The plant was built in a rural region of southern Delaware. According to
Joe Labovsky, some of the operators, though intelligent,
were illiterate. So yarn packages were marked with farm symbols. A package marked with a cow
would be placed with other packages marked with cows, pigs with pigs, haystacks with haystacks,
and so on.
By 1940 stockings made from the new material were on the market. DuPont had agonized over what
to call the new fiber. "Norun" was one suggestion. But nylon stockings weren't completely
run-proof. They were better than silk stockings, but they still could run. It was thought that
spelling it backward might be a good idea, but "nuron" was too similar "neuron," which would
make the product sound like a nerve tonic of some sort. "Nulon"
was then suggested, then "nilon." The spelling was changed to "nylon" because "nilon" could
be pronounced in different ways, but "nylon" was less ambiguous. Thus "nylon" was chosen from
over 300 suggested names.
Rather than tradmarking the name nylon, DuPont allowed it to become a generic term. There
was no generic term for synthetic
polyamide
polyamide fibers, since they had never existed before. DuPont figured that "nylon"
would become the generic term whether they liked it or not. Like cellophane before it, and
like the Owens Corning's Fiberglas¨ and Dow Chemical's Styrofoam¨
in later years, the name "nylon" would have been difficult to keep proprietary.
The first nylon stockings, known simply as "nylons" were sold only in Wilmington, Delaware on 27
October 1939.
They sold out within hours. When sales went nationwide on 15 May 1940, it was still impossible
to keep up with demand. By 1942, wartime demand for nylon would make nylon stockings impossible
to get. All the nylon DuPont could produce was requisitioned by the U.S. government for
military use. The armed forces used nylon for parachutes, tents, boot laces, and tire cords for
aircraft and heavy truck tires. But after the war nylon products became easily available and
came to pervade all aspects of everyday life. Nylon also became the cornerstone of DuPont's
profitability.
2. Labovsky, Joseph. Oral history by John K. Smith, 24 July 1996. Philadelphia: Chemical
Heritage Foundation.
Once most of the "bugs" had been worked out in the nylon process, commercial production could
begin. The first commercial nylon plant went online in December of 1939 in Seaford, Delaware.
This was the climax of thirteen years of effort. Inventing nylon had taken eight years of
research, from 1928 when "Purity Hall" had been established until the invention of nylon 6-6 in
1935. Developing a process to produce nylon consumed nearly five more years, from the
beginning of 1935 until the end of 1939.
References
1. Hermes, Matthew. Enough for One Lifetime: Wallace Carothers, Inventor of Nylon.
Washington, D.C.: American Chemical Society; Philadelphia: Chemical Heritage Foundation, 1996.