major fields of physics spanning all length scales: from atom particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole ....
 who played a key role in the technical administration of the Manhattan Project
Manhattan Project

The Manhattan Project was the project to develop the first atomic weapon during World War II; involving the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada....
.

am was born in Trinity, North Carolina
Trinity, North Carolina

Trinity is a city in Randolph County, North Carolina, North Carolina, United States. The population was 6,690 at the 2000 census....
, one of the five children of William Howell Pegram
William Howell Pegram

William Howell Pegram was a United States chemist and education.Born Chalk Level, Harnett County, North Carolina, Pegram fought in the American Civil War on the side of the Confederate States of America....
, professor of chemistry
Chemistry

Chemistry is the science concerned with the composition, structure, and properties of matter, as well as the changes it undergoes during chemical reactions....
 at Trinity College
Duke University

Duke University is a private university research university located in Durham, North Carolina, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodism and Religious Society of Friends in the present-day town of Trinity, North Carolina in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892....
 (now Duke University), and Emma, daughter of Rev. Braxton Craven
Braxton Craven

Braxton Craven was a United States of America educator. He served as the second president of the institution that became Duke University from 1842 to 1863 and then again from 1866 to 1882....
, the college's president. His upbringing in the academic atmosphere of the campus left him with an appetite for careful methodical work and an inherent diplomacy.

Pegram graduated from Trinity in 1895 and taught high school before becoming a teaching assistant in physics at Columbia University
Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York , is a private university in the United States and a member of the Ivy League. Columbia's main campus lies in the Morningside Heights, Manhattan neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, in New York City....
 in 1900.






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George Braxton Pegram (October 24, 1876 - August 12, 1958) was an American
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 physicist
Physicist

A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many Physics#Major fields of physics spanning all length scales: from atom particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole ....
 who played a key role in the technical administration of the Manhattan Project
Manhattan Project

The Manhattan Project was the project to develop the first atomic weapon during World War II; involving the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada....
.

Life

Pegram was born in Trinity, North Carolina
Trinity, North Carolina

Trinity is a city in Randolph County, North Carolina, North Carolina, United States. The population was 6,690 at the 2000 census....
, one of the five children of William Howell Pegram
William Howell Pegram

William Howell Pegram was a United States chemist and education.Born Chalk Level, Harnett County, North Carolina, Pegram fought in the American Civil War on the side of the Confederate States of America....
, professor of chemistry
Chemistry

Chemistry is the science concerned with the composition, structure, and properties of matter, as well as the changes it undergoes during chemical reactions....
 at Trinity College
Duke University

Duke University is a private university research university located in Durham, North Carolina, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodism and Religious Society of Friends in the present-day town of Trinity, North Carolina in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892....
 (now Duke University), and Emma, daughter of Rev. Braxton Craven
Braxton Craven

Braxton Craven was a United States of America educator. He served as the second president of the institution that became Duke University from 1842 to 1863 and then again from 1866 to 1882....
, the college's president. His upbringing in the academic atmosphere of the campus left him with an appetite for careful methodical work and an inherent diplomacy.

Pegram graduated from Trinity in 1895 and taught high school before becoming a teaching assistant in physics at Columbia University
Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York , is a private university in the United States and a member of the Ivy League. Columbia's main campus lies in the Morningside Heights, Manhattan neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, in New York City....
 in 1900. He was to spend the rest of his working life at Columbia, taking his doctorate in 1903 and becoming a full professor in 1918. His administrative career began as early as 1913 when he became the department's executive officer. By 1918, he was Dean of the Faculty of Applied Sciences but he resigned in 1930 to relaunch his research activities, performing many meticulous measurements on the properties of neutron
Neutron

The neutron is a subatomic particle with no net electric charge and a mass slightly larger than that of a proton.Neutrons are usually found in atomic nucleus....
s with John R. Dunning
John R. Dunning

John Ray Dunning was an United States physicist who played key roles in the development of the atomic bomb. He specialized in neutron physics and did pioneering work in gaseous diffusion for isotope separation....
.

Returning to administration in 1936, as Dean and Chair of Columbia's physics
Physics

Physics is the natural science which examines basic concepts such as energy, force, and spacetime and all that derives from these, such as mass, charge, matter and its Motion ....
 department, Pegram was instrumental in bringing Enrico Fermi
Enrico Fermi

Enrico Fermi was an Italian physicist most noted for his work on the development of the first nuclear reactor, and for his contributions to the development of Quantum mechanics, nuclear physics and particle physics, and statistical mechanics....
 to the US to escape the Fascist regime of his native Italy
Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia....
. In 1940 he brokered a meeting between Fermi and the US Navy at which the prospect of an atomic bomb was raised with the military for the first time.

The Columbia physics department was home to many of the key technologies required for the bomb project and Pegram and his colleague Harold C. Urey soon found themselves on Vannevar Bush
Vannevar Bush

Vannevar Bush was an United States engineer and science administrator known for his work on analog computer, his political role in the development of the atomic bomb, and the idea of the memex, which was seen decades later as a pioneering concept for the World Wide Web....
's S-1 Uranium Committee
S-1 Uranium Committee

The S-1 Uranium Committee was a Committee of the National Defense Research Committee that superseded the Briggs Advisory Committee on Uranium and later evolved into the Manhattan Project....
 coordinating all technical research. In autumn 1941, Pegram and Urey led a diplomatic mission to England
England

native_name =|conventional_long_name = England|common_name = England|image_flag = Flag of England.svg|image_coat = England COA.svg|symbol_type = Royal Coat of Arms...
 to establish co-operation on development of the atomic bomb.

Pegram died in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania
Swarthmore, Pennsylvania

Swarthmore is a borough in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, United States. Swarthmore was originally named Westdale in honor of noted Painting Benjamin West, who was one of the early residents of the town....
.

Bibliography

  • Darrow, K. K. (1961) Yearbook of the American Philosophical Society, 152-158
  • Embrey, L. A. (1970) Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, 41:357-407
  • Shor, E. N. (1999) "Pegram, George Braxton", American National Biography
    American National Biography

    The American National Biography is a 24 volume set containing approximately 17,400 entries and 20 million words. It was published in 1999 as, according to its preface in Volume 1, the successor to the Dictionary of American Biography which was first published between 1926 and 1937....
    , Oxford University Press, 17: 247-248, ISBN 0-19-520635-5
  • Weart, S. R. (1981) "Pegram, George Braxton", Dictionary of Scientific Biography
    Dictionary of Scientific Biography

    The Dictionary of Scientific Biography is a scholarly reference work that was published from 1970 through 1980. It is supplemented by the New Dictionary of Scientific Biography and an electronic version that includes both publications....