Clark, John D., 1907-1988
Biographical Note
John Drury Clark was born August 15, 1907, in Fairbanks, Alaska, to John Albert Clark and Jeanette Ruth Drury. Clark graduated from Fairbanks High School on May 27, 1925. Clark attended the University of Alaska and California Institute of Technology from 1927-1930. He graduated with a B.S. in Physical Chemistry. Clark later received a Master of Science Degree from the University of Wisconsin (1932), and his PhD from Stanford University (1934).
In the early 1930's, Clark worked with General Electric. By 1949, Clark worked with the Naval Air Rocket Program where he had a job until he retired in 1970. Specifically, Clark was the chief chemist at the Naval Air Rocket Test Station and its successor department. He worked in the Liquid Propulsion Laboratory at the Picatinny Arsenal in Dover, New Jersey. Under Clark's direction, a new family of storable high-energy liquid propellants later used in the Apollo program was developed by Navy civilian scientists in 1959.
Clark was married twice, first to soprano singer Mildred Baldwin in 1943. Later he married Inga Pratt, widower of Fletcher Pratt, in 1962. John D. Clark died in July 1988 at age 80 in New Jersey.
Found in 1 Collection or Record:
John D. Clark Papers
This collection contains both the professional and personal papers of chemist and science fiction writer John D. Clark (1907-1988), including correspondence, drafts of scientific and science fiction publications, notes, unpublished typescript memoir, diaries (1923-1984), clippings, and photographs. Some material relates to Clark's work as chief chemist at Naval Air Rocket Test Station, Dover, N.J., later Liquid Rocket Propulsion Laboratory.