by Bruce Wells | Feb 21, 2024 | Petroleum Products
Revolutionary DuPont lab product first used commercially in 1938 for toothbrush bristles.
The world’s first synthetic fiber was the petroleum product “Nylon 6,” discovered in 1935 by a DuPont chemist who produced the polymer from chemicals found in oil.
DuPont Corporation foresaw the future of “strong as steel” artificial fibers. The chemical conglomerate had been founded in 1802 as a Wilmington, Delaware, manufacturer of gunpowder. The company would become a global giant after its scientists created durable and versatile products like nylon, rayon and lucite.
“Women show off their nylon pantyhose to a newspaper photographer, circa 1942,” noted historian Jennifer S. Li in “The Story of Nylon – From a Depressed Scientist to Essential Swimwear.” Photo by R. Dale Rooks (1917-1954).
The world’s first synthetic fiber — nylon — was discovered on February 28, 1935, by a former Harvard professor working at a DuPont research laboratory. Called Nylon 6 by scientists, the revolutionary carbon-based product came from chemicals found in petroleum.
Chemists called the man-made fiber Nylon 6 because chains of adipic acid and hexamethylene diamine each contained six carbon atoms per molecule.
Professor Wallace Carothers had experimented with artificial materials for more than six years. He previously discovered neoprene rubber (commonly used in wet suits) and made major contributions to understanding polymers — large molecules composed in long chains of repeating chemical structures.
Polymer Chains
Carothers, 32, created fibers when he combined the chemicals amine, hexamethylene diamine, and adipic acid. His experiments formed polymer chains using a process in which individual molecules joined together with water as a byproduct. But the fibers were weak.
A PBS series, A Science Odyssey: People and Discoveries, in 1998 noted Carothers’ breakthrough came when he realized, “the water produced by the reaction was dropping back into the mixture and getting in the way of more polymers forming. He adjusted his equipment so that the water was distilled and removed from the system. It worked!”
DuPont named the petroleum product nylon — although chemists called it Nylon 6 because the adipic acid and hexamethylene diamine each contain six carbon atoms per molecule.
“Until now, all good toothbrushes were made with animal bristles,” noted a 1938 ad.
Each man-made molecule consists of 100 or more repeating units of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms, strung in a chain. A single filament of nylon may have a million or more molecules, each taking some of the strain when the filament is stretched.
There’s disagreement about how the product name originated at DuPont.
“As to the word nylon, it’s actually quite arbitrary. DuPont itself has stated that originally the name was intended to be No-Run (that’s run as in the sense of the compound chain of the substance unravelling), but at the time there was no real justification for the claim, so it needed to be changed,” noted Chris Nickson in a 2017 website post, Where Does the Name Nylon Originate?
Toothbrush Bristles
The first commercial use of this revolutionary petroleum product was for toothbrushes.
On February 24, 1938, the Weco Products Company of Chicago, Illinois, began selling its new “Dr. West’s Miracle-Tuft” — the earliest toothbrush to use synthetic DuPont nylon bristles.
First used for toothbrush bristles, nylon women’s stockings were promoted in a DuPont 1948 ad.
Americans will soon brush their teeth with nylon — instead of hog bristles, declared an article in the New York Times. “Until now, all good toothbrushes were made with animal bristles,” explained a 1938 Weco Products advertisement in Life magazine.
“Today, Dr. West’s new Miracle-Tuft is a single exception,” the ad proclaimed. “It is made with EXTON, a unique bristle-like filament developed by the great DuPont laboratories, and produced exclusively for Dr. West’s.”
Pricing its toothbrush at 50 cents, the Weco Products Company guaranteed, “no bristle shedding.” Johnson & Johnson of New Brunswick, New Jersey, will introduce a competing nylon-bristle toothbrush in 1939.
Nylon Stockings
Although DuPont patented nylon in 1935, it was not officially announced to the public until October 27, 1938, in New York City.
A DuPont vice president unveiled the synthetic fiber — not to a scientific society or industry association — but to 3,000 Women’s Club members gathered at the site of the upcoming 1939 New York World’s Fair.
During WWII, nylon was used as a substitute for silk in parachutes.
“He spoke in a session entitled ‘We Enter the World of Tomorrow,’ which was keyed to the theme of the forthcoming fair, the World of Tomorrow,” explained DuPont historian David A. Hounshell in a 1988 book.
The petroleum product was an instant hit, especially as a replacement for silk in hosiery. DuPont built a full-scale nylon plant in Seaford, Delaware, and began commercial production in late 1939.
The company purposefully did not register “nylon” as a trademark – choosing to allow the word to enter the American vocabulary as a synonym for “stockings.”
Women’s nylon stockings appeared for the first time at Gimbels Department Store on May 15, 1940. World War II would remove the polymer hosiery to make nylon parachutes and other vital supplies.
Nylon would become far and away the biggest money-maker in the history of DuPont. The powerful material from lab research led company executives to derive formulas for growth, according to Hounshell in The Nylon Drama.
“By putting more money into fundamental research, Du Pont would discover and develop ‘new nylons,’ that is, new proprietary products sold to industrial customers and having the growth potential of nylon,” Hounshell explained in his 1988 book.
Carothers did not live to see the widespread application of his work — in consumer goods such as toothbrushes, fishing lines, luggage and lingerie, or in special uses such as surgical thread, parachutes, or pipes — nor the powerful effect it had in launching a whole era of synthetics.
Devastated by the sudden death of his favorite sister in early 1937, Carothers committed suicide in April of that year. The DuPont Company would name its research facility after him.
As the DuPont website notes, the invention of nylon radically changed the way people dressed worldwide — and rendered the term ‘silk stocking’ obsolete (and once an epithet directed at the wealthy elite).
Nylon’s success encouraged DuPont to adopt long-term strategies for products developed from basic research.
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Recommended Reading: The Golden Thread: How Fabric Changed History (2019); Enough for One Lifetime: Wallace Carothers, Inventor of Nylon (2005); The Nylon Drama (1988). Your Amazon purchases benefit the American Oil & Gas Historical Society; as an Amazon Associate, AOGHS earns a commission from qualifying purchases.
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The American Oil & Gas Historical Society (AOGHS) preserves U.S. petroleum history. Become an AOGHS annual supporting member and help maintain this energy education website and expand historical research. For more information, contact bawells@aoghs.org. © 2023 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.
Citation Information – Article Title: “Nylon, a Petroleum Polymer.” Authors: B.A. Wells and K.L. Wells. Website Name: American Oil & Gas Historical Society. URL: https://aoghs.org/products/petroleum-product-nylon-fiber. Last Updated: February 21, 2024. Original Published Date: February 23, 2014.
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by Bruce Wells | Feb 19, 2024 | This Week in Petroleum History
February 19, 1863 – First Pipeline Attempt to link Oilfield to Refinery –
With teamsters dominating oil transportation in Pennsylvania, independent producer James L. Hutchings designed and constructed a pipeline to transport oil from a well on a farm at Oil Creek to a refinery 2.5 miles away. He had patented a rotary pump, which he used for moving the oil through two-inch piping from the Tarr Farm to the Humboldt Refinery at Oil City. His pumps worked, but the cast-iron pipeline proved impractical when the joints leaked.
The 1863 pipeline attempt began from an oil well on the Tarr Farm (above) north of Oil City, Pennsylvania. December 1861 photograph by John Mather courtesy Library of Congress.
Hutchings’ concept of driving fluids with a rotary pump brought a key innovation for pipeline construction. In 1865, Samuel Van Syckel would break the teamsters’ monopoly by constructing a wrought iron pipeline with threaded joints that could transport 2,000 barrels of oil a day more than five miles — the first practical oil pipeline.
“It kind of shows you how multiple failures lead to success,” noted pipeline engineer Claudia Farrell in 2002. “The idea of driving fluids with a rotary pump sparked an innovation in the pipeline industry.”
Learn more early petroleum transportation history by visiting the Drake Well Museum in Titusville.
February 20, 1959 – First LNG Tanker arrives in England
After a 27-day voyage from a processing facility just south of Lake Charles, Louisiana, the world’s first liquefied natural gas tanker arrived at Canvey Island in England’s Thames estuary, the world’s first LNG terminal. The experimental Methane Pioneer demonstrated that large quantities of LNG could be transported safely across the ocean.
The world’s first liquefied natural gas tanker, the Methane Pioneer, was a converted World War II Liberty freighter.
The first-of-its-kind vessel, a converted World War II Liberty freighter, included five 7,000-barrel aluminum tanks supported by balsa wood and insulated with plywood and urethane. Owned by Comstock Liquid Methane Corporation, the 340-foot ship kept its methane cargo refrigerated to minus 285 degrees Fahrenheit. In June 1964, the first purpose-built commercial LNG carrier — the nine LNG tank, 618-foot Methane Princess — began regular delivery to the same Canvey Island port.
February 20, 1993 – Oil Pipe Saxophone Sculpture erected in Houston
Petroleum pipeline became a work of art when offbeat Texas sculptor Bob “Daddy-O” Wade debuted his blue, 70-foot saxophone at the opening of Billy Blues Bar & Grill on Houston’s west side.
Petroleum pipeline segments contributed to a 1993 saxophone sculpture for Billy Blues Bar & Grill in Houston, Texas.
Wade transformed two 48-inch-wide pipes into the free-standing sculpture, adding an upside down Volkswagen, chrome hubcaps, beer kegs, and assorted parts to complete his blue creation. After much debate, the Houston City Council deemed the oilfield pipeline saxophone to be art rather than signage. The Fort Worth Star Telegram described Wade as a “connoisseur of Southwestern kitsch.”
Learn more in “Smokesax” Art has Pipeline Heart.
February 21, 1887 – Refining Process brings Riches to Rockefeller
Mining engineer and chemist Herman Frasch applied to patent a new process for eliminating sulfur from “skunk-bearing oils.” The former employee of Standard Oil of New Jersey was quickly rehired by John D. Rockefeller, who owned oilfields near Lima, Ohio, that produced a thick, sulfurous oil.
Standard Oil Company, which had accumulated a 40-million barrel stockpile of the inexpensive, sour “Lima oil,” bought Frasch’s patent for its copper-oxide refining process to “sweeten” the oil.
Herman Frasch (1851-1914), inventor of a key refinery process, later became known as the Sulfur King.
By the early 1890s, the Standard Oil’s giant Whiting oil refinery east of Chicago was producing odorless kerosene from desulfurized oil, making Rockefeller another fortune.
Paid in Standard Oil shares and becoming very wealthy, Frasch moved to Louisiana — where the chemist made yet another fortune. By 1911, he was known as the “Sulfur King” after inventing a method for extracting sulfur from underground deposits by injecting superheated water into wells.
February 22, 1923 – First Carbon Black Factory in Texas
Texas granted its first permit for a carbon black factory to J.W. Hassel & Associates in Stephens County. Scientists had discovered that carbon black greatly increased the durability of rubber used in tires. Produced by the controlled combustion of petroleum products, carbon black could be used in many rubber products.
Early cars like the 1919 Pierce-Arrow had white rubber tires until B.F. Goodrich discovered carbon black improved durability. Photo courtesy Peter Valdes-Dapena.
Automobile tires were white until B.F. Goodrich Company in 1910 discovered that adding carbon black to the vulcanizing process improved strength and durability. An early Goodrich supplier was crayon manufacturer Binney & Smith Company (see Carbon Black and Oilfield Crayons).
February 23, 1906 – Flaming Kansas Gas Well makes Headlines
A small town in southeastern Kansas found itself making headlines when a natural gas well erupted into flames after a lightning strike. The 150-foot burning tower could be seen at night for 35 miles.
Kansas oilfield workers struggled to extinguish this 1906 well at Caney. Photo courtesy Jeff Spencer.
Drilled by the New York Oil and Gas Company, the well became a tourist attraction. Newspapers as far away as Los Angeles regularly updated their readers as technologies of the day struggled to extinguish the highly pressurized well, “which defied the ingenuity of man to subdue its roaring flames.”
A Denver publishing company sold postcards of the blazing Caney well, which took five weeks to smother using a specially designed and fabricated steel hood.
Learn more about Caney’s famed oilfield in Kansas Gas Well Fire.
February 23, 1942 – Japanese Submarine shells California Oil Refinery
Less than three months after the start of World War II, a Japanese submarine attacked a refinery and oilfield near Los Angeles. The shelling caused little damage but created the largest mass sighting of UFOs ever in American history.
A rare Japanese postcard depicting the 1942 shelling of a California oil refinery by Imperial Navy submarine I-17. Image courtesy John Geoghegan.
Imperial Japanese Navy submarine I-17 fired armor-piercing shells at the Bankline Oil Company refinery in Ellwood City, California. The shelling north of Santa Barbara continued for 20 minutes before I-17 escaped into the night. The first Axis attack on the continental United States resulted in UFO sightings, mass hysteria and the “Battle of Los Angeles.”
Learn more in Japanese Sub attacks Oilfield.
February 24, 1938 – First Nylon Bristle Toothbrush
The Weco Products Company of Chicago, Illinois, “Dr. West’s Miracle-Tuft” toothbrush went on sale – the first to use synthetic nylon developed three years earlier by a former Harvard professor working at a DuPont research laboratory in New Jersey.
August 1938 Life magazine advertisement for first nylon bristle toothbrush.
“Until now, all good toothbrushes were made with animal bristles,” noted a 1938 Weco Products advertisement in Life magazine. “Today, Dr. West’s new Miracle-Tuft is a single exception. It is made with EXTON, a unique bristle-like filament developed by the great DuPont laboratories, and produced exclusively for Dr. West’s.”
Guaranteed for “no bristle shedding,” and selling for 50 cents ($10.61 in 2023 dollars), the toothbrush became the first commercial use of the DuPont petroleum product nylon.
February 25, 1897 – “Golden Rule” Jones elected
Samuel Jones, founder of an Ohio oilfield service company and inventor of an improved sucker rod, was elected mayor of Toledo on a progressive Republican ticket. The 40-year veteran of the Pennsylvania oilfields had become known as “Golden Rule” Jones of Ohio after posting the biblical admonition at his newly established Acme Sucker Rod Company in 1892. Jones introduced higher wages, paid vacations and bonuses while advocating the eight-hour workday. Reelected three times, Jones served as Toledo mayor until dying on the job in 1904.
February 25, 1918 – Pawnee Bill’s Oklahoma Oil Companies
As World War I neared its end, Gordon William “Pawnee Bill” Lillie entered the oil business in Yale, Oklahoma. Despite not being as famous as his Wyoming friend Col. William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody, Lillie was a widely known showman and promoter of his state.
Although most are only family keepsakes, some old oil company certificates are valued by collectors.
The Pawnee Bill Oil Company operated a refinery in Yale, leasing 25 railroad tank cars during World War I. When the end of the war reduced demand for refined petroleum products, his company along with many Oklahoma refineries were soon operating at half capacity — or closed.
Although his oil company was still operating in March 1921, Pawnee Bill was forced to shut down his Yale refinery. His friend and fellow western showman Col. William Cody also tried his hand in the oil business. Cody’s Shoshone Oil Company had failed about a decade earlier in Wyoming.
February 25, 1919 – Oregon enacts First Gasoline Tax
Oil was selling for just $2 a barrel when Oregon enacted the one-cent gas tax to be used for road construction and maintenance. It was the first U.S. state to impose a gasoline tax. Less than two months later, Colorado and New Mexico followed Oregon’s example.
A circa 1930s service station owner explains why gas costs 20 cents a gallon in this Library of Congress photo.
By 1930, every state would add a gasoline tax of up to three cents per gallon. Faced with $2.1 billion federal deficit, President Herbert Hoover tacked on another one-cent per gallon federal excise tax in 1932.
According to the American Petroleum Institute (API), total state and federal gasoline taxes in January 2021 averaged 57.09 cents per gallon. The state-imposed tax varied from a low of 33.53 cents per gallon (Alaska) to a highs of 86.55 cents (California), 78 cents (Illinois) and 77.10 cents (Pennsylvania). The federal gasoline tax of 18.4 cents per gallon has not changed since 1993.
February 25, 1926 – Wyatt Earp’s California Oil Wells
A Kern County, California, oil well invested in by former lawman Wyatt Earp began producing 150 barrels of oil a day, confirming his belief in the field five miles north of Bakersfield. As early as 1901, drilling by the Shasta Oil Company had stirred local excitement, but the company went bust after three dry holes. In July 1924, Getty Oil Company began drilling on the Earp lease.
Wyatt Earp, circa 1887.
“Old Property Believed Worthless for Years West of Kern Field Relocated by Old-Timer,” declared the San Francisco Examiner, describing Earp, 75, as the “pioneer mining man of Tombstone.” The newspaper also reported, “Indications are that a great lake of oil lies beneath the surface in this territory.”
Working on his memoirs, Earp turned over management of his oil properties to his sister-in-law, and his wife noted, “I was in hopes they would bring in a two or three hundred barrel well. But I must be satisfied as it could have been a duster, too.”
Learn more in Wyatt Earp’s California Oil Wells.
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Recommended Reading: Petrolia: The Landscape of America’s First Oil Boom (2003); Natural Gas: Fuel for the 21st Century
(2015); Daddy-O’s Book of Big-Ass Art (2020); Herman Frasch — The Sulphur King (2013); The B.F. Goodrich Story Of Creative Enterprise 1870-1952
(2010); Caney, Kansas: The Big Gas City
(1985); The Battle of Los Angeles, 1942: The Mystery Air Raid
(2010); Enough for One Lifetime: Wallace Carothers, Inventor of Nylon (2005); Pawnee Bill: A Biography of Major Gordon W. Lillie
(1958); Black Gold in California: The Story of California Petroleum Industry 
(2016). Your Amazon purchases benefit the American Oil & Gas Historical Society; as an Amazon Associate, AOGHS earns a commission from qualifying purchases.
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The American Oil & Gas Historical Society (AOGHS) preserves U.S. petroleum history. Become an AOGHS annual supporting member and help maintain this energy education website and expand historical research. For more information, contact bawells@aoghs.org. Copyright © 2024 Bruce A. Wells. All rights reserved.
