REINGOLD, Nathan 1927-2004

OBITUARY NOTICE— See index for CA sketch: Born March 23, 1927, in New York, NY; died October 30, 2004, in Bethesda, MD. Historian and author. Reingold, the senior historian emeritus at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History, was at the forefront of the movement bringing the study of the history of science to prominence. A graduate of New York University, where he earned a B.A. in 1947 and an M.A. in 1948, he originally thought of becoming a physician but switched to history instead. Completing his Ph.D. in American civilization at the University of Pennsylvania in 1951, he joined the staff at the National Archives that same year. From 1959 to 1966, he was a specialist in the history of science at the Library of Congress. Finally, in 1966, he joined the Smithsonian, first as editor of the Joseph Henry Papers, then, beginning in 1985, as senior historian of the National Museum of American History. He retired in 1993. Reingold edited several books about the history of science in America, including Science in Nineteenth-Century America: A Documentary History (1964) and The Sciences in the American Context: New Perspectives (1979), as well as authoring Science, American Style (1991). For his contributions to the field, he was honored with an Outstanding Service to the Discipline award from the History of Science Society in 2004.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

periodicals

Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ), November 7, 2004, p. 46.

Washington Post, November 6, 2004, p. B4.

online

History of Science Society Web site, http://www.hssonline.org/ (December 16, 2004).