In 1949, the American Chemical Society awarded the Priestley Medal to Arthur B. Lamb ‘for his numerous contributions to chemistry,” the Society’s most prestigious award. Lamb was The American Chemistry Society’s President in 1933.

Arthur Lamb was a “biology major” at Tufts College at the age of sixteen. When his undergraduate work was completed, he chose chemistry for graduate work at Tufts and Harvard University. During World War I, Lamb War received a leave of absence from Harvard in the late summer of 1917 to join newly established Department of Chemical Warfare Service. By the end of 1920 Lamb had resigned from the Faculty at Harvard and in September of 1921 returned to university teaching and research.

Lamb’s third and fourth decades were devoted largely to his adopted University and to his professional Society. Instead of retiring quietly, he spent the fifth decade serving all of them: as teacher, researcher, consultant, editor, administrator, and friend in the interests of his university, society, country and fellow men.