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Stephanie Kwolek was born in 1923 in New Kensington, Pennsylvania. Her father, who died when she was 10 years old, loved nature. She spent many hours with him exploring the woods and fields near her home and filling scrapbooks with leaves, wildflowers, seeds, grasses, and descriptions of the items she collected. From her mother she inherited a love of fabrics and sewing. At one time she thought she might become a fashion designer, but her mother warned her that she would probably starve in that business because she was such a perfectionist. Later Kwolek became interested in teaching, and then in chemistry and medicine.
When she graduated from the women's college (Margaret Morrison Carnegie College) of Carnegie Mellon University, she applied for a position as a chemist with DuPont. Her job interview was a memorable one. At the end of the interview she was told she would hear from them in about two weeks. Kwolek asked if they could reach a decision sooner because she had to reply shortly to another offer. The interviewer called in his secretary and, in Kwolek's presence, dictated a job offer letter. In later years, reflecting upon her request—a bold one for a woman to make in 1946—Kwolek suspected that her assertiveness influenced the decision in her favor. At DuPont the research she worked on was so interesting and challenging that she decided to drop her plans for medical school and make chemistry a lifetime career.
Kwolek was in her early 40s when she was asked by her supervisors at DuPont to scout for the next generation of fibers that would perform well in extreme conditions. She soon succeeded, and in 1965 created a family of new synthetic fibers of exceptional strength and stiffness, the best-known among them being Kevlar. Kwolek was fascinated by the chemical properties of the liquid solutions that led to the making of Kevlar. They were unlike any polymer solutions previously prepared in the laboratory. They were unusually fluid, like water, and cloudy; and when stirred, they became opalescent. Some of her colleagues were skeptical that these strange solutions could be spun through fine nozzles into thread, but the strong, stiff fibers Kwolek was seeking were obtained with no difficulty. The new solutions Kwolek discovered were called liquid crystalline solutions.
Kwolek has received many awards for her invention of the technology behind Kevlar fiber, including induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1994 as only the fourth woman member of 113. She received the National Medal of Technology in 1996 and the Perkin Medal, presented by the American Section of the Society of Chemical Industry, in 1997. Both honors are rarely awarded to women.
She has served as a mentor for other women scientists and participated in programs that introduce young children to science. One of her papers (“The Nylon Rope Trick,” written with Paul W. Morgan, Journal of Chemical Education, April 1959, 36:182–184) describes how to demonstrate the fundamental process used in making nylon and Kevlar in a classroom setting, and this demonstration is now used in classrooms across the nation.
Adapted from: Bowden, Mary Ellen. Chemical Achievers: The Human Face of the Chemical Sciences. Philadelphia: Chemical Heritage Foundation, 1997.
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