Joseph George Davidson

Who was Joseph George Davidson?

Joseph George Davidson was an American chemist and inventor.

Davidson was born February 7, 1892, in New York City, a son of John Wellington and Theresa Davidson. The family moved to California when he was an infant. He received his bachelor of arts degree in chemistry in 1911 from the University of Southern California, and subsequently a master of arts in chemistry in 1912. He subsequently received a doctorate in chemistry from Columbia University.

During World War I he worked as an army first lieutenant in the development of mustard gas. During World War II, he headed Union Carbide's subcontract to carry out the gaseous diffusion separation of uranium in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, which produced the fissile material for the first atomic bomb.

He rose to the rank of vice president of the Union Carbide Corporation, and president and then board chairman of Union Carbide's Chemicals Company Division. He held twenty-eight patents, the best known being Bakelite. He also held patents on lacquers, antiknock fuels, pickling inhibitors, and laminated safety glass.

In his retirement, in the 1960s, he purchased about 11 square miles of Mt. Equinox, outside Arlington, Vermont. He would later donate this land to the Carthusians who built the Charterhouse of the Transfiguration on the property.