William Frear lived in an era when the food supply sometimes hid dangerous secrets.

In the latter half of the 19th century, when Frear came of age, some producers were using soot to blacken licorice and adding lead to sweeten candy. Coffee might contain acorn shavings, and pepper sometimes included floor sweepings. One version of strawberry jam consisted of apple scraps, glucose, coal tar dye and timothy seeds.

American consumers often snapped up this food from largely unregulated markets, oblivious to its risks. As long as people were willing to buy a product, it could be sold, no matter how unsafe it was, said Manfred Kroger, professor emeritus of food science at Penn State.

Frear, a Penn State professor from 1885 to 1922, became fed up with it all. His work a century ago eventually led to the creation of Pennsylvania's first food purity laws, and he chaired the committee that helped write the federal Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.

That law formed the foundation for today's Food and Drug Administration, a federal agency with 9,100 employees, a $1.3 billion annual budget and responsibility for overseeing everything from food labeling to the safety of cosmetics.

Frear's importance as a food safety pioneer has resurfaced as Kroger prepares a history of the Food Science Department. A new Food Sciences building and relocated University Creamery are to be built during the next three years, and Kroger wants to have his historical narrative ready for the unveiling.

Frear will be a important part of the story. "I've come to the conclusion that William Frear was the first food scientist at Penn State, and [perhaps] in the state," Kroger said.

Born in 1860, Frear grew up in Reading and Norristown, outside Philadelphia, and graduated from Bucknell University. After earning a doctorate from Illinois Wesleyan, he got a job as a chemist in the U.S. Department of Agriculture under Harvey Wiley -- the man who would lead the national campaign for food safety laws.

Two years later, Frear became a professor of agricultural chemistry at the fledgling Pennsylvania State College. At the time, Penn State had only a few dozen faculty and a scattering of buildings anchored by the first Old Main.

His students and co-workers remembered Frear as a passable teacher, but his meticulous nature made him a better researcher.

Frear's research was energized in 1887 by the founding of the federally funded Agricultural Experiment Station on campus. He conducted studies on tobacco, fertilizers and the liming of farmers' fields. He was even the de facto weatherman for many years, taking down daily observations.

But it was his expertise in uncovering adulterated or mislabeled food that brought him to the attention of state and federal officials and the courts. Adulteration means preparing food with potentially hazardous or lower-quality ingredients.

In 1902, Frear suggested changes to Pennsylvania's laws to require accurate labeling of foods and disclosure of any additives they contained, and the legislature adopted his recommendations. Frear also became a trusted expert witness in court cases involving allegations of adulterated food.

Around the same time, Frear's former boss, Wiley, was touring the country, speaking out against abuses in the food business.

Turn-of-the-century America had "an unbelievably crude and dirty food supply, and Harvey Wiley rang the bell and said we've got to pass laws," Kroger said.

To raise awareness, Wiley organized a team of volunteers, known as the "poison squad," who ate meals laced with some of the chemicals then being used as food additives to see which ones would make them sick. All of the volunteers eventually recovered.

Frear participated in Wiley's campaign by organizing and presiding over several National Pure Food and Drug Congresses. And in 1902, he chaired what would be remembered as the FDA's first advisory panel, a collection of state agriculture officials and scientists who met for days to consider the needs and problems of national food regulation.

The Pure Food and Drug Act, prohibiting the manufacture or inter-state sale of misbranded or adulterated foods, finally passed in 1906.

Frear's life at Penn State included much more than his passion for food safety.

He was known for having a well-stocked personal library and was an amateur musician who frequented local churches. He married in 1900 and fathered two daughters and two sons.

In the 1890s, Frear rallied support to incorporate State College as a borough. The first bank in State College, the first electric light company, one of the first water utilities, an ice company and the University Inn (now the University Club) all came into being with Frear's help. A biology building behind Osmond Lab also bears his name. Frear died in his adopted hometown at the age of 61.

After Frear's death, Wiley looked back on his colleague's work to assure a cleaner food supply for the nation, and wrote: "I hope that the services of Dr. Frear in this capacity will be realized more and more as the years go by. His work was phenomenal."