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William Lyman Underwood

William Lyman Underwood (1864 – January 24, 1929) was an American photographer who was also involved in the research of time-temperature canning research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from 1895 to 1896.

William Lyman Underwood

1864 (1864)

January 24, 1929(1929-01-24) (aged 64–65)

Canning and food science

Death and legacy[edit]

In the late 1950s, the new president of the William Underwood Company, George Seybolt, was brought over by his predecessor, W. Durant, to MIT to meet Prescott (William Lyman Underwood had died in 1929). At the Institute of Food Technologists Northeast Section (Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont) meeting at Watertown, Massachusetts, in April 1961, the William Underwood Company dedicated a new laboratory in honor of both Prescott and William Lyman Underwood. Following Prescott's death in 1962, the Company created the Underwood Prescott Memorial Lectureship in memory of both Underwood and Prescott. This Lectureship would run until 1982. In 1969, Seybolt donated US$600,000 to MIT to create the Underwood Professorship, followed up with an Underwood Prescott Professorship in 1972. Three MIT faculty have held this professorship since its inception: Samuel A. Goldblith, Gerald N. Wogan, and since 1996, Stephen R. Tannebaum.


Underwood was also a talented photographer. Besides images in microbiology, Underwood also photographed natural environment. His photographs were part of a book by John Burroughs as shown in the second and third external links listed below. One of Underwood's two brothers, Loring, was also an accomplished photographer as well.

Goldblith, S.A. (1993). Pioneers in Food Science, Volume 1: Samuel Cate Prescott - M.I.T. Dean and Pioneer Food Technologist. Trumball, CT: Food and Nutrition Press. pp. 21–29, 60, 125–6, 128, 130, 171–3.

Powers, J.J. "The Food Industry Contribution: Preeminence in Science and in Application." A Century of Food Science. (2000). Institute of Food Technologists: Chicago. pp. 17–18.

Schloss, C., J. Snyder, R. Lyons (Editor), L. Underwood (Photographer), and W.L. Underwood (Photographer). Gentleman Photographers: The Work of Loring Underwood and William Lyman Underwood. Boston: Northeastern University Press.

Wanucha, Genevieve. "". Food Technology. November 2009. p. 88.

Two Happy Clams: The Friendship that Forged Food Science

History of entrepreneurship at MIT