Aaron John Ihde (December 31, 1909, Neenah, Wisconsin – February 23, 2000, Sarasota, Florida) was an American food chemist and historian of chemistry.
He was particularly known for his book The Development of Modern Chemistry (1964) and for his work on the purity and safety of foods including support for Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962).
Aaron J. Ihde was born on December 31, 1909 in Neenah, Wisconsin to parents who were dairy farmers and second-generation German immigrants to the United States.
[1] In early 1938, he returned to the University of Wisconsin–Madison and studied food chemistry and biochemistry, receiving in 1941 his doctorate under Henry August Schuette (1885–1978) and Harry Steenbock.
[1] In the early 1960s Ihde and other UW Madison professors, including Grant Cottam (1918–2009), James F. Crow, Arthur D. Hasler, Hugh Iltis, Karl Francis Schmidt (1922–2016), and Van Rensselaer Potter, advocated publicity for Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and investigation of possible harmful effects of pesticides.
[1] He supervised the historian of chemistry and future Johns Hopkins University history of science department head Owen Hannaway's first position in the US in 1966.