Edwin Herbert Hall 1855-1938

NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS VOLUME XXI SECOND MEMOIR BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF EDWIN HERBERT HALL 1855-1938 BY P. W. BRIDGMAN PRESENTED TO THE ACADEMY AT THE ANNUAL MEETING, 1939 EDWIN HERBERT HALL 1855-1938 BY P. W. BRIDGMAN Edwin Herbert Hall was born in North Gorham, then Great Falls, Maine, on November 7, 1855, tne son °f Joshua Emery Hall and Lucy Ann Hilborn Hall. On his father's side he was descended from John Hall, who came to this country from England early in the 17th century and settled at Dover, New Hampshire; from Anthony Emery who landed in Boston from England in 1635, the son of Jean Emery, a Frenchman who settled in England after the massacre of St. Bartholomew ; and from Kenelson Winslow, who emigrated to this country probably in 1629 and settled in Marshfield, Massachusetts. He was of the ninth generation of each of these three lines. On his mother's side he was descended from Robert Hilborn, who was of Quaker stock and came to Maine probably from New Jersey about 1775. In spite of Robert Hilborn's Quaker stock, he enlisted twice for service in the American Revolution from Portland, Maine. Also on his mother's side his descent was probably from Nicholas Nqyes, who came to Newburyport about 1635. For two genera- tions back his ancestors were Maine country folk, engaged in the conventional occupations of the countryside. His father's father, Levi Hall, was born in Windham, Maine, in 1787, and moved to Great Falls. He was a farmer and probably also a stone mason, served as deputy sheriff with zeal, was an aboli- tionist, a "Washingtonian" teetotaler, and an officer in the war of 1812. His father's mother, Jane Emery, was born in Wind- ham, Maine, in 1795. His mother's father, Samuel Hilborn, lived most of his life in West Minot, Maine, occupied as a farmer. His mother's mother was Nancy Noyes. His father, Joshua Emery Hall, was born in 1823 in Great Falls, now North Gorham, Maine, received a common school education with a little "academy" instruction, and was occupied with farming and lumbering. He served as selectman, representative in the Maine legislature, and justice of the peace. He died at the early age of 41, of some abdominal trouble, perhaps peritonitis. At the time of his death his old school teacher said of him in 73 NATIONAL ACADEMY BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS VOL. XXI the local paper, "I never knew a better scholar. His grade and grasp of mind were remarkable; his attainments, for his ad- vantages, rare; his qualifications for usefulness, uncommon." His mother, Lucy Ann Hilborn, was born in 1825 in West Minot, Maine, and lived in West Minot and North Gorham until she came to Cambridge to live soon after her son's mar- riage. In youth she taught in a district school and worked in a textile factory. She was very well-read, had discriminating literary taste and a talent for drawing. She died at the age of 86. A brother of his mother, Samuel Greeley Hilborn, was Congressman from California. Besides Edwin Herbert his father and mother had two other sons and two daughters. The daughters and one of the sons died in infancy or childhood. The surviving son, Frederic Winslow Hall, was born in i860 and moved to California at the age of 20, where he is still living (February 1939), having retired from his practice of law. Edwin Herbert describes himself as not living on a farm after 1867, when he was 12 years old, but continuing to work often as a farm hand during his boyhood and youth. He attended the usual district school, and prepared for college in two years.at "Gorham Seminary". He entered Bowdoin in the fall before he was 16, and graduated at the head of his class four years later in 1875 with the A.B. degree. During college he taught two terms in the same district school which he had attended as a boy. He described himself as "an industrious, rather than a brilliant scholar, doing all my work fairly well, if not very easily.—The only real talent that I showed in college, if I showed any, was for writing. I was, perhaps, the most prolific editor of the college paper during my editorial year." He did not decide on his life work immediately after gradua- tion, but served during 1875-76 as principal of Gould's Academy, Bethel, Maine, and during 1876-77 as principal of the high school in Brunswick, Maine. It was not until after these two years of teaching that he decided to enter physics. He writes: "I should perhaps have studied law, if I had not felt myself unfitted to advocate a cause in which I did not believe. I turned to science, after two years of school teaching, because it was 74 EDWIN HERBERT HALL BRIDGMAN progressive and satisfied my standards of intellectual and moral integrity, not because I had any passionate love of it or felt myself especially gifted for scientific undertakings." In the fall of 1877 he entered the Johns Hopkins University as a graduate student in physics, working under Rowland. Before entering the Johns Hopkins he explored the possibilities of study at Harvard, but was advised with engaging candor by John Trowbridge, the Director of the Harvard Physics Labora- tory, to go to the Johns Hopkins because Harvard did not possess adequate facilities. In 1879 he discovered the "Hall" effect, which will presently be discussed in greater detail. He received the Ph.D. degree in 1880, and continued at the Johns Hopkins during 1880-81 as assistant in physics. In December 1880 he was appointed to a Tyndall Scholarship by the Johns Hopkins for study and travel abroad during the following year, but he later resigned this scholarship because in the spring of 1881 he was appointed to an instructor ship at Harvard for 1881-82. During the summer of 1881 he travelled in Europe and was a visitor in Helmholtz's laboratory in Berlin long enough to complete measurements of the Hall effect in some new metals, which he reported to the York meeting of the British Association in the summer of the same year. In the fall of 1881 he returned to this country to begin his instructorship at Harvard. Here he served as instructor from 1881 to 1888, as assistant professor from 1888 to 1895, professor from 1895 to 1914, Rumford Pro- fessor from 1914 to 1921, and Emeritus Professor from 1921 until his death. In addition to the A.B. degree from Bowdoin and the Ph.D. degree from the Johns Hopkins, he received from Bowdoin the A.M. degree in 1878, probably the conventional degree awarded automatically at that time to all graduates of three years' standing, and in 1905 the honorary LL.D., also from Bow- doin. He was a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (vice president of the section of physics in 1904), of the American Physical Society, the National Acad- emy of Sciences (elected in 1911), corresponding member of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and foreign member of the Societe Hollandaise des Sciences. He was a member of the Solvay Congress at Brussels in 1924, and of the Volta 75 NATIONAL ACADEMY BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS VOL. XXI Congress at Como in 1927. In 1937 he received the award and medal of the American Association of Physics Teachers for Notable Contributions to the Teaching of Physics, and was made the first honorary member of the Association. He married, on August 31, 1882, Caroline Eliza Bottum of New Haven, Vermont, who had been his assistant at the Bruns- wick High School. She was descended on both her father's and her mother's (Hoyt) side from Simon Huntington who, tradition says, died at sea in 1633 while on his way from England to America with his family. A woman much beloved for her qualities of heart and mind, she died, after a brief illness, on June 1, 1921, just as his lectures ended before his retirement, and as he was looking forward to the cultivation of his leisure. There were two children, Constance Huntington Hall, who is now living in Cambridge, and Frederic Hilborn Hall, who died while a senior at Harvard. In January 1907 he suffered a severe nervous breakdown, probably associated with a physio- logical condition for which it was subsequently necessary to operate, and from which he did not recover sufficiently to resume his college work until the fall of 1908. In the spring of 1912 he was again subjected to a similar operation, made a rapid recovery, and was able to sail for England in July to attend the 250th anniversary celebration of the Royal Society of London as delegate of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. During the summer he attended various scientific meetings, including the British Association meeting in Dundee. In 1914-15 he was again abroad, on sabbatical leave, and was in Italy when the World War broke out. Here he remained until early 1915, when he went with his family to France and gave lectures on the system of American education at Grenoble, Montpellier, Toulouse, and Bordeaux, under the auspices of the "Fondation Harvard". Except for the illnesses mentioned above, he described himself as having been remarkably free from ordinary ailments. Dur- ing college he was athletic, rowed on the college crew, and was always interested in sports, serving at one time on the Harvard Athletic Committee and writing an article on Athletic Profes- sionalism and its Remedies.

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