Franklin C. Bing Papers

Collection

Identifier: EBL-0007

Staff Only

Collection Scope and Content Summary

Personal papers of nutritionist and chemist Franklin Bing, who was a leading food scientist as well as a poet and member of the Chicago Literary Club. Materials include: correspondence; reprints; manuscripts and speeches; reports; notes; notebooks; diaries; curriculum vitae; correspondence, including extensive communication with his mentor L. B. Mendel concerning his dissertation and subsequent manuscripts; and files relating to the Chicago Literary Club and the First Congregational Church in Evanston, Illinois.

The collection includes Bing's personal notebooks from high school, college, and graduate school, along with early reports by Bing and his dissertation. Manuscripts, speeches, notebooks, reports and other papers document Bing's nutritional work within academia, government, and industry from 1930 through the early 1980s. Also included are reprints of articles and biographical sketches by Bing.

Correspondence in this collection is primarily about nutrition and the history of nutrition. The collection contains letters exchanged by Bing with other eminent nutritionists. Also the correspondence includes letters with the Chicago Literary Club, family letters, and Christmas cards written and designed by Bing. The correspondence in this collection covers a wide time period from the late 1920s to 1987.

Bing's personal diaries from 1936-1976 are also contained in this collection. There are no diaries for the years: 1946, 1947, 1948, 1964, 1965, 1970 and 1974. Photographs in this collection range from pictures of Bing as a young boy to an older man. Also included are photographs of Bing with his contemporaries, and also pictures of other important nutritionists. Collection also contains poems and drawings by Bing.

Dates

1910 - 1988

Creator

Bing, Franklin C. (Franklin Church) (Person)

Notes about Access to this Collection

All collections are subject to applicable Vanderbilt University privacy and confidentiality policies. Collection specific restrictions: No Restrictions.

Reproduction Rights

Copyright is retained by History of Medicine Collections, Eskind Biomedical Library, Vanderbilt University or is retained by the authors of specific published items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Historical or Biographical Note

Franklin Church Bing (1902-1988) was a food scientist, scholar, and historian. He was a leader in the field of nutrition in the United States. During his career he was able to both further scientific research in the field of nutrition and shape public policy. He also had wide-ranging scholarly interests outside the field of nutrition including history, biography, prose and poetry.

Franklin Bing was born in 1902, in North Wales, Pennsylvania. He received his B.A. in from the University of Pennsylvania in 1924. Then after studying under Lafayette B. Mendel, Bing received his PhD in 1930 from Yale University. From 1929 to 1936 he was a faculty member of the Department of Biochemistry at Western Reserve University. Bing left academia in 1936 to join the scientific staff of the American Medical Association in Chicago, where he served as the Executive Secretary of the Council on Foods until 1943. From 1943-1950 he was Director of the American Institute of Baking. He later served as a Consultant to the Delaney Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1950-1952. After this time Bing served as an independent consultant on food and drugs for both private industry and government agencies.

Franklin Bing was also interested in the history of science, biography, and other literary pursuits. He served as an Archivist at the American Institute of Nutrition in 1985. He authored several biographical sketches of nutrition scientists. Also Bing was a contributor to the Chicago Literary Society, and he published historical prose and more than forty poems. He died October 17, 1988 in Upper Sandusky, Ohio.

Extent

14.28 Cubic Feet (35 Hollinger boxes, 7 Half-Hollinger boxes)

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Abstract

Personal papers of nutritionist and chemist Franklin Bing, a leading food scientist as well as a poet and member of the Chicago Literary Club. Materials include: correspondence; reprints; manuscripts and speeches; reports; notes; notebooks; diaries; curricula vitae; correspondence, including extensive communication with his mentor L. B. Mendel concerning his dissertation and subsequent manuscripts; and files relating to the Chicago Literary Club and church.