From Coal Tar To Crafting A Wealth Of Diversity

Abstract

Ahistory of chemical enterprise over 75-year period from 1923 I to 1998 doesn't begin with a single cataclysmic event or birth of a specific company. Nor does it progress to a satisfying, tie-up-the-loose-ends conclusion. Actually, this history can have no beginning, because story of modern chemistry begins with Joseph Priestley, 18thcentury discoverer of oxygen, and his contemporary, Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier, who devised modern method of chemical nomenclature. And this history cannot have an end, because chemical enterprise is still vital and growing. That said, it is obvious that chemical enterprise has become a vasdy more complex undertaking than it was in 1923, when the chemical was a handful of companies that made organic compounds and marketed them to users such as textile makers, pharmaceutical manufacturers, and explosives producers. A chronicle of events and people who made industry what it is today, and of people who ...