Papers of George Chandler Whipple

George Chandler Whipple (1866-1924) was the Gordon McKay Professor of Sanitary Engineering at Harvard University (1911-1924). A civil engineer specializing in the field of sanitary microbiology, Whipple was best known as a co-founder of the Harvard School of Public Health (1922) and published some of the most influential books in the early history of public health and microbiology.

Whipple completed his degree in Civil Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1889. Upon graduation, he immediately entered the field of sanitation, which was then in the preliminary stages of development. From 1889 to 1897, Whipple oversaw the Chestnut Hill Laboratory of the Boston Waterworks. While still in Boston, he married Mary E. Rayner, whom he had known since childhood, and in 1900 their first child, Marion, was born, later to be followed by a son Joseph Rayner.

In 1897, George Whipple assumed the direction of the Mount Prospect Laboratory of the Brooklyn and New York Water Department. Seven years later, he resigned from his official appointment and took up the private practice of sanitary engineering in New York City as a member of the firm of Hazen and Whipple. He retained this association until his death. From 1900 to 1924, this engineering consulting firm gained renown in its specialized field, which dealt with water supply systems, the purification of water, and the disposal of sewage.

In 1911, Professor Whipple came to Harvard University to fill the newly established Gordon McKay Professorship of Sanitary Engineering, a position which he held until his death. During the period when the Harvard Engineering School and Massachusetts Institute of Technology were cooperating, he was also Professor of Sanitary Engineering at the Institute. In 1913, Whipple, along with William T. Sedgwick and Milton J. Rosenau, established the School of Public Health, a joint effort of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Whipple served as the school secretary until 1922 when the Harvard School of Public Health was established.

In 1917, during World War I, Whipple served as Major and Deputy Commissioner to Russia in the American Red Cross. Four years later, he was named Director of the Sanitation Department in the League of Red Cross Societies at Geneva, Switzerland. In this capacity, he studied typhus fever in Romania.

Whipple was a Fellow of the American Public Health Association, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Sanitary Institute of Great Britain. He was also a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the New England Water Works Association, the Boston Society of Civil Engineers, and the American Public Health Association.

George C. Whipple was a prolific author in the field of sanitary engineering. His most well-known book, published in 1899, was The Microscopy of Drinking-Water. This work went through four editions. Other books included: Typhoid Fever: Its Causation, Transmission and Prevention (1908)The Value of Pure Water, (1907)State Sanitation, (1917)Fresh-Water Biology, (1918) and Vital Statistics (1919). Also, Whipple wrote approximately 200 monographs on subjects dealing with sanitary engineering and public health.