Henry Smith Pritchett

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Pritchett was born on April 16, 1857, in Fayette, Missouri, the son of Carr Waller Pritchett, Sr., and attended Pritchett College in Glasgow, Missouri, receiving an A.B. in 1875.{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/twentiethcentury08john/page/n434/mode/1up |title=The Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans |volume=VIII |editor1-first=Rossiter |editor1-last=Johnson |editor2-first=John Howard |editor2-last=Brown |publisher=The Biographical Society |location=Boston |page= |year=1904 |access-date=2022-05-24 |via=Internet Archive}}

He then took instruction from Asaph Hall for two years at the US Naval Observatory after which he was made an assistant astronomer. In 1880, he returned to Glasgow to take a position at the Morrison Observatory, where his father Carr Waller Pritchett, Sr. was director. He served as an astronomer on the Transit of Venus Expedition to New Zealand in 1882. When he returned in 1883, he took an appointment as professor of mathematics and astronomy and director of the observatory at Washington University in St. Louis. In the early 1890s he studied in Germany, where he earned a PhD from the University of Munich in 1894. He was Superintendent of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey from 1897 to 1900. In 1899, he was elected to the American Philosophical Society.{{Cite web |title=APS Member History |url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=Henry+S.+Pritchet&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced |access-date=2024-02-05 |website=search.amphilsoc.org}}

Pritchett served as the president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from 1900 to 1906.

Pritchett was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1901.{{Cite web |date=2023-02-09 |title=Henry Smith Pritchett |url=https://www.amacad.org/person/henry-smith-pritchett |access-date=2024-02-05 |website=American Academy of Arts & Sciences |language=en}}

Pritchett was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1902.[http://www.americanantiquarian.org/memberlistp American Antiquarian Society Members Directory] Pritchett later resigned, though the reasons and timing are unclear.Dunbar, B. (1987). Members and Officers of the American Antiquarian Society. Worcester: American Antiquarian Society.

He was president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (CFAT) from 1906 until he retired in 1930. His principal accomplishment while with the CFAT was the institution of a fully funded pension program (the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association, TIAA) in 1918.

He also served as the first president of the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education (1907). He had a long involvement with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and served as a trustee for Carnegie Institute for Science.

He died on August 28, 1939, in Santa Barbara, California.{{Cite journal |url=http://adsabs.harvard.edu//full/seri/PASP./0051//0000304.000.html |title=Publications |journal=Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific |volume=51 |number=303 |page=304 |year=1939 |access-date=2022-05-24 |via=Astrophysics Data System}}

Pritchett Lounge, on the second floor of the Walker Memorial building at MIT, is named in his honor.

• Hawkins, Hugh. Banding Together: The Rise of National Associations in American Higher Education, 1887-1950 (1992)

• Lagemann, Ellen Condliffe. Private Power for the Public Good: A History of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1983.

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• [http://www.history.noaa.gov/cgsbios/biop15.html NOAA biography]
• [https://archive.org/details/medicaleducation00flexiala Medical Education in the United States and Canada, Pritchett authored the forward, 1910]

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{{s-ttl|order=5th|title=President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology|years=1900 – 1907}}

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Category:1857 births

Category:1939 deaths

Category:American astronomers

Category:Presidents of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Category:Washington University in St. Louis physicists

Category:Washington University in St. Louis mathematicians

Category:United States Coast and Geodetic Survey personnel

Category:People from Fayette, Missouri

Category:Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Category:Members of the American Philosophical Society