Professor of Biochemistry and Nutrition; director of the School of Nutition,1941-1955; special consultant to the U.S. Interdepartmental Committee for Nutrition and National Defense.
After receiving his Ph.D. in chemistry from Cornell University in 1915 Leonard Amby Maynard was appointed assistant professor in the College of Agriculture there. In 1934 he served as visiting professor at the University of Nanking, China, and assisted in a survey of the nutrition of the Chinese farm family. At Cornell he directed the Animal Nutrition Laboratory and the U.S. Plant, Soil, and Nutrition Laboratory. He was named commissioner in charge of nutrition for the New York State Emergency Food Commission during World War II., and late in 1947 was appointed to a new food commission established by Governor Thomas E. Dewey. He wrote ANIMAL NUTRITION (1937); coauthored BETTER DAIRY FARMING with Elmer S. Savage; and wrote numerous publications on biochemistry and nutrition.
Included are administrative papers pertaining to four executive positions held by Professor Maynard (1940-49): director of the U.S. Plant, Soil, and Nutrition Laboratory, New York State College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (1940-45); director of the School of Nutrition, Cornell University (1941-49); head of the Department of Biochemistry and Nutrition, N.Y.S. College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (1945-49); and head of the Laboratory of Animal Nutrition, N.Y.S. College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (1940-49). Includes correspondence dealing with the establishment (1941) of the School of Nutrition and efforts to obtain financial support for it, administrative matters, nutrition research, the London Nutrition Conference (1951) and other professional meetings, Maynard's lecture invitations, and his evaluation of scientific manuscripts sent him; inquiries from individuals and institutions, with Maynard's replies, chiefly concerning the nutritive value of milk and enriched bread and of butter as opposed to margarine; and notes (June 1941) from discussions with President Edmund Ezra Day on the establishment of the School and notes (1951, 1952) relating to its present and future programs. Correspondents include Sanford S. Atwood, Howard E. Babcock, Cornelis W. de Kiewiet, Edward R. Eastman, Willard I. Emerson, Anson W. Gibson, David Birney Hand, Herman E. Hilleboe, Asa S. Knowles, Deane W. Malott, William I. Myers, Weyland Pfeiffer, and Fred Sexauer.
Also, an interview (114 page typescript, 1963) conducted in six sessions by Gould P. Colman, in which Maynard discusses his graduate work, the establishment of a chemical laboratory in the Department of Animal Husbandry, research and graduate instruction, nutrition studies at other institutions in the 1920s, work on open formula feeds and other studies done with the GLF (Cooperative Grange League Federation Exchange, Inc., now Agway), the administration of the U.S. Plant, Soil, and Nutrition Laboratory at Cornell, the development and administration of the Department of Biochemistry and the School of Nutrition, nutrition practices and study in China in 1934, England during World War II., Germany at the end of the war, and Central America and elsewhere following his retirement, the work of ICA and FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations), and his association with H. E. Babcock, J. Lossing Buck, Lewis Knudson, Albert R. Mann, and Elmer Seth Savage.
Leonard A. Maynard papers, #29-1-292. Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.
Includes collection #21-1-292.