Joseph H. Brennan (1902-1961) was born in Minneapolis and attended the University of Minnesota. After serving three years as an analyst with the U.S. Bureau of Mines while working his way through university, he joined the Electro Metallurgical Company, a Division of Union Carbide Corporation, as a chemist in 1920. Mr. Brennan was connected with the ferro-alloy industry during his entire career and became Chief Metallurgist at Union Carbide in 1944.

He held more than a dozen United States patents on the purification and production of metals and alloys and several times that number of foreign patents. His experience and achievements include the whole field of ferro-alloy production including the chemical processing, beneficiation, and smelting of ores of chromium, manganese, silicon, tungsten, columbium, vanadium, uranium, tantalum, titanium, and cobalt. One of his major contributions was the development of a process for the production of ferrochrome of very low carbon content. Other specific contributions have been the development of processes for the production of low-carbon ferromanganese and manganese metal, and for the elimination of phosphorus and arsenic in the smelting of manganese ores; procedures for the selective refining of silicon and ferrosilicon alloys with respect to calcium and aluminum; and an improved method for the silicothermic smelting of tungsten ores. Mr. Brennan was the co-inventor of a process for treating lo-grade tungsten ores which was used for the larger part of America's production during World War II. He collaborated on the design, construction, and operation of the cobalt refinery which supplied most of the United States cobalt requirements during the war years.

Mr. Brennan served as a consultant to the National Research Council on the design of processes for complex rare metal ores and was associated in a consulting capacity with the Manhattan Project and the Atomic Energy Commission.

Mr. Brennan was a Fellow of the Institute of Chemistry, chairman of the local section of the Electrochemical Society, and a member of several other professional societies and organizations. In 1950 he received the Schoellkopf Medal, awarded annually by the Western New York Section of the American Chemical Society. In 1958 he received the Frank J. Tone Medal Award, given annually by the Niagara Frontier Section of the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers to a person who has made outstanding and important contributions to the science and practice of metallurgy.

Mr. Brennan was an avid collector of books on metallurgy, etc. His collection of early editions on metallurgy, geology, and chemistry was purchased by the University Libraries at the State University of New York at Buffalo circa 1962. [See Box/folder 1.10 for a catalog.]

Mr. Brennan had three sons from a first marriage, Cal (1922), Alan (1924) and William (1926). In 1946 he married Anne P. Gallagher. He died in 1961.