Comprehensive Catalog 2016

BLACK ACHIEVEMENT IN SCIENCE

Great achievements, innovations, and inventions have been recorded both in recent times and in the past by men and women of color, and this series celebrates their work and lives. By reading about how black people from around the world have contributed to our shared humanity, students of today can be inspired to pursue their own dreams. Titles include stories of award-winners and groundbreakers in chemistry, computer science, medicine, technology, and more. IN A PERFECT WORLD, WE, LIKE

SCIENCE, WOULD NOT SEE COLOR. UNTIL THEN, WE CELEBRATE AND INSPIRE WITH STORIES OF BLACK ACHIEVEMENT IN SCIENCE.

Actual Text Size and heat transfer required to be an HVAC engineer—took a job with the C.A. Dun ham Company, an Iowa-based manufac turer of high-end commercial heating and cooling systems. (It still exists and is now After earning his bachelor’s degree, Crosthwait—who had the deep under thermodynamics , fluid mechanics

cluding the R.A. Long Building and the Scarritt Building, began dotting the landscape. (Perhaps even more thrilling to a child, in 1907 a large amusement park called Electric

Crosthwaitwasborn inNashville,Tennessee,onMay27, 1898, and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, by parents who were widely respected members of that area’s burgeoning black middle class. His father, David Nelson Crosthwait, Sr., had earned a degree from Tennessee’s Meharry Medi- calCollege in 1891 and settled inMissouri four years later to teachphysiology and chemistry atLincolnHigh, an all- black schoolwith famously rigorous academic standards. Crosthwait’schildhoodcoincidedwithabuildingboom in Kansas City, and several sparkling new skyscrapers, in-

Parkwas constructed,and itwas followed shortly thereafterby theKansasCityZoo.) It was an atmosphere certain to excite the imagination of any aspiring young engi- neer, and that, coupled with his parents’ emphasis on education, led Crosthwait to Purdue University, in Indiana. There he received a bachelor of science in 1913 and a master of engineering in 1920. (In 1975 the university would award him an hon- orarydoctoraldegree.) After earning his bachelor’s degree, Crosthwait—who had the deep under- standing of thermodynamics , fluid mechanics , andheat transfer required tobe anHVAC engineer—took a job with the C.A. Dun- ham Company, an Iowa-based manufac- turer ofhigh-end commercialheating and cooling systems. (It still exists and is now called Dunham-Bush.) At the company, where he remained until retiring in 1969,

The Scarritt Building, an early high-rise, still stands today in Kansas City.

Crosthwait became known for his innovative work in the field ofHVAC, and served asdirector of research there for several years. Some sources assert that without the indoor climate control technology thathehelpeddevelop atDun-

As a child, Crosthwaitwould have enjoyed visiting Kansas City’s Electric Park for rides and entertainment.

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BlackAchievement inScience:Engineering

DavidNelsonCrosthwait,Jr.

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