Background
He was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the son of Francis Lee Frary, a merchant, and Jeanette Cowles.
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He was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the son of Francis Lee Frary, a merchant, and Jeanette Cowles.
Frary worked in his father's store while attending Lyndale Public School and Central High School in Minneapolis, graduating in 1901.
Frary attended the University of Minnesota, where he conducted research, worked as an instructor, and received an A. C. in 1905, an M. S. in 1906, and a Ph. D. in 1912, all in chemistry.
In 1906-1907 he studied in Berlin.
While at Minnesota, Frary gained a reputation for the breadth of his interests and an impressive capacity for work. Pursuing a childhood interest in photography, he developed and offered a course in photochemistry. Drawn to glassblowing through his acquaintance with broken chemical beakers, he learned the art well enough to teach it and write a manual.
Frary's career as an academic researcher reflected his commitment to work of practical significance. He developed and patented five age-hardened lead alloys, one of which was marketed by the National Lead Company under the name Frary Metal.
He also devised a safe process for making phosphorous sesquisulfide, the substance used to make matches ignite.
In 1915, Frary was offered a position with the Oldbury Electrochemical Company, the sole American producer of phosphorous sesquisulfide, as director of its new research laboratory.
In 1917, Frary's experience at Oldbury and his work with alloys helped him to win a job setting up and directing a research organization for the Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa).
Frary was hired at an attractive salary and with the assurance that his work would be "of an original nature, " independent of short-range operational concerns. Before he could assume his new position, he was drafted into the army.
At the beginning of his long Alcoa career, Frary was only one--and not the most powerful or prominent--of several figures in the company's technical community. Moreover, for a decade his organization, called the Research Bureau, was housed in cramped conditions in a building on the grounds of Alcoa's New Kensington, Pennsylvania, fabricating plant.
Branch laboratories operated under his direction at three other production sites, each focusing on research problems related to the processes and products of its plant.
As a result, Frary's job required extensive travel. Nevertheless, Frary was granted independence in shaping his organization and its program, and he jealously guarded that independence throughout his career.
To direct the various divisions of the Research Bureau, he selected people trained for, and committed to, basic research and allowed them considerable freedom to work on problems of scientific importance. He encouraged his staff to publish their findings and to be active in scientific and technical societies.
In 1928 the company's research and development functions were restructured into a single, centralized organization under Frary and renamed Aluminum Research Laboratories (ARL). The following year, ARL moved into a new building in New Kensington, equipped with the most up-to-date research technology.
Frary's own research was mainly on primary processes. Some of his most important work, patented in 1925-1926, related to development of an electrolytic process for refining aluminum to a purity of more than 99. 9 percent. Eliminating the complicating influence of trace impurities, this advance made it possible to obtain basic information about the characteristics and properties of aluminum and its alloys.
In 1930, Frary coauthored The Aluminum Industry, the standard text for almost forty years. He was active in numerous professional societies and was president of the Electrochemical Society (1929 - 1930) and the Institute of Chemical Engineers (1941). He also received many awards, most notably the prestigious Perkin Medal of the joint British and American Society of Chemical Industries (1946).
With the $1, 000 prize from the Electrochemical Society's Acheson Medal, he established an education fund to provide tuition loans to ARL staff members.
Frary retired as director of research on December 31, 1951, but he remained with Alcoa as a technical adviser until 1954 and as a consulting engineer until 1967.
In the latter position, he served primarily as a translator of technical literature.
He died in Oakmont, Pennsylvania.
During World War I he organized and managed production of toxic chemicals. The laboratory that he established at Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland was a model research facility. When he was discharged from the service in 1919, Frary brought five members of his Edgewood staff with him to Alcoa to form the core of the new research organization. Under his leadership, researchers established aluminum metallurgy on a firm scientific foundation, from which Alcoa was able to make radical improvements in its process technology and pioneer in broad application of "the wonder metal. "
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Quotations: "Much as I enjoyed teaching, " he later wrote, "the opportunity to give all attention to research, with adequate facilities, was too good to pass by. "
He was active in numerous professional societies and was president of the Electrochemical Society (1929 - 1930) and the Institute of Chemical Engineers (1941).
Quotes from others about the person
Tall and athletic, he was, in the words of his colleague James G. Vail, a memorable figure, "racing down the stairs with a long gangling lope from the attic storeroom, his arms full of dusty, broken condensers, distilling flasks, and whatnots--all of which he would carefully repair for further use. "
Pursuing a childhood interest in photography, he developed and offered a course in photochemistry.
During his career he had learned German, French, Italian, and the Scandinavian languages, and at the age of seventy-five he returned to college to study Russian, in order to keep up with the growing body of Soviet research.
On June 12, 1908, he married Alice Hall Wingate; they had two children.
father Francis Lee Frary mother Jeanette Cowles
Tall and athletic, he was, in the words of his colleague James G. Vail, a memorable figure, "racing down the stairs with a long gangling lope from the attic storeroom, his arms full of dusty, broken condensers, distilling flasks, and whatnots--all of which he would carefully repair for further use."
