182 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1940 



NEW INDUSTRIES AND NEW JOBS 



This new industry for organic chemicals manufacture has not only 

 provided jobs directly for thousands of workers, but also has indi- 

 rectly opened up countless additional thousands of new jobs by pro- 

 viding the chemicals which have contributed to the development of 

 new industries. As we have seen, these chemical raw materials, as 

 it were, have been supplied at steadily reduced prices. The dyestuiFs, 

 pharmaceuticals, and plastics industries might be cited by way of 

 illustration. To be sure we have made some products in these classi- 

 fications for many years, but in a larger sense they represent new 

 industries. 



Plastics of the nitrocellulose type were, of course, made by Hyatt 

 in 1869, but how could our modern plastics industry operate with- 

 out a plentiful supply of such organic chemicals as the acetic acid 

 used in the manufacture of cellulose acetate plastics; synthetic 

 camphor, used in the manufacture of nitrocellulose plastics and mo- 

 tion picture film; and the phenol, formaldehyde, and urea used in 

 a variety of well-known and widely used plastics? 



The importance of camphor is indicated by the fact that more than 

 a half -million pounds is used each year in motion picture film alone. 

 As you doubtless know, camphor was the instrument of a foreign 

 monopoly 25 years ago, but in recent years American chemists have 

 shown that camphor chemically identical with that from the cam- 

 phor trees of Formosa can be economically made from pinene, de- 

 rived from southern turpentine. Today, the du Pont Company is 

 making more than half of the total domestic consumption of this 

 important product, and in an emergency additional plant equipment 

 could be installed to provide our entire needs. As recently as 1920, 

 refined imported natural camphor reached $3.55 a pound. In con- 

 trast, refined synthetic camphor is selling for around 48 cents a pound, 

 while the technical grade used in plastics and photographic Qlra 

 sells for only about 35 cents a pound. 



Likewise imported urea cost in 1920 about 57 cents a pound, cor- 

 responding to over $1,100 a ton.^* Today urea of equal or better 

 quality, made at Belle, W. Va., from carbon dioxide and ammonia, 

 sells for $95 a ton. Practically all of the urea now consumed in 

 this country comes from this domestic source of supply. 



In addition, the organic chemical industry has brought out ma- 

 terials not hitherto commercially available, which have found appli- 

 cation in wholly new types of plastics. I shall cite only one 

 illustration — namely, methacrylic acid, on which are based such 

 products as the new sparkling "Lucite" method methacrylate plastic 



"Oil, Paint, and Drug Reporter, Febmary 26, 1931, p. 50. 



