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== Biography ==
Abel Wolman was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on June 10, 1892, the fourth
of six children of Polish immigrants. He graduated from the Baltimore City College in 1909, and received a B.A. from the Johns Hopkins University in 1913. He had hoped to become a
physician. Instead, his family persuaded him to enroll in Johns Hopkins
University's newly opened School of Engineering, where he received his
Bachelor of Science in Engineering with the first graduating class in 1915.  His professional career had already started; he had begun collecting water
samples on the Potomac River for the U.S. Public Health Service in 1912.   From 1914 to 1939, Wolman worked for the Maryland State Department of Health, serving as Chief Engineer from 1922 to 1939. It was during his early years there that he made his most important contribution. 

During his period of state employment he performed some of his most
distinguished scientific research in water purification. When Wolman began
this work, his own family practiced water purification by tying a piece of
cheesecloth around the spigot in their home to filter out stones and dirt that
flowed through the city's water supply. Not only was the quality of drinking
water in general highly variable and questionable, but water supply sources
and waste disposal sites were also frequently the same. Outbreaks of
waterborne diseases struck Baltimore and other American cities with
alarming regularity.


Wolman worked with chemist Linn H. Enslow in the Maryland
Department of Health to perfect a method of purifying water with chlorine at
filtration plants. Although the idea of using chlorine as a purifying agent was
not new, procedures were crude and produced wildly fluctuating water
products.  Wolman and Enslow developed a chemical technique for
determining how much chlorine should be mixed with any given source of
water, taking into consideration bacterial content, acidity, and other factors
related to taste and purity.  His efforts there helped develop the plan for Baltimore's water supply so thoroughly and effectively that the collaboration produced the gift of safe
drinking water for millions of people around the world.  Their work was applied water systems in New York, Detroit and Columbus, Ohio.  

Wolman's capacity and enthusiasm carried him into national and
international service for a period that spanned six decades. A member of
the first delegation to the World Health Organization (WHO), he worked on
water supply, wastewater, and water resources problems throughout the
world with WHO and the Pan American Health Organization. A consultant to
Sri Lanka (then Ceylon), Brazil, Ghana, India, and Taiwan, he also chaired
the committee that planned the water system for the new state of Israel National Water Carrier project (1950-1956), and
he helped Latin American nations develop ways to finance their water
systems.

Wolman became Editor of the American Water Works Association's Journal AWWA in 1919 and was responsible for making it into a monthly publication in 1924. The Association presents the Abel Wolman Award of Excellence each year to recognize those whose careers in the water works industry exemplify vision, creativity, and excellent professional performance characteristic of Wolman's long and productive career.

Wolman was the recipient of numerous awards including the Albert Lasker Public Service Award in 1960; the National Medal of Science in 1974; the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement in 1976; and the American Geophysical Union Robert E. Horton Medal in 1986. In May, 1966 Johns Hopkins University named a newly acquired dormitory Wolman Hall in his honour. In 1986, the City of Baltimore renamed its public works building, the Abel Wolman Municipal Building, honoring his years of service to the city. Today, the Abel Wolman building is where citizens of Baltimore come to pay their property taxes, parking fines and metered water bills

Abel Wolman was truly a man who transcended political and social
boundaries and made the world a more livable place.    He was the father of [http://www.history-of-hydrology.net/mediawiki/index.php?title=Wolman,_Reds M. Gordon (Reds) Wolman], hydrologist and fluvial geomorphologist, and also a Professor at Johns Hopkins University