March 3,1912 -September 15, 1976
Associate chemist on the Manhattan Project from 1943-1945
B.S. in Chemistry from Lincoln University in 1935
University of Chicago, where he earned an M.S. and Ph.D. in 1939 and 1943, respectively.
Recipient of the Certificate of Merit from Secretary of War Robert Patterson and a fellowship in the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Taylor was named to the U. S Assay Commission,a former entity of the federal government tasked with ensuring that the nation’s metal currency met precise specifications.
Recipient of Honor Scroll from the Washington Institute of Chemists for his research and teaching in 1972.
He was also a member of the American Chemical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a fellow of both the American Institute of Chemists and the Washington Academy for the Advancement of Science.
1960, he published a textbook entitled First Principles of Chemistry, which went on to become a core textbook used in colleges throughout the United States.
Taylor, a chemist by training, was a member of the group of African American scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project, the code name for the top-secret effort to create an atomic bomb during World War II. During the Manhattan Project black scientists at the University of Chicago achieved the first controlled, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction—a breakthrough that reshaped everything in science in nuclear physics.
Moodie was born in Nymph, Alabama on March 3, 1912, during Jim Crow era laws. , the son of Herbert L. Taylor and Celeste (Oliver) Taylor. The Taylors later moved to St. Louis where Herbert worked as a postal clerk. Moddie Taylor attended Charles H. Sumner High, graduating in 1931. He then attended Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri where he majored in chemistry. Taylor excelled at education and became graduating summa cumlaude, as well as valedictorian in 1935.
Moddie Taylor began his teaching career at Lincoln University the same year, working as an instructor until 1939 and then as an assistant professor from 1939 to 1941 while enrolled in the University of Chicago graduate program in chemistry. He received an M.S. from the University in 1939 and a Ph.D. in 1943.
Taylor married Vivian Ellis in 1937. The couple had one son, Herbert Moddie Taylor.
Photo courtesy of Regenstein Library
Moddie Taylor went to work on the Manhattan Project in 1945 at the University of Chicago. He worked as an associate chemist for the project for the next two years, involved in analyzing rare earth metals, elements of which are the products of oxidized metals and have special properties and important industrial uses. His contributions to the project earned him a Certificate of Merit from Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson in 1946.
In 1946 Taylor returned to Lincoln University for two years before becoming a chemistry professor at Howard University and the chair of the department in 1969. His research at Howard included the study of the vapor phase of dissociation of some carboxylic acids, which resulted in a grant in 1956 from the American Academy of Arts and Science.
In 1960, Taylor’s textbook, First Principles of Chemistry, was published. his book became one of the major texts in use in colleges and universities throughout the United States. Also in 1960, he was selected by the Manufacturing Chemists Association as one of the nation’s six top college chemistry professors. In 1972 Taylor was given the Honor Scroll from the Washington Institute of Chemists for his research and teaching.
Taylor was a member of the American Chemical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, The New York Academy of Sciences, Sigma Xi, and Beta Kappa Chi. He was also a fellow of the American Institute of Chemists and the Washington Academy
Taylor retired as professor emeritus from Howard University on April 1, 1976, and died of cancer in Washington, D.C. on September 15, 1976. He was 64. Taylor is recognized—along with University Chicago alum J. Ernest Wilkins Jr. and others—by the U.S. Department of Energy and the Atomic Heritage Foundation as a significant figure in the history of the Manhattan Project. UChicago honored Wilkins, SB’40, SM’41, PhD’42—a brilliant mathematician and physicist with a portrait and plaque in Eckhart Hall in 2007.