ZAY JEFFRIES (MIN 10)

Zay Jeffries was born in Willow Lake, Dakota Territory, in March 1888 – the year of the two great blizzards. The seventh of his parents’ nine surviving children, he was raised on a ranch near Fort Pierre, South Dakota. Zay attended high school in Pierre, crossing the Missouri River daily on a ferry. He was an all-around student, participating in athletics and academically ranking at the top of the class. He won the state high school high jump contest in his senior year (1906). Upon completing high school, Zay decided to attend the South Dakota Mines.

He traveled to Rapid City on horseback, camping out along the way. The school was small with a dozen faculty members and perhaps 50 students. The college president, Charles Fulton, was also the professor of mining and metallurgical engineering. Zay had originally intended to major in geology but switched to mining engineering. Zay not only plunged into studies but was also active in a myriad of campus athletic endeavors as well as social life. He served as a student assistant in the geology laboratory. He worked some summers in the Black Hills mines. The summer before his senior year, Zay and a classmate, Harry Wheelock, did land surveying in Pennington County.

Zay played on the school’s football, basketball and baseball teams. In his senior year, Zay was the football team captain, leading them to one of the highest accomplishments for the football team. They played several other South Dakota teams, achieving a winning record. The capstone of the season was a Thanksgiving Day victory on the road over the much larger enrollment Creighton University of Omaha, Nebraska. This victory was mentioned often during this senior year. It led to speculation in local papers that Mines was ready for big-time athletics. The volunteer part-time Mines football coach was the Rev. George Keller, rector of Emmanuel Episcopal Mission of Rapid City. The Rapid City Journal followed Mines’ social life with reports of team dinners and social club dinners complete with menus and reports of toasts given and responded.

There were nine graduates in Zay’s class of 1910. The graduation ceremonies and official related events covered three days. He had been elected as the class president and thus gave one of the speeches. One of the highlights of the festivities was a baseball game played between the seniors and the faculty captained by President Fulton. This game was played each year that Fulton was president of the school and was a feature from his undergraduate experience at Columbia University. In 1910, the seniors were victorious. Following graduation, Zay went to work in the Black Hills mining industry for the Ideal Mining Company based in Custer, South Dakota.

At roughly the same time, his father, Johnston Jeffries, bought a mica mining claim near Custer. In a foreshadowing of his future, Zay was now balancing two jobs. In the spring of 1911, President Fulton accepted the professorship of Mining and Metallurgy at the Case Institute of Technology in Cleveland, Ohio. Fulton apparently had carte blanche to staff this department. He selected two of his former South Dakota Mines students. One was J. Burns Read of the 1906 class as the assistant professor and the other was Zay Jeffries as an instructor. Read had worked several years in the Black Hills mining industry and then two years as the superintendent of the American Smelter Corporation’s smelting facility adjacent to the campus. Zay resigned from his Black Hills positions and traveled to Cleveland in time for the opening of classes in September 1911.

He returned to Rapid City in December 1911 to marry Frances Schrader. Her father was a lawyer there. Born in Rapid City, she had been a student at the Mines Preparatory School when Zay arrived to enroll in the college. She had been teaching classes in the Rapid City Public Schools for several years. The newlyweds took the train to Cleveland where they lived for 34 years. The couple had two daughters, born in 1915 and 1923.

When the newlyweds took up residence in Cleveland, it was a rapidly growing center of new and established companies – particularly those related to mineral processing and production. Case Institute was a well-funded school. It had been endowed by and named for Leonard Case, a lawyer, philanthropist, and Cleveland booster. It was further endowed by John D. Rockefeller, whose Standard Oil Company was headquartered in Cleveland. General Electric’s Lamp Division was headquartered there as well. Several companies based in Cleveland were involved in various aspects of aluminum, the new wonder material. Aluminum and General Electric (GE) would figure substantially in Zay’s new endeavors and subsequent careers.

After Zay had established himself in his instructorship and begun some independent research in metallurgy, the Aluminum Casting Company asked him to investigate a problem it was experiencing in production operation. In short order, he solved that problem and, as a side issue, observed another problematic and costly matter that the company was treating as a fact of operating. His solution to this found problem saved the company enough money that they established a laboratory in Cleveland for Zay to manage on a consulting basis.

In 1914, he submitted a thesis on the properties of a class of iron alloys to Mines and was awarded the degree of metallurgical engineer. This thesis resulted from his expanding interest in heat-treating various materials.

He also began consulting with GE’s lamp division. This important GE product was largely based on the ability to create and process tungsten wire. They had several key patents on the alloying and processing of tungsten. Nonetheless, the technology of tungsten wire processing was highly susceptible to

undesirable and unexplained variations. Zay made several immediate and important contributions to GE’s processes.

His reputation as a problem solver grew. He began receiving the notice of leaders in metallurgy. In 1916, when World War I began to impact the United States, he was selected as a member of the Strategic Materials Committee of the National Research Council (NRC) by Professor Henry Howe who came out of retirement to head the engineering section of the NRC. Professor Howe was regarded as the Dean of American Metallurgy and had been Professor Fulton’s mentor. In Howe’s annual report on metallurgy, he mentioned Zay’s contributions.

Zay had also come to the notice of another academic metallurgist, Professor Albert Sauveur, head of Harvard’s Metallurgy Department and another of the leading lights of the subject. In 1917, Zay resigned his assistant professorship at Case to devote more time to his consulting practices and to undertake a doctoral program under Professor Sauveur. He completed his dissertation on “Grain Growth in Metals” receiving the science doctorate in 1918.

He now devoted full time to his consulting work in metallurgy. He was a supervising consultant to the Aluminum Casting Company (soon to be reorganized as part of Alcoa), GE’s Lamp Division, and the Steel Tube Company, a U.S. Steel Corporation division. In the first two of these consultancies, he was essentially in charge of a significant portion of the organization’s research laboratory even though he was not an employee. In the next 15 years, he established himself as one of the premier metallurgists in the United States and achieved international recognition. His accomplishments and honors from this stage of his professional career are notable and numerous.

In 1928, he joined GE exclusively, terminating his other consultancies. GE had acquired the rights to certain U.S. patents owned by the German company, F. Krupp, AG. These patents and the underlying technology defined a class of tools based on the ultrahard material tungsten carbide. GE established a separate company, the Carboloy Company, to create products based on this technology. Initially, Zay was the executive in charge of the technical aspects of Carboloy; he became president in 1932 and chairman in 1935. Carboloy metal cutting and forming tools became recognized as the premier products for high-speed machining and long tool life. Even with the executive responsibilities of Carboloy, Zay continued his scientific and technical work and was selected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in 1939.

When the initial phases of World War II began, the United States was not a participant. However, many remembered the start of the previous war leading to concerns regarding critical materials. The NAS established study groups to assess the impact on the country. Under the auspices of the NAS, Zay took on the responsibility of managing the assessment of needs and sources for critical materials. This effort, which began in 1940, was in full swing by the middle of 1941. This proved extremely valuable when the United States was attacked and drawn into World War II.

Concomitantly another challenge was rising for Zay. Senator Homer Bone, chairman of the Patent Committee was, to a substantial extent, an opponent of patents. Among his targets were large industrial companies such as GE and foreign-owned patents. He was particularly concerned with the Carboloy intellectual property. Possibly because of this senatorial impetus, the Justice Department had filed an antitrust suit against GE, Carboloy, and several executives of GE and Carboloy, including Zay. As early as August 1941, the Office of Production Management’s director wrote to the presiding federal judge, describing Zay’s importance to determining the country’s situation regarding critical materials and processes. This aimed to avoid or delay the need for Zay to be involved in what was likely to be a protracted legal proceeding. Senator Bone opposed any potential diminution of action relative to the patent and antitrust matters. In May 1942, the special assistant to Secretary of War Henry Stimson wrote a lengthy memorandum on this situation for him. This memorandum’s section on Zay Jeffries follows:

This section was followed by another discussing the contributions to the war effort being made by and further expected from the Carboloy technologies and products. It states that these are also of high importance for that effort. The need for Zay’s expertise and the Carboloy technologies was supported by both Navy Secretary Knox and Stimson who stated he had the approval of President Roosevelt in asserting the importance of Zay availability for the war effort. This resulted in the Attorney General suspending the prosecution for the duration of the war.

Zay’s technical and managerial capabilities were soon deployed in the war effort. They were requested for the Manhattan Project’s Metallurgical Laboratories section at the University of Chicago. This request came from Professor Arthur H. Compton, a long-time associate and friend of Zay. They met when Zay recruited Compton, a physics professor, in 1926 as a consultant to GE’s lamp division in the creation of fluorescent lamps and more general matters. Compton became a Nobel Award Laureate in 1927 for his work on cosmic radiation. He was named the head of this important branch of the Manhattan Project. In late 1942, this group created the first observed controlled chain reaction. Zay’s role was as chairman of one of the subgroups and providing industrial managerial and metallurgical expertise to the Metallurgical Lab. This included substantial involvement with the production facilities in Hanford, Washington, and Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

During this work on the atomic bomb project, Zay became enthusiastic about the prospects of atomic energy. In July 1944, he wrote a three-page letter to Compton outlining his view of the post-war application of the nuclear technologies being developed by the Manhattan Project and the Metallurgical Laboratory in particular. In this letter, he suggested planning begin for post-war management of governmental and civilian applications. This letter was promptly classified as top-secret. However, it resulted in establishing two study groups on the topic. One from the Metallurgical Laboratory was chaired by Zay and included noted physicists Enrico Fermi and James Franck as members. It focused on the projected civilian applications of nuclear energy and possible extensions of the technical knowledge being developed. The other, from the Los Alamos Laboratory chaired by noted physicist Richard Tolman, was directed toward military applications of nuclear energy. The resulting reports, also long classified, are known as the Jeffries Report and the Tolman Report. The Jeffries letter initiating these reports is conspicuous for the suggestions of probable civilian applications of nucleonics (a term created by Zay). That many of these became important postwar technologies and products is a tribute to Zay’s grasp of this new knowledge and the opportunities it promised.

At the close of the war, Zay returned to his work at GE. While still working on the Manhattan Project and other committees and task forces, Zay was appointed a GE vice president. His new responsibilities included the creation of a GE chemical division by consolidating the chemical products manufactured by GE whether for internal use or external sale. This was based in Pittsfield, Mass., the location of a large GE facility. He and his wife relocated to Pittsfield after over 30 years in Cleveland. This division would become one of the fastest-growing parts of GE over the next 20 years. He also had a strong role in the overall R&D activities of the company.

On Feb. 2, 1948, President Truman awarded him the U.S. Medal for Merit (at the time the county’s highest civilian award) for his contributions to the war effort. Other honorees on that date were Lee DuBridge, Alfred Fowler, Max Mason, Linus Pauling and Bruce Sage.

His work in nuclear energy continued as a consultant with the Atomic Energy Commission’s Hanford and Oak Ridge Laboratories. In 1948, he was selected as a member of a NAS group visiting Japan for several months to review its scientific capabilities and practices to make recommendations on how to “democratize” its science system. As part of this work, they had individual audiences with General MacArthur and Emperor Hirohito.

Along with the close of the war came the reopening of the antitrust suit related to GE and Carboloy. GE, as the sole corporation (Carboloy was a wholly owned subsidiary), and several of its executives, including Zay, were found guilty in October 1948. He was fined $2,500. The Carboloy products, technologies, and production capacity were highly valuable in the war effort. The court apparently considered this and Zay’s other substantial contributions to the war effort when setting the amount of his fine.

In 1949, Zay was diagnosed with a brain tumor, had successful surgery for it, and decided to retire. GE declared a Zay Jeffries Day with many of his colleagues from the company and his broader activities in science attending to honor his many contributions to GE, technology, science and his country. In 1960, the head of GE’s Research Division cited Zay’s initial support (some 25 years earlier) for the work by Harvard’s Professor P. W. Bridgeman that eventually led to GE’s development of the artificial diamond.

Though retired from GE, Zay continued his many interests: in business management, serving on several boards of directors; in science, serving on technical committees and scientific society leadership; and

individually authoring articles and memoirs. In 1950, he was appointed as the Leonard Case Professor of Educational Policy at the Case Institute, thus returning full circle to the institution where his career began flourishing. He also served Case as a trustee.

Among his directorships was the Battelle Memorial Institute board chairman. In this role, he championed the work that became Xerox and ensured that Battelle was a substantial owner of that company’s stock. He was later honored as emeritus chairman of Battelle. He served on the boards of the Berkshire Life Insurance Company and Growth Industries, a Philadelphia mutual fund.

One of his last national services was undertaken in 1953 on request from the NAS. A considerable difficulty occurred when a dispute broke out between the Department of Commerce and the National Bureau of Standards (NBS). The dispute arose when the NBS was earlier requested by another government agency (the Postal Service) to evaluate a commercial battery additive they were using to extend the life of automotive batteries. The NBS found that the additive (marketed as AD-X2) was ineffective for its stated purpose. The AD-X2 manufacturer complained to the Department of Commerce that this report was damaging the reputation of the company’s product. The new Secretary of Commerce insisted that the NBS director rescind the report. The NBS director refused on the grounds that it was an internal report for another government agency and that it was accurate. When the Secretary of Commerce removed the NBS director for this insubordination, a substantial portion of the technical staff of the NBS publicly offered to resign over the matter. This threatened potential scandal for the new administration.

The NAS was called upon to evaluate this situation in accordance with its founding purpose. Zay was appointed to chair a committee reviewing the quality of this specific work by the NBS and to order any additional evaluations deemed necessary to resolve the matter. At the same time, another NAS committee was formed to evaluate the relationship between the NBS and the Department of Commerce. Zay’s committee, established in June 1953, issued its report in October 1953. This report supported in every important particular the technical and scientific methods employed by the NBS and the conclusions relative to the effectiveness of the additive. The NBS director was reinstated in his role.

Zay authored several memoirs for the NAS. The subjects were Charles F. Kettering, the renowned engineer, businessman, and philanthropist; Herbert Hoover, the 31st president of the United States (and a mining engineer); and Paul Merica, a fellow metallurgist. He wrote the obituary memoir of his friend Arthur Compton for the American Philosophical Society.

His numerous professional honors include honorary doctorates, respectively, from South Dakota Mines (1930), Case Institute (1937), and Clarkson Institute of Technology (1950). He was the inventor or co-inventor of 20 U.S. Patents. Zay and his longtime associate Robert Archer authored and published “Science of Metals” in 1924, a book widely used in the field.

Zay's reputation and many of his honors were ultimately a result of his technical and scientific contributions. Most of these came between 1914 and 1940. These contributions, his commendations, scientific medals, and professional honors are covered in the 2013 NAS memoir “Zay Jeffries” authored by Professor William Nix, emeritus of Stanford, himself a materials scientist of considerable accomplishments and current member of the NAS.

Zay died of prostate cancer on May 21, 1965, and was interred in Pittsfield.

Zay’s family established scholarships in his name at Case Institute and South Dakota Mines.

The Cleveland Chapter of the American Society for Metals established an annual Zay Jeffries Lecture in 1951 with Zay as the initial honoree and has continued with a veritable who’s who of the field being honored as the lecturer.

Zay’s family petitioned the Department of Justice for a posthumous pardon on Feb. 10, 2017. Even though posthumous pardons are rarely made, on Oct. 10, 2019, President Trump granted Zay Jeffries the fourth such pardon in the United States' history.

In 1973, the American Society for Metals published a biography titled “Zay Jeffries,” authored by W. D. Mogerman. This endeavor was underwritten by grants from the Alcoa Foundation, Battelle Memorial Institute, General Electric Corporation, and American Society for Metals Education & Research Fund. At about 250 pages, it is considerably more detailed than either this memoir or the NAS memoir. It was a guiding source for many of Zay’s professional career highlights. Most of the information on his South Dakota Mines lifeline came from material in the Devereaux Library and files.

In addition to the biography, I acknowledge with thanks: Marvin Truhe (ME67), Jon Kellar (MetE84), and William Nix for helpful discussions; John Kitteridge, Zay’s grandson, for sharing materials on the pardon; and Janet Taylor of the Devereaux Library for locating some hard-to-find materials both internal and external as well as volunteering some I didn’t know to ask for. I also mention, with pride, that my maternal grandfather, Stein Bangs, once of the Mines faculty, was one of Zay Jeffries’ instructors at South Dakota Mines.

References:

1. Mogerman, W. D. 1973. Zay Jeffries. Metals Park, OH: American Society for Metals.

2. Hearings before the Committee on Patents on S.2303, Part 9, August 18, 19, 20, & 21, 1942;

pp 5014, 5028-5032; US Government Printing Office

3. Nix, W. D. 2013. Zay Jeffries 1888-1965. Biographical Memoirs, National Academy of Sciences (jeffries-zay.pdf (nasonline.org)).