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Kolthoff, Izaak Maurits (1894–1993)

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Izaak Kolthoff

Izaak Kolthoff, 1952. Used with the permission of the University of Minnesota Department of Chemistry.

Izaak Maurits Kolthoff was a professor of analytical chemistry at the University of Minnesota from 1927 to 1962. He published over a thousand papers, wrote more than a dozen books, and created and edited the first comprehensive treatise of analytical chemistry. He also played a key part in the development of synthetic rubber during and after World War II. He is known as the “father of modern analytical chemistry.”

Izaak “Piet” Kolthoff was born in Almelo, the Netherlands, in 1894 and received a rigorous education there. He took an intense interest in chemistry at an early age and specialized in analytical chemistry (the science of identifying and measuring chemical compounds) at the University of Utrecht. He published his first scientific paper at age twenty-one and got his PhD at twenty-four.

In 1927 Dean Samuel Lind of the University of Minnesota’s Institute of Technology―himself a distinguished chemist―recruited Kolthoff to build an analytical chemistry program there. Kolthoff set about the task with determined energy. He wrote, he published, he taught, and he recruited a succession of graduate students who went on to important careers at major universities all over the United States. His work at Minnesota was part of an even bigger personal project―the modernization and elevation of analytical chemistry from what it had been, a collection of laboratory techniques, to a major branch of chemistry, equal in stature to biochemistry and the physical, organic, and inorganic branches.

During World War II the War Department recruited Kolthoff as part of a “second Manhattan Project” to meet the nation’s critical need for rubber. The Japanese controlled the world’s supply of natural rubber, and production of synthetic rubber amounted to only a few hundred tons a year. Kolthoff turned the University of Minnesota into a research center in that successful effort. By war’s end the United States produced some 920,000 tons a year, using a “cold rubber” recipe to which Kolthoff made vital contributions. The recipe permitted mass production of a rubber as good as or better than natural rubber, using less energy. America’s post-war rubber production was based on that recipe.

Kolthoff had an intense personal interest in an Allied victory in World War II. During the war he lost contact with his family, Jews trapped in the Nazi-controlled Netherlands. Only in 1945 did he learn the truth: almost all, including his mother, were murdered by the Nazis. Only a brother survived.

In politics, Kolthoff was a committed internationalist and believer in international cooperation and academic freedom. After the war he traveled extensively in the Soviet bloc and maintained relationships with scientists there. The FBI investigated him and in 1951 the House Committee on Un-American Activities named him―along with Paul Robeson, Albert Einstein, Leonard Bernstein, Linus Pauling, and many other distinguished citizens―a subversive for his association with six civil rights and world peace organizations. In response, Kolthoff wrote to the committee chair telling him the committee had missed three more organizations he belonged to. He briefly lost his security clearance but never his stature as a scholar or the support of the University of Minnesota.

In the mid-1950s Kolthoff undertook a project of daunting scope: a comprehensive treatise of modern analytical chemistry. The result, thirty volumes published over twenty-eight years, engaged 295 authors and ran to 17,000 pages. His Treatise on Analytical Chemistry cemented his reputation as the father of modern analytical chemistry. He had a motto: Theory guides, experiment decides.

Izaak Kolthoff never married, and from 1927 until shortly before his death he lived on the university’s Minneapolis campus, first in Coffman Union, later in Comstock Hall. He was an avid athlete in tennis, swimming, and horseback riding, and a fearsome bridge player.

Kolthoff received almost every major award in chemistry short of the Nobel Prize: the Nichols Medal (1949), the Fischer Award (1950), the Willard Gibbs Award (1964), and, in 1967, the Kolthoff Gold Medal Award in Analytical Chemistry. In 1972 the University named its new chemistry building on Northrup Mall Kolthoff Hall. In 2014 the American Chemical Association designated Kolthoff and modern analytical chemistry a national chemical landmark.

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Nelson, Paul. “Kolthoff of Minnesota.” Department of Chemistry, University of Minnesota.
https://chem.umn.edu/sites/chem.umn.edu/files/paulnelson_pietkolthoffarticle.pdf

ua-00970
Izaak Maurits Kolthoff papers, 1926–1994
University Archives, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
Description: This collection spans Dr. Kolthoff's career, from his early days at the University of Utrecht until his death. Much of the collection consists of correspondence with people and organizations. Other materials include biographical information, publications, scrapbooks with awards, photographs, articles, and letters.
http://archives.lib.umn.edu/repositories/14/resources/1733

Related Images

Izaak Kolthoff
Izaak Kolthoff
A young Kolthoff on vacation in the mountains, somewhere in Europe, ca. 1910s.
A young Kolthoff on vacation in the mountains, somewhere in Europe, ca. 1910s.
Izaak Kolthoff
Izaak Kolthoff
Izaak Kolthoff with University of Minnesota Chemistry Department faculty
Izaak Kolthoff with University of Minnesota Chemistry Department faculty
Izaak Kolthoff lecturing in Russia, 1958.
Izaak Kolthoff lecturing in Russia, 1958.
Izaak Kolthoff with University of Minnesota President C. Peter Magrath at the dedication of Kolthoff Hall
Izaak Kolthoff with University of Minnesota President C. Peter Magrath at the dedication of Kolthoff Hall
Kolthoff Hall, 1971.
Kolthoff Hall, 1971.
Izaak Kolthoff in retirement
Izaak Kolthoff in retirement
2014 Chemical Landmark Award program cover
2014 Chemical Landmark Award program cover

Turning Point

On August 5, 1927, Kolthoff receives a cablegram from Samuel Lind of the University of Minnesota offering him a one-year appointment with the prospect of permanency. Three days later he accepts.

Chronology

1894

Izaak Kolthoff is born in Almelo, Netherlands. His father, Mozes Kolthoff, works as a religious educator.

1912

Unable to enroll to study chemistry at a major Dutch university because he has not studied Latin and Greek (only English, French, and German), Kolthoff enrolls in the pharmacy program at the University of Utrecht, where he concentrates on chemistry.

1915

Kolthoff publishes his first scientific paper, “Phosphoric Acid as a Mono- and Dibasic Acid.”

1918

Kolthoff receives his PhD in analytical chemistry. He then works at the University of Utrecht as a researcher and instructor, but not as a professor.

1924

In the summer, Kolthoff lectures in the United States in Rochester and New York City, and at the University of Michigan, Northwestern University, and Ohio State University.

1927

In August, Kolthoff accepts positions at the University of Minnesota as professor of analytical chemistry and section chair. He holds those positions for the next thirty-five years.

1928–1941

Kolthoff publishes 232 scientific papers and three books.

1942

The US Defense Rubber Committee selects Kolthoff as one of twelve academics to work on synthetic rubber for the war effort. His work brings $231,000 to the university and employs up to fourteen people.

1943

Kolthoff’s mother and most of his aunts and uncles are murdered at Sobibor. His brother, sister, brother-in-law, and two nieces stay in hiding. Soon after the two nieces are betrayed and killed at Auschwitz, his sister and brother-in-law commit suicide.

1945

At the invitation of the Soviet government, Kolthoff tours the Soviet Union and writes a series of articles for the Minneapolis Tribune.

1951

The House Committee on Un-American Activities identifies Kolthoff as a subversive.

1959

Kolthoff publishes the first of thirty volumes of his Treatise on Analytical Chemistry. (The final volume came out in 1977.)

1962

About to turn seventy, Kolthoff is forced to retire from the university. In retirement he published 126 more scientific papers.

1972

The University of Minnesota dedicates a new chemistry building, Kolthoff Hall, in Kolthoff’s honor.

1993

Kolthoff dies of kidney failure at Bethesda Care Center in St. Paul.