The name Wallace Carothers may not mean much to many people, but the word nylon will. Carothers was a brilliant scientist and inventor who specialised in polymers. He was born on 27th April 1896 in Burlington, Iowa. He attended a private school and was deemed a conscientious student, often found experimenting and demonstrating an interest in all things mechanical.
It is perhaps something of a surprise therefore that after graduating from school he enrolled in the Capital City Commercial College to study accountancy. That is until you realise that Carothers father was Vice-President of the college and exerted pressure on Carothers to follow a commercial based career. In 1915 Carothers joined the Tarkio College in Missouri and was such an accomplished chemist that he was made chemistry instructor even before graduating. By 1920, aged 24, he had a Bachelor of Science degree and went on to study for a Masters degree, which he completed a year later. He began his own research and then completed his Ph.D.
His hard work and research led him to a professorship at Harvard and in 1928 the DuPont chemical company opened a research facility to study man made materials. Carothers was the natural choice to lead the facility. There was limited understanding at the time of chemical polymers and Carothers expertise proved invaluable. His first break through came in 1931 with the invention of Neoprene, followed in 1935 when Dupont patented a new fibre called Nylon. The world had to wait until 1938 for it to become commercially available.
Carothers private life was complicated as he was seeing a married woman, Sylvia Moore, which bought him into deep conflict with his own parents. Moore divorced but Carothers married Helen Sweetman in 1936. Sadly following the death of his sister in 1937, Carothers committed suicide, whilst he was expecting the birth of his first child.
His legacy has helped to change the world with Nylon now a common product. At the time it was described as ‘the miracle fibre’ and little has come along since to change this. Something that we now take for granted in everyday life is the product of a genius chemist who sadly took his own life aged only 41.