from Germany and with greatly increased demand for and utilization of metals and alloys, brought widespread recognition of the value of chemical engineering and metallurgy. When the United States entered the war in 1917, the demand for trained engineers caused a depletion in the staff. The department lost five of its seven members, A. H. White, A. E. White, C. Upthegrove, J. D. Rue, and E. E. Ware, all of whom received commissions with the armed services.
These leaves of absence necessitated an almost complete reorganization of the teaching staff. Clifford Dyer Holley (Maine '00, M.S. ibid. '02), of the Acme White Lead and Color Works, was appointed Professor of Chemical Engineering and head of the department on a part-time basis without salary. Professors W. L. Badger and Joseph Stanley Laird (Toronto '09, Ph.D. Princeton '12) completed the regular staff. In 1917 Assistant Professors John Crowe Brier ('12, M.S. '13), William Platt Wood ('12, '14e [Ch.E.], M.S. '16), Instructors Clarence Frederick Smart ('16e [Ch.E.]) and Franz Perrine Zimmerli ('18e [Ch.E.], M.S.E. '19, Met.E. '34) were added. Edwin Myron Baker (Pennsylvania State '16) and Adolph Frederick Wendler ('18e [Ch.E.], M.S.E. '19) became instructors in 1918. The period of World War I was one of great activity under trying conditions. The laboratory space was inadequate, the staff was new, and the military training requirement at the University limited the time and energy that a student could give to his studies.
Crowded conditions in the Chemistry Building did not permit the development of a laboratory in unit operations or pilot processing equipment. In 1917 the Swenson Evaporator Company, of Chicago, offered to install at the University certain valuable equipment of this type free of cost if the company in exchange might employ the services of Professor Badger as a research consultant. This offer was accepted by the Board of Regents, and space was found in the abandoned Boiler House in the center of the campus for this equipment. In spite of a discouraging environment good work was done.
At the close of the war, A. H. White, A. E. White, and Upthegrove returned to the University. Holley returned to his position with the Acme White Lead and Color Works, Rue and Ware resigned, and Brier left to become superintendent of the Holland Aniline and Chemical Works. Laird was granted a leave of absence and later resigned, and Zimmerli and Wendler went into industrial work. In 1919 Eugene Hendricks Leslie (Illinois '13, Ph.D. Columbia '16) was added to the staff as Associate Professor. He was promoted to Professor in 1923 and resigned to enter private practice in 1928. His book on motor fuels, published in 1923, was an important contribution in that field, and he gave valuable assistance in graduate work. George Granger Brown (New York University '17 [Ch.E.], Ch.E. ibid. '24, Ph.D. Michigan '24) became Instructor in 1920, and Brier returned in 1921 as Professor.
Because of the demand for trained engineers and since demobilization of the armed forces left many young men without jobs, they flocked to engineering colleges in embarrassing numbers and were particularly attracted by courses in chemical engineering. In 1920-21 more than one hundred sophomores chose chemical engineering as their field of specialization. The staff and facilities of the department were entirely inadequate to care for the load which this class represented when it reached the senior year. Fortunately, this postwar wave soon receded, but the enrollment continued much higher than before the war.
The East Engineering Building, occupied in 1923, was designed primarily to
