The Beginnings of Physical Organic Chemistry in the United States

What is this physical organic chemistry that we emphasize in celebrating the centennial of the birth of C. K. Ingold? Some will say it is the study of organic reaction rates and mechanisms, others will include structural organic chemistry, and still others will bring theoretical chemistry under the tent. Whatever it covers, the general recognition of physical organic chemistry as a discipline in its own right is hardly more than sixty years old. However, there have been a great many workers studying reaction rates and mechanisms, structural and theoretical organic chemistry for more than one hundred years