William Lyman Underwood

William Lyman Underwood
Born	1864 Boston, MA
Died	1929
Nationality	American
Known for	Canning and food science

William Lyman Underwood (1864 – January 24, 1929) was an American photographer who was also involved in the research of time-temperature canning research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) during 1895-96.

A native of Boston, Massachusetts, Underwood was the second son of William James Underwood, one of the nine children of William Underwood, the founder of the William Underwood Company.

In late 1895, the William Underwood Company decided that they had had enough with tin cans that had "swells" in them, causing a great deal of product loss. This was a problem they had experienced since the company's founding in 1822. William Lyman decided late that year to visit MIT for assistance with this problem.

Underwood approached William Thompson Sedgwick, the chair of the biology department at MIT about the concerns he had with the recent product swells and explosion of clams. Sedgwick then summoned his assistant Samuel Cate Prescott and apprised him on the issue. From late 1895 to late 1896, Prescott and Underwood worked on the problem every afternoon, focusing on canned clams. They first discovered that the clams contained some heat-resistant bacterial spores that were able to survive the processing; then that these spores' presence depended on the clams' living environment; and finally that these spores would be killed if processed at 250˚F (121˚C) for ten minutes in a retort.

These studies prompted the similar research of canned lobster, sardines, peas, tomatoes, corn, and spinach. Prescott and Underwood's work was first published in late 1896, with further papers appearing from 1897 to 1926. This research, though important to the growth of food technology, was never patented.

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