Roger Adams
Roger Adams was descended from John Adams grandfather, though not on a direct line through the second president. Born in South Boston, he attended the Boston Latin School and the Cambridge Latin High School before entering Harvard in 1905, where he majored in chemistry. He eventually obtained a Ph.D in chemistry in 1912. After studying for a time in Europe, in the Berlin of the Kaiser, he returned to Harvard and a job as a research assistant before becoming a professor of organic chemistry at both Harvard and Radcliffe. He constructed the first organic chemistry laboratory at Harvard and by 1915 was conducting his own research program.
In 1916 Roger moved to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) where he remained on the faculty for the ensuing 56 years. While there Roger made several significant contributions to the modern graduate student curriculum, and the research conducted by his students and his own work led to breakthroughs in the development of anesthetics. Part of his research in this area led to his conducting extensive research into the active ingredients in cannabis, and his publications (and those of his students) attracted the attention of J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, especially after Roger worked with the Army during World War I researching poison gases.
In 1940 the United States was actively recruiting scientists and researchers to support the Armed Services as the US slid towards active involvement in the war. Vannevar Bush tried to recruit Roger for the National Defense Research Committee he was forming at the behest of President Roosevelt. The Army agreed to grant Roger the necessary security clearance, based on their experience with him in the First World War, but the Navy refused, based on the recommendations of the FBI compiled by Hoover and his agents regarding Roger’s activities with the controlled substance, cannabis sativa.
Besides Roger’s questionable investigations into marijuana and potential use of it for anesthesia, the FBI reported that he had both communist leanings and was a Japanese sympathizer. Hoover eventually was forced to bow to political pressure and concede that the FBI may have had inaccurate information due to the common nature of the surname “Adams” and he was awarded a clearance to help support the war effort. During the war Roger led the effort to develop a practical means of manufacturing synthetic rubber, a critical area since the Japanese had overrun much of the world’s supplies of natural rubber.
Roger Adams was the recipient of numerous awards during his career, including the Nichols Medal, the Priestly Medal, the Charles Parsons Award for Public Service, and the National Medal of Science. In 1967 the state of Illinois awarded him the Order of Lincoln, the highest honor which could be awarded by the state, and he was inducted into the Lincoln Academy of Illinois. He died in Urbana, Illinois in 1971. While many descendants of the Adams family made significant contributions in politics, the military, literature, and the arts, he is the member of the family who made the most important contributions to science and chemistry.