Chemical Industry. The largest industry in America, the chemical industry supplies roughly a quarter of the world's chemicals, more than any other nation. In the
Colonial Era, chemical manufacturing was confined to such rudimentary products as indigo dyes, naval stores, leather, glass, soap, and candles. In the early 1800s, producers relied heavily on imports of alkalies (especially soda ash, caustic soda, and bleach) from Great Britain. The typical nineteenth‐century American chemical manufactory was owner‐managed, employed eight to twelve workers, and served local markets.
Philadelphia, an industry center, hosted the first professional organization (Chemical Society of Philadelphia, 1792) and publication (
American Journal of Pharmacy, 1825). The DuPont Corporation, a giant in the chemical industry, had its origins in 1802, when E.I. du Pont started a gunpowder company near Wilmington, Delaware.
In the late nineteenth century, American producers excelled at prospecting,
mining, smelting, and refining iron ore, coal, copper, lead, zinc, tungsten and other inorganic minerals into fertilizers, explosives, nitric acid, and sulfuric acid. Progress with dyestuffs, coal‐tar compounds, and other organics accelerated after the adoption of the Solvay process, a commercial technology for the manufacture of sodium carbonate, in the 1880s. Some American firms, exploiting abundant
hydroelectric power, became large producers of electrochemicals. In 1914, inorganic chemicals accounted for roughly half of U.S. production; organics for about one‐quarter; and acids and electrochemicals for one‐quarter.
American producers made significant progress in advanced technologies (pharmaceuticals, dyestuffs, and fine chemicals) in the early twentieth century. Vital to the
World War I military effort, the industry was supported by
tariffs and the government's confiscation and licensing of key German technologies, especially dyestuffs and the Haber‐Bosch process for nitrogen fixation. Between 1900 and 1930, the U.S. chemical industry's growth far outstripped that of Germany or Great Britain. Rapid expansion of the
automotive industry in the 1920s spurred demand for thermoplastics, protective coatings, and petroleum products. A merger wave in that decade created Allied Chemical and Dye and Union Carbide and Carbon, which joined Du Pont and American Cyanamid as the nation's largest producers. Robust sales of rayon, cellophane, pesticides, fertilizers, and other key products in the 1930s earned the industry a reputation as “depression proof.” Leading firms invested heavily in research and development, opening some 430 new laboratories between 1918 and 1945.
World War II brought heavy government involvement through an enormously successful synthetic‐rubber program; aggressive investment in government‐owned, company‐operated plants; and a new round of German technology confiscation. The postwar decades brought both a petrochemicals “revolution” and new challenges. Exploiting abundant oil and natural gas sources, American chemical and petroleum companies mass‐produced such “miracle”
plastics as polyester, polyethylene, polypropylene, and polyvinylchloride. Foreign competition and the
energy crisis of the 1970s led to overcapacity and falling profits. Meanwhile, the industry confronted new regulatory controls in the early 1970s, following public outcry over the health and environmental risks of agricultural chemicals and water‐and airborne wastes. In 1984, methyl isocymate gas escaping from a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, killed more than three thousand people and injured thousands more. Despite its problems, however, the American chemical industry was one of the few key sectors of the American economy to retain its global dominance at the end of the twentieth century.
See also
Carson, Rachel;
du Pont, Pierre;
Environmentalism;
Factory System;
Mass Production;
Petroleum Industry;
Research Laboratories, Industrial.
Bibliography
Williams Haynes , American Chemical Industry, 6 vols., 1945–1954.
Ashish Arora,, Ralph Landau,, and and Nathan Rosenberg , Chemicals and Long‐Term Economic Growth, 1998.
David B. Sicilia
