Present at the Creation: Joe Labovsky Wove Perseverance and Nylon Fiber Into a Career

Labovsky's basement is a museum to the development of nylon.

Nylon is on many lists of the top 100 inventions of the 20th Century. It is the first truly synthetic fiber. Both its synthesis and its scale up from lab quantity to million-pound production levels showed the way for many other plastic innovations that followed. Thousands of chemical engineers devoted careers to the production of nylon. One of the first was a young immigrant named Joe Labovsky.

Born in Kiev, Ukraine, in 1912, before his native land was taken over by the Bolsheviks after the Russian Revolution, Labovsky and his family emigrated to the U.S. in 1923, where his father found work as a tailor. “In those days, executives wore custom-tailored suits,” Labovsky said, referring to the years between the World Wars. Tailoring the suits of DuPont executives, the senior Labovsky got information that helped son Joe get work at the DuPont Experimental Station, and assigned to Dr. Wallace Carothers’ Research Group as a chemist helper.

In the late 1920s, DuPont lured the now legendary Carothers from Harvard University The negotiations were difficult. Carothers was reluctant to leave a prestigious post at Harvard for a job in industry. American professors had, by this time, a long tradition of keeping business at arm’s length and looking down on industrial work.

DuPont finally closed the deal with a salary of $6,000/yr, and a promise that Carothers would have freedom to pursue his interests. According to Labovsky, Carothers was prone to depression and DuPont agreed that it would make allowances. The 32-yr-old Carothers joined DuPont in Feb. 1928. Labovsky describes Carothers as a kind man who took an interest in him and encouraged him to apply for a DuPont scholarship. Labovsky got the scholarship, went to Pratt Institute, School of Science and Technology, and graduated with a degree in industrial chemical engineering in 1934, just as the Great Depression was nearing its lowest ebb.

Unable to find work in his field and yet undaunted, Labovsky took a two-week temporary job digging a ditch at DuPont Experimental Station. Carothers recognized Labovsky and stopped to chat. The next day, Labovsky had a job as a research technician, back again in Carothers’ Research Group. In the group was Dr. Paul J. Flory, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, 1974. Labovsky ran experiments for Dr. Flory. And so began Labovsky’s 42-yr career at DuPont that would span the creation and scale up of nylon and continue through most of his working life.

Carothers and his team invented nylon in 1935. Shortly after creating the unique polymer, Carothers’ depression became very serious. He died in 1937 at the age of 41. Work on nylon at DuPont Experimental Station continued. Once the research and the experimental stage of the development of nylon were complete, the next step was to design a commercial plant that could produce millions of pounds of nylon fiber at a relatively low cost. DuPont tested prototype machinery in two trial facilities at the Experimental Station, the semi-works beginning in 1936 and the pilot plant in 1938, before full-scale commercial production started in Seaford, DE, in 1939. Labovsky tested many of the methods for producing fibers from lab quantities measured in grams, up through pilot plant and production of millions of pounds.

Labovsky’s basement is a museum of the development of nylon. He gives tours to students and others interested in the development of synthetic fibers and related technology. Labovsky has also donated many pieces of nylon memorabilia to the Chemical Heritage Foundation. His collection includes fiber, test equipment, unprocessed nylon, toothbrushes, fishing line, posters, and the product most closely identified with nylon fiber — women’s stockings.

In tours and public presentations, Labovsky proudly explains how quickly DuPont scaled up production to supply nylon to the U.S. armed forces and their allies in World War II. He says nylon replaced silk in parachutes and canvas for tents. Nylon encased armor plate to make flak jackets and the new nylon-reinforced aircraft tires soon proved to be the only tires able to withstand the loads of takeoff and landing of heavy bombers and high-performance fighter planes. After the war, peacetime production resumed. In addition to nylon stockings, consumers were buying nylon windbreakers, nylon carpet and nylon fishing line. Nylon garments were the first “wash and wear” clothing as well as the first clothes with truly permanent pleats. Before nylon, just about everything people wore had to be ironed.

The plastics revolution began with nylon, and the first synthetic fiber remains an important global product. More than 150 plants around the world produce nylon for markets on every continent and in nearly every country in the world. Labovsky, as tough as the fiber he helped to create, still makes public presentations and writes about nylon as he nears his 93rd year.

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This article was originally published under the title "We're History" in the December 2003 edition of Chemical Engineering Progress magazine. This article was prepared by Neil Gussman, communications manager for the Chemical Heritage Foundation.