F. Sherwood Rowland papers, 1927-2024, bulk 1980-2012

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Summary

Creators:

Abstract:

F. Sherwood Rowland was the Donald Bren Research Professor of Chemistry in Earth System Science at the University of California, Irvine, beginning at UCI as a founding faculty member in 1964 and continuing as a professor and researcher until 2012. This collection documents his professional career in radiochemistry and atmospheric science. Included are materials documenting his research; awards including the Nobel Prize in chemistry (1995); professional service; and his global efforts to educate the public and policymakers about stratospheric ozone depletion, global climate change, and related environmental issues. Materials document the public controversies surrounding the chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) theory of ozone depletion and efforts to negotiate international agreements, including the Montreal Protocol, to ban CFC production. Forms of materials include audiovisual recordings, speeches, manuscripts, correspondence, notes, reports and report drafts, publications, clippings, photographs, and digital material.

Extent:

210.25 Linear Feet (349 boxes and 4 oversized folders)

Language:

English .

Preferred citation:

F. Sherwood Rowland papers. MS-F029. Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California. Date accessed.

For the benefit of current and future researchers, please cite any additional information about sources consulted in this collection, including permanent URLs, item or folder descriptions, and box/folder locations.

Background

Scope and content:

This collection documents F. Sherwood Rowland's professional career in radiochemistry and atmospheric science. Included are materials documenting his research; awards including the Nobel Prize in chemistry (1995); professional service; and his global efforts to educate the public and policymakers about stratospheric ozone depletion, global climate change, and related environmental issues. Materials document the public controversies surrounding the CFC theory of ozone depletion and efforts to establish international agreements, including the Montreal Protocol, to ban CFC production. Also documented is Rowland's tenure as the foreign secretary of the National Academy of Sciences (1994-2002) and his role as co-founder of the InterAcademy Panel on International Issues, a global network of scientific academies. Leadership roles in other organizations, notably the American Association for the Advancement of Science, are also documented. A small amount of personal and family papers is also included.

Forms of materials include more than 150 audio and video recordings, primarily of Rowland's broadcast appearances, lectures, and testimony before legislative bodies; lengthy recorded interviews that were never broadcast; manuscripts of published and unpublished writings and speeches; reports and report drafts; correspondence; clippings; notes; meeting and committee materials; photographs; award certificates, plaques, medals, and honorary diplomas; ephemera including posters, cartoons and caricatures; digital items including research and lecture materials; and research materials for both scientific research on atmospheric science and background research on global environmental issues and policy.

Biographical / historical:

F. Sherwood Rowland was the Donald Bren Research Professor of Chemistry in Earth System Science at the University of California, Irvine, beginning at UCI as a founding faculty member in 1964 and continuing as a professor and researcher until 2012. In 1995, he shared the Nobel Prize in chemistry with Mario Molina and Paul Crutzen, "for their work on atmospheric chemistry, particularly concerning the formation and decomposition of ozone." Rowland, a specialist in atmospheric chemistry and radiochemistry, has authored or co-authored more than 430 scientific publications. He has been internationally recognized with numerous awards and honors, not only for his groundbreaking work in the laboratory, but also for his efforts to inform other scientists, the public, and policymakers about threats posed by chemical pollutants to earth's atmosphere.

In 1974, Rowland was, with Molina (at the time a postdoctoral research associate at UC Irvine), the first to warn that chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) released into the atmosphere were depleting earth's critical ozone layer. Research on CFCs and stratospheric ozone eventually led in the 1970s to legislation in the United States, Canada, and Scandinavia regulating the manufacture and use of CFCs, and in 1987 to the Montreal Protocol of the United Nations Environment Programme, the first agreement for controlling and ameliorating environmental damage to the global atmosphere. The terms of the Montreal Protocol were strengthened in 1992 to attain a complete elimination of further CFC production by the year 1996. Measurements in the atmosphere have confirmed that CFC emissions on a global scale have essentially stopped.

Rowland was born on June 28, 1927, in Delaware, Ohio, to parents Sidney A. Rowland, a mathematics professor at Ohio Wesleyan University, and Margaret Lois Rowland (née Drake). After graduating from high school in 1943 at the age of 16, he enrolled at Ohio Wesleyan. Two years later, when he was 18, he enlisted in a Navy program to train radar operators. He was in basic training when World War II ended, but he served in the military for two additional years before returning to Ohio Wesleyan, graduating in 1948. He then began graduate study in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Chicago, where he earned his master's and doctoral degrees under the direction of Willard Libby, 1960 winner of the Nobel Prize in chemistry. Throughout his college, military, and postgraduate years Rowland participated in competitive sports, excelling in both baseball and basketball; he spent two summers playing semi-professional baseball in Ontario.

In 1952 Rowland finished his Ph.D. and accepted a position as instructor in the Department of Chemistry at Princeton University. That year he also married Joan Lundberg, and in 1953 they had a daughter, Ingrid, and in 1955, a son, Jeffrey. Summers from 1953 to 1955 were spent at Brookhaven National Laboratory, where Rowland's research focused on hot-atom chemistry. In 1956, he accepted an assistant professorship at the University of Kansas where he ran a laboratory conducting research in radiochemistry, rising through the ranks until his promotion to full professor in 1963. The following year he was recruited by the University of California Irvine, to serve as the first chair of the Department of Chemistry.

In 1970 he retired from the chairmanship and began to shift the focus of his research toward atmospheric chemistry and environmental issues, the latter a reflection of cultural influences and the concerns of his own family. Eventually, he and postdoctoral research associate Molina began an investigation of the fate of CFCs in earth's atmosphere, and in 1974 they published their first research article on the subject. Their findings, that the release of CFCs into earth's atmosphere depletes the ozone layer, immediately drew widespread scholarly and media attention. Proposals for laws to limit the manufacture of CFCs, starting with a ban on CFCs as aerosol propellants in consumer products, drew steep resistance from chemical manufacturers who challenged the CFC theory of ozone depletion. For the next three decades, Rowland was at the center of the controversies surrounding not only CFCs and ozone depletion, but also global climate change, serving as a frequent spokesperson on these atmospheric environmental problems in both broadcast and print media. He continued to run the Rowland-Blake Laboratory at UC Irvine with his research partner, Donald Blake, until his death in 2012.

Rowland's professional activities included serving as the foreign secretary of the National Academy of Sciences from July 1994 to June 2002. In 1995, he created, with Professor Prakesh Tandon of India, the InterAcademy Panel, a global network of the world's science academies, now representing more than 100 academies. He is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the Institute of Medicine. Beginning in 1991, Rowland served successive one-year terms as president-elect, president, and chairman of the board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the publishers of Science Magazine.

F. Sherwood Rowland passed away on March 10, 2012.

Chronology
Date	Event
1927	Born June 28 in Delaware, Ohio
1943	Graduates from high school before 16th birthday and enrolls in Ohio Wesleyan University in the fall
1945	Enlists in training program for Navy radar operators
1948	B.A., Ohio Wesleyan University
1951	M.S., University of Chicago
1952	Marries Joan Lundberg Ph.D., University of Chicago
1952-1956	Instructor in Chemistry, Princeton University
1953-1955	Visiting Scientist, Brookhaven National Laboratory (summers)
1956-1963	Assistant, Associate, and Full Professor of Chemistry, University of Kansas
1962	Visiting Scientist, Max Planck Institute, Mainz (January-June)
1964-1970	Professor and Chairman of Chemistry, University of California, Irvine
1964-1994	Professor of Chemistry, University of California, Irvine
1969	Visiting Scientist, International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna (January-June)
1973	Mario Molina joins Rowland's research team as a postdoctoral research associate
1974	Visiting Scientist, International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna (January-June)
1974	Publication of "Stratospheric sink for chlorofluorocarbons; chlorine atom catalyzed destruction of ozone," in Nature, co-authored with Mario Molina
1975	Orange County Award, American Chemical Society
1975	J. W. Jones Prize, Rochester Institute of Technology
1976	Tolman Medal, American Chemical Society
1977	Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
1977	Billard Award, New York Academy of Sciences
1978	Member, National Academy of Sciences
1978	The use of chlorofluorocarbons as a propellant gas is banned in the U.S.
1979	Szilard Award, American Physical Society
1980	E. F. Smith Lectureship, American Chemical Society
1980	Zimmerman Award, American Chemical Society
1980	Visiting Scientist, Japan Society for Promotion of Science
1981	Visiting Scientist, Technical University Munich (January-October)
1981	Humboldt Fellow, Senior Scientist, Federal Republic of Germany (Munich)
1983	Environmental Science and Technology Award, American Chemical Society
1983	Tyler World Prize in Ecology and Energy and the Award for Creative Advances in Environmental Science and Technology of the American Chemical Society (with Mario Molina)
1985	"Hole" in the ozone layer is reported by British scientists
1985-1989	Daniel G. Aldrich, Jr., Professor of Chemistry, University of California Irvine
1987	Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer adopted
1987	Esselen Award, American Chemical Society
1987	Charles A. Dana Award for Pioneering Achievements in Health
1988	Global 500 Role of Honour for Environmental Achievement, United Nations Environment Programme
1989	Montreal Protocol ratified by 29 countries and the EEC
1989	UCI Medal
1989	Silver Medal, Royal Institute of Chemistry, United Kingdom
1989	Japan Prize in Environmental Science and Technology
1989-1994	Donald Bren Professor of Chemistry and Earth System Science, UC Irvine
1991	Dickson Prize, Carnegie-Mellon University
1991-1993	Successive one-year terms as President-Elect, President, and Chairman of the Board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
1993	Robertson Memorial Lecture, National Academy of Sciences
1993	Peter Debye Medal in Physical Chemistry, American Chemical Society
1994	Member, Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences
1994-	Donald Bren Research Professor of Chemistry and Earth System Science, UC Irvine
1994	Roger Revelle Medal, American Geophysical Union
1994	Albert Einstein Prize, World Cultural Council
1994-2002	Foreign Secretary, National Academy of Sciences
1995	Member, American Philosophical Society
1996	Honorary Lifetime Member, Ozone Commission, International Association of Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics (IAMAP)
1997	Alumni Medal, University of Chicago
1997	Nevada Medal
1995	Nobel Prize in Chemistry (with Mario Molina and Paul Crutzen)
1995-2000	Founding Co-chair (with P. N. Tandon, India) Inter-Academy Panel (IAP) on International Issues
2000	CoSIDA Academic All-America Hall of Fame
2003	Gold Medal, Academy of Athens
2004	Member, Academia Bibliotheca Alexandrina
2004	Foreign Member, Royal Society (U.K.)
2006	Chemical Breakthrough Award, American Chemical Society (with Mario Molina)
2012	Died March 10 in Corona Del Mar, California

Acquisition information:

Gift of F. Sherwood Rowland and Joan Rowland, 2008-2012. Gift of Ingrid Rowland, 2024.

Appraisal information:

Separated materials include clippings/tear-outs that contained multiple articles and could not be filed by topic; issues of some publications including Extra! (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), Columbia Journalism Review; and some publications of professional societies. Also not retained were tax records, financial records, travel expense reports and receipts, tourism materials, medical records, and opera ephemera including programs and ticket stubs.

Processing information:

Processed by Dawn Schmitz, Kimberly Gallon, Colleen Williams, and Christine Kim in 2010-2011. Funding for processing was generously provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and administered by the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The UC Irvine Libraries Department of Special Collections and Archives was awarded a Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives grant from 2010-2012, "Uncovering California's Environmental Collections," in collaboration with eight additional special collections and archival repositories throughout the state and the California Digital Library (CDL). Grant objectives included processing of more than 33 hidden collections related to the state's environment and environmental history. The collections document an array of important sub-topics such as irrigation, mining, forestry, agriculture, industry, land use, activism, and research. Together they form a multifaceted picture of the natural world and the way it was probed, altered, exploited and protected in California over the twentieth century. Finding aids are made available through the Online Archive of California (OAC).

The June 2012 acquisition was processed by Audra Eagle Yun, Alix Norton, and Deborah Lewis in 2012-2013.

In order to expedite access to the collection, it was minimally processed. See series-level notes for more information.

Arrangement:

This collection is arranged in 16 series:

Series 1. Biographical materials, 1933-2005, 0.4 linear feet
Series 2. Personal and family papers, 1950-2009, 1.2 linear feet
Series 3. College and early professional papers, 1947-1967, 0.8 linear feet
Series 4. Correspondence, 1961-2008, 17.8 linear feet
Series 5. Scholarly writings, 1954-2009, 7.0 linear feet
Series 6. Research, 1934-2006, 33.67 linear feet
Series 7. Notes, 1968-2008, 2.0 linear feet
Series 8. Media and publicity materials, 1972-2007, 12.68 linear feet
Series 9. Professional activities, 1975-2009, 35.5 linear feet
Series 10. Speaking engagements and meetings, 1958-2009, 25.67 linear feet
Series 11. General subject files and collected literature, 1956-2007, 17.0 linear feet
Series 12. Awards and honors, 1974-2009, 5.25 linear feet
Series 13. University of California, Irvine files, 1964-2009, 4.27 linear feet
Series 14. Visual materials, 1964-2006, 11.06 linear feet
Series 15. Plaques and other artifacts, 1989-2008, 3.67 linear feet
Series 16. June 2012 acquisition, 1950-2012, 26.8 linear feet

Unless otherwise noted in the series and subseries descriptions, the arrangement scheme for the collection was imposed during processing in the absence of a usable original order. Most materials were found loose and were filed during processing. Within folders, materials are generally in no order but related materials are sleeved together.

Rules or conventions:

Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Indexed terms

Subjects:: Nobel Prize winners -- Archives
Ozone-depleting substances
Ozone layer depletion
Environmental policy
Communication in science
Global warming -- Research
Chemists
Physical scientists
Video recordings -- 20th century.
Video recordings -- 21st century
Medallions (medals)
Names:: University of California, Irvine -- Faculty -- Archives
Rowland, F.S. -- Archives

Access and use

Restrictions:: The collection is open for research.
Terms of access:: Property rights reside with the University of California. Literary rights are retained by the creators of the records and their heirs. For permissions to reproduce or to publish, please contact the Head of Special Collections and Archives.