Linn Harrison Enslow (26 February 1891–3 November 1957), chemical engineer, was born in Richmond and was the son of Linn Bliss Enslow, an accountant, and Marie Helene Harrison Enslow. In 1912 he received a B.S. in chemical engineering from Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College and Polytechnic Institute (later Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University). From 1913 to 1915 Enslow pursued graduate studies in chemistry at the Johns Hopkins University, but he did not complete a degree. On 12 August 1915 in the Pulaski County town of Dublin he married Mary Elva Glendy. They had one son and one daughter.
Enslow worked as an industrial chemist for the General Chemical Company in Baltimore, Maryland, from 1912 to 1914 and as a chemist for the Maryland State Department of Health from 1914 to 1917. Simultaneously, between 1913 and 1916 he was a member of Troop A of the Maryland Cavalry, which in 1916 served with regular United States Army units along the border with Mexico. During and immediately after World War I, Enslow was the chemist in charge of the water purification plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina, which served nearby Fort Wadsworth, and then spent nearly two years in charge of a water purification plant in the Panama Canal Zone.
Enslow and Abel Wolman, a former classmate at Johns Hopkins and a civil engineer with the Maryland State Department of Health, worked on an independent project during that time and developed a rigorous scientific formula that ensured the safe chlorination of municipal water supplies in the United States. The waterworks in Jersey City, New Jersey, had been the first to treat water with sodium hypochlorite, but authorities disagreed about what quantity of the chemical was required. Enslow and Wolman published a seminal paper, "Chlorine Absorption and the Chlorination of Water," in the March 1919 issue of the Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry. By analyzing various bacteria, acidity, taste, and purity factors, the pair created a standard chlorination formula to purify water supplies safely. In subsequent years, Wolman convinced local governments to accept their formula, which came into widespread use in the United States and around the world during the 1930s. Their methodology eliminated many waterborne diseases, including cholera, dysentery, and typhoid fever, in the United States and elsewhere.
Enslow worked as a sanitary engineer and chemist for the Virginia State Department of Health from 1920 to 1925 and for the next six years served as a research and development engineer for the Chlorine Institute of America, in New York City. In 1931 he became editor of Water Works and Sewerage and three years later a vice president of its publishing company. He continued as editor of the journal (renamed in 1954 Water and Sewage Works) and vice president until his death. He also served for many years as a consulting engineer on water supply, water purification, and sewage disposal systems. Between 1921 and 1940, Enslow, alone or in cooperation with other specialists, devised or helped develop chlorine comparators and improvements in other areas of water treatment and sewage disposal, including residual chlorine determination, corrosion suppression, and water softening. He published papers in several professional journals and as separate technical papers in the field. During World War II, Enslow was a special consultant to the sewerage and sanitation division of the War Production Board.
Enslow was active in state water and sewage associations in Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. He served one term as president of the New York State Sewage Works Association. From 1938 to 1944 Enslow chaired the New England Water Works Association's committee on waterworks operations in emergencies. He also chaired the executive committee of the sanitary engineering division of the American Society of Civil Engineers in 1942. While serving a one-year term as president of the American Water Works Association in 1948, Enslow created a committee to formulate the association's policy on fluoridation. The committee recommended that waterworks engineers participate in fluoridation programs in communities where dental, medical, and public health authorities approved the process, even though the policy served to minimize the role of waterworks engineers in developing water policy and management. The Institute of Sewage Purification, in the United Kingdom, named Enslow as an honorary member. He received many professional awards, including the American Water Works Association's Goodell Prize in 1949 for his work on the fluoridation issue and its George Warren Fuller Award in 1951.
From at least 1930 Enslow resided in New York City, but he also maintained a farm in Pulaski County. Linn Harrison Enslow died of a heart attack at the farm near Dublin on 3 November 1957 and was buried in the New Dublin Presbyterian Church Cemetery.
Sources Consulted:
Biography with self-reported marriage date of 12 Aug. 1915 in National Cyclopædia of American Biography (1965), 47:399 (portrait); Marriage Register, Pulaski Co. (variant marriage date of 10 Aug. 1915), Bureau of Vital Statistics (BVS), Commonwealth of Virginia Department of Health, Record Group 36, Library of Virginia; feature article in Richmond News Leader, 4 May 1948; Abel Wolman and Enslow, "Chlorine Absorption and the Chlorination of Water," Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry 11 (1919): 209–213; Brian Simpson, "Making Drinking Water Safe for the World," Johns Hopkins Magazine 52 (Apr. 2000): 38; BVS Death Certificate, Pulaski Co. (with birth date); death notice in Pulaski Southwest Times, 4 Nov. 1957; obituaries in Richmond News Leader and Richmond Times-Dispatch, both 4 Nov. 1957, and New York Times, 6 Nov. 1957; memorials in Water and Sewage Works 105 (1958): 349–354.
Photograph in National Cyclopædia of American Biography, 47:399.
Written for the Dictionary of Virginia Biography by Keir B. Sterling.
How to cite this page:
Keir B. Sterling, "Linn Harrison Enslow (1891–1957)," Dictionary of Virginia Biography, Library of Virginia (1998– ), published 2025 (http://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/dvb/bio.asp?b=Enslow_Linn_Harrison, accessed [today's date]).
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