Dr.William Jacob Knox Jr.
(January 5, 1904 – July 9, 1995)
Nuclear Scientist
THE FIRST BLACK SCIENTIST SUPERVISOR OF THE MANHATTAN PROJECT
Alma mater Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Scientific career
Fields Chemistry
Institutions Columbia Univer
Manhattan Project: Black Scientists and Technicians
Dr. William Jacob Knox Supervisor of the teams
Sherman Carter Harold Delaney Harold Evans Ralph Garner-Chavis Jasper Brown Jeffries Lloyd Albert Quarterman Robert Johnson Omohundro George Warren Reed Edwin Robert Russell Benjamin Franklin Scott
William Knox was born in Bedford, Massachusetts January 5, 1904. William Jacob Knox, Jr. earned his Ph.D. in chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1935. In 1942, Knox joined scientists at Columbia University in New York, using corrosive uranium hexafluoride gas to isolate uranium 235, which would ultimately be enriched on an industrial scale at Oak Ridge. For his efforts Knox was appointed to lead the all-white Corrosion Section at Columbia, earning him the distinction of being the Manhattan Project’s only black supervisor. His brother Lawrence also worked on the Manhattan Project beginning in 1944, studying the effects of radiation. Knox is credited for nuclear research of gaseous diffusion techniques used for the separation of uranium isotopes. Knox’s efforts in the development of uranium contributed to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan in 1945.
Knox was highly educated and received his undergraduate degree from Harvard University. Knox then continued his postgraduate studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in New Bedford, Massachusetts. In 1935 The Knox family alone made up 7% of blacks to hold a Ph.D. William was the oldest of 5 children. Knox and his two younger brothers, Clinton Everett and Lawrence Larry Howland all attended Harvard University. All three earned doctoral degrees, William and Lawrence studying chemistry and Clinton studying history. William entered Harvard as an undergraduate in September 1921 and graduated in 1925.[
Knox was introduced to his wife, Edna Lenora Jordan. Knox and Jordan were legally wed on September 1, 1931. Together they had one child, Sandra Knox.
After obtaining his master’s degree in organic chemistry (1929) and Ph.D. in chemical engineering (1935) from MIT, Knox became a professor in the chemistry department at North Carolina A&T College. Knox taught general, analytical, organic, and physical chemistry from 1935 to 1942. In 1942, Knox took a promotion, leaving North Carolina A&T to become the head of the department of chemistry at Talladega College, a historically black institution in Talladega, Alabama.
In 1943, one year after taking the position of chair of chemistry at Talladega College, Knox joined a team of scientists at Columbia University, known as the Manhattan Project, in New York City (1942–1945). The Manhattan Project consisted of research teams at Columbia University as well as developing sites for plutonium and uranium at Hanford, Washington, Los Alamos, New Mexico, and Oak Ridge, Tennessee. William’s brother Lawrence eventually joined him at Columbia University as a head research analyst for the Manhattan Project in New York City.
The project would be successful, as the United States developed the first atomic weapons in history and brought the end of World War II with the dropping of atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Knox’s team researched and innovated the isolation of uranium isotopes using gaseous diffusion. The government compiled several influential and highly educated individuals in the atomic field at Columbia University. The university was awarded the government’s first federal contract to explore the use of atomic power for energy and weapons. Experiments at Columbia University indicated that “uranium might be used as an explosive that would liberate a million times as much energy per pound as any known explosive”.
Knox held a position unprecedented at the time, being the only African-American scientist to be a supervisor in the Manhattan Project. Like many scientists involved in the Manhattan Project, Knox, and his team were unaware of how vital their research was. The complex process of breaking apart uranium isotopes utilizing uranium hexafluoride was crucial to the development of the atomic bombs used to end the war with Japan in 1945. Uranium-235 and plutonium-239 made up the composite core of the atomic weapons. Knox was a section leader in the Corrosion Section before leaving Columbia University at the end of the war.
After the war, Knox became a research assistant at Eastman Kodak CO. Knox is credited as being “the man to consult about coating problems”. After the war, Knox worked for Eastman Kodak in Rochester, NY, earning 21 patents throughout his 25-year career. As Knox ended his career in science, he became involved in activism and additional professional pursuits. Following his retirement and death, Kodak continues to renew nine of Knox’s original patents, which are used to harden photographic emulsions and protect the coating of photographs.
In addition, Knox was a co-founder of the Rochester Urban League, a member of the NAACP, served on the Housing Advisory Council, and assisted minority students in pursuing higher education. William Jacob Knox, Jr. died at the age of 91 in Newton, Massachusetts in 1995 after a long-term battling prostate cancer.