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Carl L. Alsberg
2nd Commissioner of Food and Drugs
In office December 16, 1912 – July 15, 1921
President	William Howard Taft Woodrow Wilson Warren G. Harding
Preceded by	Harvey Washington Wiley
Succeeded by	Walter G. Campbell
Personal details
Born	Carl Lucas Alsberg (1877-04-02)April 2, 1877 New York City, New York, U.S.
Died	October 31, 1940(1940-10-31) (aged 63) Berkeley, California, U.S.
Political party	Republican
Spouse	Emma Alsberg
Relatives	Henry Alsberg (brother)
Alma mater	Columbia College

Carl L. Alsberg (April 2, 1877 – October 31, 1940) was an American chemist who served as Commissioner of Food and Drugs from 1912 to 1921.

Alsberg was born to a secular German-Jewish family, the oldest of four children. His father Meinhard, a chemist who immigrated to the U.S. from Germany in 1865, was a founder of the American Chemical Society. Carl Alsberg attended Columbia University, where he founded a literary magazine, The Morningside. He graduated from Columbia College in 1896. He spent three years (1900–1903) studying in Germany before taking up a position as an instructor in biological chemistry at Harvard University.

After teaching at Harvard, Alsberg went to work for the U.S. government in 1908, and from 1912 to 1920 served as Chief of the United States Bureau of Chemistry, which would be renamed the Food and Drug Administration. In that role, Alsberg pursued an investigation into pepper adulteration at McCormick & Company which resulted in a fine and a court order that the company must label its product as "ground black pepper containing from 10 percent to 28 percent added pepper shells". Alsberg also investigated Monsanto's use of saccharin and the amount of caffeine in Coca-Cola.

In 1921, Alsberg resigned from the Bureau of Chemistry and co-founded Stanford University's Food Research Institute.

In 1937, he took a position at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1940, after visiting family in New York, Alsberg became ill with pneumonia on the train trip back to California and died in the hospital on October 31.

References

1. Taylor, Alonzo E. (June 1, 1941). "In Memoriam". Annual Review of Biochemistry. 10 (1): annurev.bi.10.102606.100011. doi:10.1146/annurev.bi.10.102606.100011. ISSN 0066-4154. Retrieved February 21, 2023.
2. "Carl L. Alsberg, M.D". Fda.gov. Retrieved August 27, 2017.
3. Catalogue of Officers and Graduates of Columbia University from the Foundation of King's College in 1754. New York: Columbia University. 1906. p. 156.
4. ^ "Alsberg, Carl Lucas". Encyclopaedia Britannica. Vol. 1 (14 ed.). 1930. p. 703.
5. ^ DeMasi, Susan R. (2016). Henry Alsberg : the driving force of the New Deal Federal Writers' Project. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company. pp. 13–16, 18–19, 35–37, 195, 224. ISBN 978-0-7864-9535-1. OCLC 956984803.
6. ^ Blum, Deborah (2018). The poison squad. New York, New York: Penguin Press. pp. 273–279. ISBN 978-1-59420-514-9. OCLC 1024107182.

External links

• Media related to Carl L. Alsberg at Wikimedia Commons

v t e Food and Drug Administration of the United States
Divisions	Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research Center for Devices and Radiological Health Center for Drug Evaluation and Research Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition Center for Tobacco Products Center for Veterinary Medicine National Center for Toxicological Research Office of Criminal Investigations Office of Global Regulatory Operations and Policy
Major acts	Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act Modernization Act of 1997 Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act Food Safety Modernization Act Prescription Drug User Fee Act Pure Food and Drug Act
Title 21 regulations and rules	Administrative law Title 21 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Federal journal Federal Register (FR) Federal law Title 21 of the United States Code (U.S.C.)
Commissioners	Harvey W. Wiley Carl L. Alsberg Charles A. Browne Walter G. Campbell Paul B. Dunbar Charles W. Crawford George P. Larrick James L. Goddard Herbert L. Ley Charles C. Edwards Alexander M. Schmidt Donald Kennedy Jere E. Goyan Arthur H. Hayes Jr. Frank E. Young David A. Kessler Jane E. Henney Mark McClellan Lester Crawford Andrew von Eschenbach Margaret Hamburg Robert Califf Scott Gottlieb Stephen Hahn Robert Califf
Society and culture	Criticism of the Food and Drug Administration FDA Most Wanted Fugitives History of the Food and Drug Administration Regulation of food and dietary supplements by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
Commissioner of Food and Drugs

• 1877 births
• 1940 deaths
• Columbia College (New York) alumni
• American food chemists
• Commissioners of the Food and Drug Administration
• Taft administration personnel
• Woodrow Wilson administration personnel
• Harding administration personnel
• University of California, Berkeley faculty