A Brief History of The East Tennessee Section
Prepared by Milt Lietzke in 1993

The initial organizational meeting of the East Tennessee Section (which at that time included the Kingsport area as well as Knoxville) was held on May 3, 1930. At that position, Dr. Charles Hill was elected Chairman of the Section--a position he continued to hold until his death in 1939.

In 1931, what is now the Kingsport Section broke off from the East Tennessee Section and became a new local section.

Between 1931 and 1941, the membership of the East Tennessee Section was relatively small, comprising primarily faculty of the University of Tennessee, Maryville College, and Carson-Newman College, as well as a few chemists associated with TVA and local industries.. Nonetheless, during that period, numerous Presidents of the national ACS addressed the Section, including Clement McPherson, L. V. Redman, Roger Adams, E. R. Neidlein, Frank C. Whitmore, Samuel C. Lind, and William Lloyd Evans.

During World War II, the membership of the Section grew dramatically as a large number of ACS members came to Oak Ridge to work on the Manhattan Project. A full slate of Section meetings was held during World War II and, despite the travel problems that characterized wartime, many prominent chemists spoke at the meetings. However, most of the ACS members working on the Manhattan Project had little or no opportunity to participate in the activities of the section; they were generally not allowed to leave the Oak Ridge reservation except on official Manhattan project business, and efforts were made to hold Section meetings in Oak Ridge but to no avail. Likewise, attempts to get permission for Oak Ridge scientists to speak at Section meetings were virtually always denied by the authorities; even the printing of a Directory of Members of the Section was not permitted. Not until late in 1945 did Oak Ridge chemists have an opportunity to participate in the Section's activities. The first section meeting to be held in Oak Ridge was on January 31, 1946; by that time, membership in the Section had grown to more than 450. (The current membership is over 600.)

Among notable postwar activities of the Section were the following:

(1) Starting in 1945, the "Branched Chain", a local bulletin and newsletter, was published. This became a rather elaborate publication with numerous articles and photographs. The Branched Chain was published continuously until 1967, when publication was terminated due to high printing and distribution costs.

(2) The first Southeastern Regional Meeting of the ACS, in 1949, was organized and hosted by the East Tennessee Section. The meeting was held in Oak Ridge. Subsequently, the Section has hosted Southeastern Regional Meetings in 1962, 1978, and 1999.

(3) In 1948, the Section inaugurated a lecture series to honor prominent chemists. The series was originally called the East Tennessee Lectureship; in 1958, the name was changed to the S. C.Lind Lectureship to honor Tennessee native Dr. S. C. Lind, who (among other honors) was the President of the ACS , recipient of the Priestly Medal, and was the first native Tennessean elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Each year, usually in the Fall, the Lind Lecturer presents two lectures--one in Oak Ridge and one in Knoxville. Numerous Nobel laureates and other internationally-known chemists have held the Lind Lectureship.

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