Carothers, a young organic chemistry lecturer at Harvard University, to join DuPont. A year later, however, he made a spectacular hire when he convinced Wallace H. Stine encountered much more difficulty in attracting chemists to DuPont than he had anticipated, largely because academic scientists doubted whether they would truly be allowed to do pure research in an industrial setting. The committee also approved funds to build a new laboratory, soon dubbed “Purity Hall” by DuPont chemists. Stine was granted $25,000 a month for research and was told to hire 25 of the best chemists he could find. Nevertheless, the executive committee approved a slightly modified version of Stine’s proposal in March 1927. Rather than investing in practical research directly related to such existing products as rayon or ammonia, Stine argued, DuPont should fund “pure science work.” This work would be centered on “the object of establishing or discovering new scientific facts” instead of research that “applied previously established scientific facts to practical problems.” Stine’s proposal was not new to industry-both General Electric and Bell Telephone operated industrial research laboratories-but his insistence that the research be “pure” or “fundamental” was a fairly radical idea for a company focused on profits. Stine, the director of DuPont’s Chemical Department, circulated a memo to the company’s executive committee that suggested the committee was looking in the wrong place for innovation. Although rayon proved popular and profitable, the company expended considerable resources in improving the brittle fiber’s texture and performance-in 1934 alone the company spent $1 million on rayon research. The combined firm, named the DuPont Fiber Company, eventually became the Rayon Department of the DuPont Company. du Pont de Nemours and Company into artificial fibers came in 1920 when it purchased a 60% interest in Comptoir des Textiles Artificiels, a French rayon company, for $4 million. Today nylon-in toothbrushes, carpet, racket and guitar strings, surgical sutures, car parts, and, of course, hosiery-is all around us. Behind the scenes the invention of nylon also transformed the chemical industry by proving that the composition of polymers could be predicted and engineered like many other chemical products. Its strength, elasticity, weight, and resistance to mildew helped the Allies win World War II. As the first commercially viable synthetic fiber, nylon ushered in a fashion revolution based on comfort, ease, and disposability. But nylon was billed by its manufacturer, DuPont, as a thing unto itself. Its predecessor, rayon, had been touted as “artificial silk,” a phrase that implied both economy and imitation. When it first entered the public consciousness in 1938, nylon claimed a novelty no other product could match.
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