The Elliott Cresson Medal, also known as the Elliott Cresson Gold Medal, was the highest award given by the Franklin Institute. The award was established by Elliott Cresson, life member of the Franklin Institute, with $1,000 granted in 1848.[1] The endowed award was to be "for some discovery in the Arts and Sciences, or for the invention or improvement of some useful machine, or for some new process or combination of materials in manufactures, or for ingenuity skill or perfection in workmanship."[1] The medal was first awarded in 1875, 21 years after Cresson's death.[1]
The Franklin Institute continued awarding the medal on an occasional basis until 1998 when they reorganized their endowed awards under one umbrella, The Benjamin Franklin Awards.[2]
List of recipients
A total of 268 Elliott Cresson Medals were given out during the award's lifetime.[3]
Contributions to improvement of telephonic communications by applying mathematical probability to the study of telephone traffic and by the invention of switching equipment
Contributions to theory and application of aerodynamics which advanced the art of wind tunnel and aircraft design and for contributions to design and development of first automatic radar homing guided missile
Contributions to applied electromagnetism and nuclear physics such as conception of strange-focusing principle in synchrotrons, the ARGUS experiment and principles in Astron development
Contributions to the control and direction of high-energy particle beams and as a designer of instrumentation for measurement of high-energy physical phenomena
The Nobel Prize in Physics is a yearly award given by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for those who have made the most outstanding contributions for humankind in the field of physics. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895 and awarded since 1901, the others being the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Peace Prize, and Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Physics is traditionally the first award presented in the Nobel Prize ceremony.
The Franklin Institute is a science museum and the center of science education and research in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is named after the American scientist and statesman Benjamin Franklin. It houses the Benjamin Franklin National Memorial. Founded in 1824, the Franklin Institute is one of the oldest centers of science education and development in the United States. Its chief astronomer is Derrick Pitts.
Elmer Ambrose Sperry Sr. was an American inventor and entrepreneur, most famous for construction, two years after Hermann Anschütz-Kaempfe, of the gyrocompass and as founder of the Sperry Gyroscope Company. He was known as the "father of modern navigation technology".
Charles Francis Jenkins was an American engineer who was a pioneer of early cinema and one of the inventors of television, though he used mechanical rather than electronic technologies. His businesses included Charles Jenkins Laboratories and Jenkins Television Corporation. Over 400 patents were issued to Jenkins, many for his inventions related to motion pictures and television.
A medal or medallion is a small portable artistic object, a thin disc, normally of metal, carrying a design, usually on both sides. They typically have a commemorative purpose of some kind, and many are presented as awards. They may be intended to be worn, suspended from clothing or jewellery in some way, although this has not always been the case. They may be struck like a coin by dies or die-cast in a mould.
John Hasbrouck Van Vleck was an American physicist and mathematician. He was co-awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1977, for his contributions to the understanding of the behavior of electronic magnetism in solids.
Rashid Alievich Sunyaev is a German, Soviet, and Russian astrophysicist of Tatar descent. He got his MS degree from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) in 1966. He became a professor at MIPT in 1974. Sunyaev was the head of the High Energy Astrophysics Department of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and has been chief scientist of the Academy's Space Research Institute since 1992. He has also been a director of the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Garching, Germany since 1996, and Maureen and John Hendricks Distinguished Visiting Professor in the School of Natural Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton since 2010.
The Albert Einstein Award was an award in theoretical physics, given periodically from 1951 to 1979, that was established to recognize high achievement in the natural sciences. It was endowed by the Lewis and Rosa Strauss Memorial Fund in honor of Albert Einstein's 70th birthday. It was first awarded in 1951 and, in addition to a gold medal of Einstein by sculptor Gilroy Roberts, it also included a prize money of $15,000, which was later reduced to $5,000. The winner was selected by a committee of the Institute for Advanced Study, which administered the award. Lewis L. Strauss used to be one of the trustees of the institute.
Alfred Yi Cho is a Chinese-American electrical engineer, inventor, and optical engineer. He is the Adjunct Vice President of Semiconductor Research at Alcatel-Lucent's Bell Labs. He is known as the "father of molecular beam epitaxy"; a technique he developed at that facility in the late 1960s. He is also the co-inventor, with Federico Capasso of quantum cascade lasers at Bell Labs in 1994.
The Royal Gold Medal for architecture is awarded annually by the Royal Institute of British Architects on behalf of the British monarch, in recognition of an individual's or group's substantial contribution to international architecture. It is given for a distinguished body of work rather than for one building and is therefore not awarded for merely being currently fashionable.
Frank Philip Bowden CBE FRS was an Australian physicist.
Samuel Matthews Vauclain was an American engineer, inventor of the Vauclain compound locomotive, and president of the Baldwin Locomotive Works. He was awarded the John Scott Award and the Elliott Cresson Medal by The Franklin Institute in 1891. He was also awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for arming the United States Army during World War I.
Elliott Cresson was an American philanthropist who gave money to a number of causes after a brief career in the mercantile business. He established the Elliott Cresson Medal of the Franklin Institute in 1848, and helped found and manage the Philadelphia School of Design for Women, today's Moore College of Art and Design. Cresson was a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) and a strong supporter of the Philadelphia branch of the American Colonization Society, a group fighting slavery that relocated former slaves and free African Americans to colonies in Liberia. Cresson was called "the most belligerent Friend the Society ever had."
The Franklin Institute Awards is an American science and engineering award presented by the Franklin Institute, a science museum in Philadelphia. The Franklin Institute awards comprises the Benjamin Franklin Medals in seven areas of science and engineering, the Bower Awards and Prize for Achievement in Science, and the Bower Award for Business Leadership. Since 1824, the institute has recognized "world-changing scientists, engineers, inventors, and industrialists—all of whom reflect Benjamin Franklin's spirit of curiosity, ingenuity, and innovation". Some of the noted past laureates include Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison, Marie Curie, Max Planck, Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking. Some of the 21st century laureates of the institute awards are Bill Gates, James P. Allison, Indra Nooyi, Jane Goodall, Elizabeth Blackburn, George Church, Robert S. Langer, and Alex Gorsky.
Donald Dexter Van Slyke, nicknamed Van, was a Dutch American biochemist. His achievements included the publication of 317 journal articles and 5 books, as well as numerous awards, among them the National Medal of Science and the first AMA Scientific Achievement Award. The Van Slyke determination, a test of amino acids, is named after him.
Theodore L. Cairns was an American chemist, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a research scientist at DuPont Central Research, known for his contributions to U.S. scientific policy and applications of chemistry. Cairns was the director of the Central Research Department of E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company. He was also the chair of the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Technology of the National Research Council, on President Richard Nixon's Science Policy Task Force and Nixon's Science Advisory Committee. His daughter Margaret C. Etter became a noted chemist in her own right, conducting her research at the University of Minnesota.
Joseph Oakland Hirschfelder was an American physicist who participated in the Manhattan Project and in the creation of the nuclear bomb.
Clemens Herschel was an American hydraulic engineer. His career extended from about 1860 to 1930, and he is best known for inventing the Venturi meter, which was the first large-scale, accurate device for measuring water flow. He developed this device while serving as director of the Holyoke Testing Flume, a turbine testing facility which he would redesign, which became the first modern hydraulics laboratory in the United States and the world.
John F. Fritz was an American pioneer of iron and steel technology who has been referred to as the "Father of the U.S. Steel Industry". To celebrate his 80th birthday the John Fritz Medal was established in 1902, with Fritz himself being the first recipient.
↑ The Franklin Institute. Winners. Cresson Medal winners. Note that the 269 listed awardees include two different entries for Lee DeForest, with different spellings of his name. DeForest received only one medal, in 1923. Retrieved on July 13, 2009. Archived February 1, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
↑ "Elmer Sperry Dies. Famous Inventor". The New York Times. June 17, 1930. Retrieved 2012-12-21. In 1914, he was awarded first prize of the Aero Club of France or his airplane stabilizer; he also was the winner of two Franklin Institute Medals in 1914 and 1929; Collier Trophies, 1915, 1916; Holley Medal, 1927; John Fritz Medal, 1927; Albert Gary Medal, 1929; two decorations from the last Czar of Russia; two decorations from the Emperor of Japan, the Order of the Rising Sun and the Order of the Sacred Treasure; and the grand prize of the Panama Exposition.
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