OLIVE MADELAINE LAMMERT
1894 - 1932
The faculty of Vassar College record the death of
our friend and colleague, Olive M. Lammert, with a
deep sense of loss and with appreciation of the ser-
vice she rendered the college during the time of her
connection with it. The best years of her life, in
fact most of her years, she spent at Vassar. First
she was a student who showed promise of her brilliant
career, then a Sutro fellow and later, a member of
the faculty whose signal service as a teacher, an in-
vestigator and a vital part of our organization and
of the community generally won for her early recog-
nition and rapid promotion.
The loss sustained in her death is felt, not only by
Vassar College but by a wider circle of workers in
her own field of Chemistry among whom she had out-
standing recognition. Honors truly earned came to
her continually. She had fine true scientific spirit
and with unstinted devotion carried on research which
resulted in valuable contributions to Physical Chemis-
tryo
Her particular field was the study of electrical con-
ductance in liquids and liquid solutions and problems
in photochemistry begun during the years of her grad-
uate study at Columbia and continued after her return
to Vassar. Her early work led to the solution of cer-
tain difficulties as to the electrodes used in con-
ductance and to improvements in measuring electro-
motiveforce of aqueous solutions published in a series
of articles under the title of "The Quinhydrone Elec-
trode". Her last work was an oscillographic study of
electrodes in general. She carried on her investiga-
tions at Vassar with much valuable apparatus loaned
by Columbia and with a research assistant employed
under a grant from Columbia. Results of the work were
published jointly from Columbia and Vassar by Profes-
sor J. L. R. Morgan and Professor Lammert. In col-
laboration with Professor Morgan she was also writing
a book on Physical Chemistry, considerable portions
of which have been completed, to be used as a test
and reference book.
Olive Lammert's breadth of view, her spirit of inves-
tigation, her scientific imagination combined with
OLIVE MADELAINE LAMMERT (Continued)
the strength of her pesonality and her fundamental
joy in living made her a teacher of rare quality.
Recent letters from students now in college and from
many in earlier classes show how generously she gave
to her students both in class and in the casual con-
tacts of the day's work. She was never too busy to
stop and help them with their personal problems as
well as with their work. They speak of her "boun-
teous giving", her "magnetic personality", her "friend
liness”, her “delightful sense of humor which light-
ened her classes". Her teaching, they say, was
unique. "Her wide knowledge spurred them on". Deftly
she interpreted for them the beauty of precision and
accuracy, and showed them the joy of scholarly work.
She was the "inspiration which carried them on".
The faculty,as well as the students, had supreme con-
fidence in her. She served ably on comittees and
responded continually to calls outside her own field.
In academic service generally her tempered judgment
was invaluable.
It is given to few to attain, in a comparatively short
lifetime, such distinction and recognition both pro-
fessionally and personally as came to Olive Lammert.
Frances G. Wick
Olive M. Lammert - died October 9th, 1932
A.B., Vassar College 1915
Sutro Fellow, 1919-20
Sigma X1. 1921
Ph.D., Columbia University, l92h
Assistant in Chemistry, Vassar College, 1915-17
Instructor in Chemistry, Vassar College, l9l7-l9
Assistant Professor, Vassar College, 1921-25
Associate Professor, Vassar College, 1925-29
Professor, Vassar College, 1929-32
OLIVE MADELAINE LAMMERT (Continued)
List of Publications:
Dissertation printed in 1923
The Conductance of and the Effect of Light
Radiations on Solutions of the Alkali Halides
in Acetophenone.
Morgan, J. Livingston R., and Lamert, Olive M.
The Design and Use of Conductance Cells for Non-
Aqueous Solutions. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 45, 1692
1923
Morgan, J. Livingston R., and Lammert, Olive M.
The Purification and Physical Constants of
Acetophenone. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 46, 881 (l924)
Morgan, J. Livingston R., and Lammer , Olive M.
The Electrical Conductance of Solutions of the
Alkali Halides in Acetophenone. J. Am. Chem.
Soc. 46, 1117 (1924)
Morgan, . Livingston R., Lammert, Olive M., and
Crist, Ray H.
Photochemical Reactions in Solutions of the
Alkali Halides in Acetophenone. J. Am. Chem.
Soc. 46, 1170 (1924)
Morgan, J. Livingston R., and Lammert, Olive M.
Factors Influencing the Accuracy of Measurements
of the Electrical Conductance of Liquids and
Solutions. II. A Discussion of the Bridge As-
sembly for th Measurement of Electrical Con-
ductance with Particular Reference to the Vree-
land Oscillator as a Source of Current of Con-
stant Frequency. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 48, 1220 (1926)
Morgan, J. Livingston R., Lammert, Olive M., and
Campbell, Margaret A.
The Quinhydrone Electrode. I. J. Am. Chem. Soc.
53, 454: (1931)
Lamert, Olive M., Morgan, J. Livingston R., and
Campbell, Margaret A.
The Quinhydrone Electrode. II. J. Am. Chem. Soc.
53, 597: (1931)
Morgan, J. Livingston R., and Lamert, Olive M.
The Quinhydrone Electrode. III. J. Am. Chem. Soc.
53, 2154 (1931)
Lammert, Olive M., and Morgan, J. Livingston R.
The Quinhydrone Electrode. IV. J. Am. Chem. Soc.
54, 910 (1932)
Morgan, J. Livingston R., Lamert, O1ive M., and
Campbell, Margaret A.
The Preparation and Reproducibility of the Quin-
hydrone Electrode. Transactions of the Electro-
chemical Society 61, 405 (1932) Paper presented
at th 61st General Meeting of the Society, April
21-23, 1932
IX - 126-127