HIST 26 |
| During the 1930s the German behemoth I. G. Farbenindustrie was a leading manufacturer and supplier of chemicals, particularly synthetic dyes, novel detergents, and photoproducts, in the United States. Knowledge of the most complex processes was generally in the hands of trusted employees sent over from Ludwigshafen and Leverkusen. At the end of the decade the corporation's U.S. patent portfolio included several examples of the then new acetylene, or Reppe, chemistry. In 1942, after the United States entered the war, the I.G.'s American factories, those of General Aniline and Film, and patents were sequestered by the government. The German employees, according to political affiliations or ethnic origins, were imprisoned, discharged, assigned to research posts distant from factories, or encouraged to develop new manufacturing processes based on I.G. patents. This had a significant impact on technologies adopted by General Aniline and Film and on the careers of German industrial chemists in the United States after 1945. |
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Edelstein Award Symposium Honoring Peter Morris
8:30 AM-12:10 PM, Tuesday, 12 September 2006 San Francisco Marriott -- Pacific Room H, Oral
Division of the History of Chemistry |