Otto Theodor Benfey

University education Benfey's interests in organic chemistry and geometry led him to apply to study chemistry at university, and he was accepted at University College London. During World War II, the chemistry department was relocated to Aberystwyth, Wales. Beginning in 1942, Benfey lived there in a cooperative student hostel. One of his close friends was Nigerian Stephen Oluwole Awokoya. In 1944, Benfey took his examinations, and was awarded his B.Sc. degree with first class honors in 1945.

Soon after, University College London moved back to London. London was still under attack from V-1 and V-2 rockets. Benfey was invited to continue his studies and do Ph.D. work with Christopher Kelk Ingold. As a Quaker, he could not agree to work on anything relating to weapons development. Ingold assigned him to work on aliphatic substitution and evidence for carbocation.

Career Haverford College Although he had fully intended to return to England, Benfey was approached by Haverford College, a Quaker institution, and invited to join the chemistry faculty. He accepted, becoming one of four members of the department in January 1948. Also in 1949, Benfey attended the first meeting of the Society for Social Responsibility in Science (SSRS) at Haverford, organized by Victor Paschkis. Benfey became its second president in 1951.

Earlham College In the fall of 1955, Benfey was approached by Larry Strong at Earlham College, who invited him to become the third member of the chemistry department, with Strong and Wilmer Stratton. Benfey and Strong began to develop a new curriculum based on concepts. In 1958, their new curriculum was published in the report of the Advisory Council on College Chemistry. After graduating three National Science Foundation Fellowship awardees in its first group of students, the American Chemical Society's Committee on Professional Training (CPT) approved the Earlham curriculum, and accepted it as a model for "curricular innovation". The work at Earlham also led to development of a United States high school curriculum for chemistry, The Chemical Bond Approach, which received international attention.

Benfey was active in the Division of History of Chemistry (HIST) of the American Chemical Society, serving as chair of the division in 1966. Benfey continued to publish articles and books on the history of chemistry, writing about scientists such as Archibald Scott Couper, Lothar Meyer, Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff, and Alexander William Williamson. He wrote Names and Structures of Organic Molecules (Wiley, 1966) and Introduction to Organic Reaction Mechanisms, the first in the Interface series of books by the NSF's Advisory Council on College Chemistry (McGraw-Hill, 1970). Benfey wrote about a number of scientists, particularly Carl Schorlemmer, August Wilhelm von Hofmann, and Robert Burns Woodward. Otto Theodor Benfey died at a care home in Greensboro, North Carolina, on 24 January 2024, at the age of 98.

Awards and honors 2019, HIST Award for Outstanding Achievement in the History of Chemistry, Division of the History of Chemistry, American Chemical Society 2016, “A Salute to Ted Benfey at 90: Science, History, Culture & a Commitment to Humanism,” symposium in Benfey’s honor, American Chemical Society national meeting in Philadelphia, 22 August 2016