Chemical industries: Nineteenth Century Industries
Chemical industries: The Path to Market Dominance
Throughout the nineteenth century, the United States was a predominantly agricultural society, and chemical businesses, which manufactured the mostneeded acids and alkalis, were largely family-type establishments. Some firms began to manufacture chemical fertilizers to supplement materials derived from such nitrogenous wastes as manures, compost, fish meal, and guano. During the American Industrial Revolution of the first half of the nineteenth century, some industries, such as iron and steel, became large and prosperous, but many scholars have restricted the scope of chemical industries by separating them from the steel and petroleum industries.
Scholars, engineers, and businessmen have distinguished two chief categories of chemical industries. In heavy chemical industries, such inorganic chemicals as sodium carbonate and sulfuric acid are produced in great amounts in large factories, whereas in light chemical industries, such organic chemicals as dyes and pharmaceuticals are produced in modest factories with specialized equipment. The origin and development of both types of chemical industries were mainly European. For example, the Leblanc process for manufacturing sodium carbonate was developed in France, and the production of such sophisticated chemicals as dyes and drugs took place mostly in Germany.
Despite reliance on Europeans for standard as well as new processes and chemicals, some Americans attempted to found new chemical businesses, with mixed results. For example, after Charles Goodyear patented vulcanization in 1844, he tried to establish rubber industries in the United States and Europe, but his failures left his widow with gigantic debts. On the other hand, Charles Pfizer founded a Brooklyn company in 1849 that pioneered fermentation techniques in the manufacture of organic acids, which led to successes in the production of pharmaceuticals and varnish resins.
The U.S. Civil War stimulated the expansion of certain chemical industries in the North, and this growth continued after the war. For example, in 1867 Graselli Chemical constructed a sulfuric acid plant in Cleveland, near a Rockefeller refinery whose patronage led to success great enough to foster expansion to several states in the Midwest, East, and South. During the 1890’s, General Chemical Company, which later became part of the Allied Chemical Corporation, also had success in the manufacture of sulfuric acid, a bulk chemical that has often been characterized as a significant indicator of a country’s technological progress.
