Henry Guerlac

Who was Henry Guerlac?

Henry Edward Guerlac was an American historian of science. He taught at Cornell University where he was the Goldwin Smith Professor of History and a member of the Department of History.

Guerlac earned his PhD in European history from Harvard in 1941.

During WWII, he worked in the Radiation Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where Marie Boas Hall assisted him in writing "the history of the laboratory and of the operational use of radar during the war."

He was awarded the Pfizer Award in 1959 by the History of Science Society for his book Lavoisier: The Cucial Year, and was given the Dexter Prize from the American Chemical Society in 1972. He won the George Sarton Medal, the highest award given by the History of Science Society, in 1973. He served as president of the society from 1957-60. He was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1978, and in 1982 was awarded the Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur by France.