A. Cressy Morrison

Abraham Cressy Morrison (1884-1951) was an American chemist and was formerly president of the New York Academy of Sciences. He is well known for his beautifully poetic little book, Man Does Not Stand Alone He also made a notable brief position statement Seven Reasons a Scientist Believes in God and a later condensed version of his "Man Does Not Stand Alone" was published by Readers Digest Books under that title.

His "Man Does Not Stand Alone" was published in 1944, in the intense and dark years of World War II. In the publisher's preface to the condensed version, it is described as "a believing scientist's challenge to Julian Huxley's famous work "Man Stands Alone". The work is described in that preface as "One of the best sellers of the twentieth century."

In addition to being president of the prestigious New York Academy of Sciences, Morrison was a fellow of the American Museum of Natural History.

Morrison published a book "Man in a Chemical World" in 1937, joining a growing tradition of books that tried to make science better known to the public. There is a discussion of Morrison's work in Agora. Writing about chemistry for the public in that time was difficult because of the public outrage about chemical weapons.

Morrison offered a "Morrison Astronomy Prize" from 1926 until at least 1945. This prize was associated with the New York Academy of Sciences, and one of the recipients was Hans Bethe for his theory of the carbon cycle in stars (1939). It became part of a famous story about Bethe, who on becoming aware of the prize asked Physical Review to delay publication of his paper so he could compete for the prize. Bethe famously told the tale that he used the $500 prize to "liberate my mother's furniture" from Germany. In 1967, Bethe received the Nobel Prize for the carbon cycle.