This short outline of Herman Mark's career covers his youth in Vienna,
his activity in the army during World War I, his years at the Kaiser
Wilhelm Institute in Berlin-Dahlem where he was mostly concerned with
X-ray crystallography, his career as the director of a research labora
tory of high molecular compounds of the IG Farben in Ludwigshafen, his
years at the University of Vienna where he designed the first academi
c curriculum of polymer chemistry and his final years at the Polytechn
ic Institute of Brooklyn (now Polytechnic University) where he created
the first American doctoral program in polymer science. His activity
was crucial to the recognition of polymer chemistry as an important sc
ientific discipline and to its international organization. He was equa
lly at home in the academic environment, and as an industrial and gove
rnment consultant. His crucial scientific contributions included the f
irst crystal structure of a macromolecule, the first derivation of the
mechanical property of a fiber from molecular parameters and the stat
istical theory of rubber elasticity.