Wiley, Harvey

Harvey Washington Wiley (1844–1930) is generally considered to be the father of pure food and drug legislation and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. He was a central figure during the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, called by some the Wiley Act, and its successor, the 1938 Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.

Wiley was born in 1844 in Indiana, served as a corporal in the Civil War, received his medical degree from Indiana Medical College, and later completed a bachelor’s degree at Harvard. In 1874 Wiley joined the faculty of Purdue University as its first professor of chemistry. There he turned his attention to the study of sugar. In 1883 he left Purdue to become head of the Division of Chemistry at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), a position he held until 1912.