Skip to main content

Chemical

First Oil Well
Society: ACSMain Category: ChemicalSub Category: Industrial AdvancesEra: 1850-1859DateCreated: 1859Drake Well MuseumTitusvilleState: PACountry: USAWebsite: https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/pennsylvaniaoilindustry.htmlCreator: Drake, Edwin

Long before Texas gushers and offshore drilling, and a century before oil wells dotted Arabian sands and rose out of Venezuelan waters, the center of petroleum production was western Pennsylvania. In the middle of the 19thcentury two developments occurred that guaranteed Pennsylvania’s dominance: The construction, in Pittsburgh, of the first still to refine crude oil into kerosene for use in lighting, and the drilling of the first oil well in Titusville, Pennsylvania.

 

Image Caption: A retouched photograph showing Edwin L. Drake, to the right, and the Drake Well in the background, in Titusville, Pennsylvania, where the first commercial well was drilled in 1859 to find oil
Signs
Society: ACSMain Category: ChemicalEra: 1930sDateCreated: 1936Day-Glo Color Corp.ClevelandState: OHCountry: USAWebsite: https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/dayglo.htmlCreator: Switzer, Robert and Joseph

DayGlo fluorescent pigments, a new class of pigments based on fluorescent dyes and polymeric materials, were developed between the 1930s and 1950s by scientists at Switzer Brothers, Inc. (now Day-Glo Color Corp.). These pigments absorb various light frequencies (visible and invisible to the human eye) and reemit them, producing intense visible colors that appear to glow, even in daylight.

YearAdded:
2012
Image Caption: Signs are one common use for DayGlo fluorescent pigments.
SRRC
Society: ACSMain Category: ChemicalEra: 1960sDateCreated: 1970sSouthern Regional Research CenterNew OrleansState: LACountry: USAWebsite: https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/cottonproducts.htmlCreator: U.S. Department of Agriculture ARS Southern Regional Research Center

By the 1950s, synthetic fabrics - often wrinkle resistant and flame retardant - began to overtake cotton as the dominant U.S. textile fiber. To reverse this trend chemists and chemical engineers at the Southern Regional Research Center initiated research to modify cotton chemically. Their efforts in developing agents that crosslinked the cellulose fibers and in establishing crosslinking mechanisms led to improved durable press fabrics. SRRC studies also developed new agents that improved the durability of flame retardant cotton to laundering.

YearAdded:
2004
Image Credit: Photo courtesy National Archives and Records Administration. (CC BY 2.0)Image Caption: The Southern Regional Research Center in New Orleans, Louisiana in August 1985.
Columbia Dry Cell Battery
Society: ACSMain Category: ChemicalEra: 1890-1899DateCreated: 1896Energizer Holdings, Inc. corporate headquartersSt. LouisState: MOCountry: USAWebsite: https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/drycellbattery.htmlCreator: Lawrence, Washington H.

Imagine a world without batteries. It would be a much different world, in which the automobile and the telephone would have developed differently and probably later, a world without many of the conveniences of modern life and without some of the necessities. The battery, ever smaller and more powerful, defines much of our modern comforts and advances. There were many scientific and technological advances on the way to those smaller and more powerful batteries.

YearAdded:
2005
Image Credit: Courtesy Duke UniversityImage Caption: Columbia Batteries: The World's Standard
Jamestown
Society: ACSMain Category: ChemicalSub Category: Cradles of ChemistryEra: 1600sHistoric Jamestown SettlementWilliamsburgState: VACountry: USAWebsite: https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/jamestownchemistry.html, https://www.acs.org/content/dam/acsorg/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/jamestownchemistry/chemistry-at-jamestown-commemorative-booklet.pdf

Recent archaeological evidence reveals early Virginia, which included both the Roanoke and Jamestown colonies, as the birthplace of the American chemical enterprise. Chemical processes first applied experimentally at Roanoke were re-introduced at Jamestown twenty years later.

YearAdded:
2007
Image Credit: Courtesy Flickr/bootbearwdc (CC BY 2.0)Image Caption: Housing within James Fort at Jamestown settlement, Virginia
CAS
Society: ACSMain Category: ChemicalSub Category: Cradles of ChemistryEra: 1900sDateCreated: 1907Chemical Abstracts ServiceColumbusState: OHCountry: USAWebsite: https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/cas.html

The Chemical Abstracts Service, a division of the American Chemical Society, has provided the most comprehensive repository of research in chemistry and related sciences for over 100 years. CAS innovations have fueled chemical research through development of the CAS RegistrySM and CAS databases which contain invaluable information for chemical scientists, including SciFinder® and STN®.

YearAdded:
2007
Image Credit: Courtesy CASImage Caption: Chemical Abstracts volume 100, 1984.
Charles Herty
Society: ACSMain Category: ChemicalSub Category: Industrial AdvancesEra: 1930sDateCreated: 1932Herty Advanced Materials Development CenterSavannahState: GACountry: USAWebsite: https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/savannahpaper.htmlCreator: Herty, Charles Holmes

When Georgia chemist Charles Holmes Herty found a way to make quality paper from pine trees in 1932, he also founded an industry that brought much-needed jobs to the depression-crippled south. Paper producers had deemed the plentiful pine too gummy—until Herty's Savannah Pulp and Paper Laboratory wrote a new chapter in the ancient craft inspired by insects who built paper nests while dinosaurs roamed the earth. At its root, however, the papermaking process remained the same: the bonding of cellulose, a polymer whose long chains support plant cell walls.

YearAdded:
2001
Image Credit: Courtesy U.S. Library of Congress. Image Caption: Portrait of Charles Holmes Herty in 1925.
Alice Hamilton
Society: ACSMain Category: ChemicalEra: 1900sDateCreated: 1910Jane Addams Hull-House MuseumChicagoState: ILCountry: USAWebsite: https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/alicehamilton.htmlCreator: Hamilton, Alice

In 1897, Dr. Alice Hamilton (1869-1970) came to Hull-House, a social settlement founded to address the needs of immigrants living on Chicago’s Near West Side. Through living and working in the Hull-House neighborhood, she identified occupational diseases plaguing those who worked in the “dangerous trades”: rubber, dyes, lead, enamelware, copper and mercury production, and explosives and munitions. Collaborating with the U.S. Department of Labor, Hamilton documented the occupational diseases from which these workers suffered.

Dr. Albert Szent-Györgyi
Society: ACSMain Category: ChemicalEra: 1930sDateCreated: 1936University of Szeged Albert Szent-Györgyi Medical FacultySzegedWebsite: https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/szentgyorgyi.htmlCreator: Szent-Györgyi, Dr. Albert

Albert Szent-Györgyi (1893-1986), biochemist, pioneered the study of biological oxidation mechanisms during the 1920s. Between 1930 and 1936, while a Professor at Szeged University, he proved that hexuronic acid, which he had previously isolated, is identical with vitamin C and that it could be extracted in kilogram quantities from paprika.

YearAdded:
2002
Image Credit: Von FOTO:FORTEPAN / Semmelweis Egyetem Levéltára, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=50839515Image Caption: Dr. Albert Szent-Györgyi circa 1948.
paints
Society: ACSMain Category: ChemicalEra: 1940sDateCreated: 1949PhiladelphiaState: PACountry: USAWebsite: https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/acrylicemulsion.htmlCreator: Rohm and Haas [now The Dow Chemical Company]

Developed by Rohm and Haas in the 1940s, water-based acrylic emulsion technology filled a need for easy-to-use household paints for a growing suburban population in the United States following World War II. This aqueous technology required less preparation to use, was easier to clean up, had less odor, and performed better than or equal to paints made with solvents. It was also a leap forward in acrylic chemistry.

YearAdded:
2008
Image Credit: Courtesy Flickr/United Soybean Board (CC BY 2.0)Image Caption: From plastics to paints it changed our world
Subscribe to Chemical

Innovations

Herman Mark

The Polymer Research Institute was established in 1946 by Herman F. Mark, a pioneer in the study of giant molecules. The Institute brought together a number of polymer researchers to create the first academic facility in the United States devoted to the study and teaching of polymer science.…

Read More
Discovery of Oxygen by Joseph Priestly

When Joseph Priestley discovered oxygen in 1774, he answered age-old questions of why and how things burn. An Englishman by birth, Priestley was deeply involved in politics and religion, as well as science. When his vocal support for the American and French revolutions made remaining in his…

Read More
Neil Bartlett and the Reactive Noble Gases

In 1962 Neil Bartlett demonstrated the first reaction of a noble gas. The noble gas family of elements - helium, neon, argon, krypton, xenon, and radon - had previously been regarded as inert. By combining xenon with a platinum fluoride, Bartlett created the first noble gas compound. This…

Read More
In the early 1970s, American chemist Paul C. Lauterbur demonstrated that nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) could be used to generate images of macroscopic objects. In the years following, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been refined as a technique for the detailed resolution of internal… Read More
Nucleic Acid and Protein Chemistry Research at Rockefeller University

For more than a century, scientists at Rockefeller University have enhanced our understanding of the molecular basis of life — specifically the relationship between the structure and function of nucleic acids and proteins. They showed that DNA transfers genetic information and that the sugars…

Read More
Discovery of Organic Free Radicals by Moses Gomberg

In 1900, Moses Gomberg, Professor of Chemistry at the University of Michigan, confirmed the existence of a stable, trivalent organic free radical: triphenylmethyl. In so doing, he challenged the then prevailing belief that carbon could have only four chemical bonds. Gomberg’s discovery made a…

Read More
Foundation of Polymer Science by Hermann Staudinger

In the years 1926 to 1956, the German chemist Hermann Staudinger carried out his pathbreaking research on macromolecular chemistry in Freiburg. His theories on the polymer structures of fibers and plastics and his later research on biological macromolecules formed the basis for countless modern…

Read More
Riverside Laboratory

This research and development complex was established by the founders of Universal Oil Products (later named UOP) to develop key products for the oil-refining industry. The processes created here profoundly affected the refining, treatment and conversion of crude oil and the development of the…

Read More
Williams-Miles History of Chemistry Collection

The Williams-Miles History of Chemistry Collection, established in 1992, is one of the leading historical collections of chemistry books in the southern United States. It represents a combined 70 years of scholarly collecting by Wyndham D. Miles, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland…

Read More

Chemicals from the Coal Facility of Eastman Chemical Company was the first in the United States to use coal rather than petroleum as a raw material in the commercial production of acetyl chemicals — important building blocks in the synthesis of a wide range of consumer products. The plant,…

Read More
paints

Developed by Rohm and Haas in the 1940s, water-based acrylic emulsion technology filled a need for easy-to-use household paints for a growing suburban population in the United States following World War II. This aqueous technology required less preparation to use, was easier to clean up, had…

Read More
Dr. Albert Szent-Györgyi

Albert Szent-Györgyi (1893-1986), biochemist, pioneered the study of biological oxidation mechanisms during the 1920s. Between 1930 and 1936, while a Professor at Szeged University, he proved that hexuronic acid, which he had previously isolated, is identical with vitamin C and that it could be…

Read More
Alice Hamilton

In 1897, Dr. Alice Hamilton (1869-1970) came to Hull-House, a social settlement founded to address the needs of immigrants living on Chicago’s Near West Side. Through living and working in the Hull-House neighborhood, she identified occupational diseases plaguing those who worked in the “…

Read More
Charles Herty

When Georgia chemist Charles Holmes Herty found a way to make quality paper from pine trees in 1932, he also founded an industry that brought much-needed jobs to the depression-crippled south. Paper producers had deemed the plentiful pine too gummy—until Herty's Savannah Pulp and Paper…

Read More
CAS

The Chemical Abstracts Service, a division of the American Chemical Society, has provided the most comprehensive repository of research in chemistry and related sciences for over 100 years. CAS innovations have fueled chemical research through development of the CAS RegistrySM and CAS databases…

Read More
Jamestown

Recent archaeological evidence reveals early Virginia, which included both the Roanoke and Jamestown colonies, as the birthplace of the American chemical enterprise. Chemical processes first applied experimentally at Roanoke were re-introduced at Jamestown twenty years later.

Read More
Columbia Dry Cell Battery

Imagine a world without batteries. It would be a much different world, in which the automobile and the telephone would have developed differently and probably later, a world without many of the conveniences of modern life and without some of the necessities. The battery, ever smaller and more…

Read More
SRRC

By the 1950s, synthetic fabrics - often wrinkle resistant and flame retardant - began to overtake cotton as the dominant U.S. textile fiber. To reverse this trend chemists and chemical engineers at the Southern Regional Research Center initiated research to modify cotton chemically. Their…

Read More
Signs

DayGlo fluorescent pigments, a new class of pigments based on fluorescent dyes and polymeric materials, were developed between the 1930s and 1950s by scientists at Switzer Brothers, Inc. (now Day-Glo Color Corp.). These pigments absorb various light frequencies (visible and invisible to the…

Read More
First Oil Well

Long before Texas gushers and offshore drilling, and a century before oil wells dotted Arabian sands and rose out of Venezuelan waters, the center of petroleum production was western Pennsylvania. In the middle of the 19thcentury two developments occurred that guaranteed Pennsylvania’s dominance…

Read More

We hope you enjoyed this essay.

Please support America's only magazine of the history of engineering and innovation, and the volunteers that sustain it with a donation to Invention & Technology.

Donate

Stay informed - subscribe to our newsletter.
The subscriber's email address.