Wallace Hume Carothers

Nylon, the fiber that replaced silk in American stockings, came out of a DuPont laboratory led by Wallace Hume Carothers (1896-1937), an organic chemist from Burlington, Iowa. On 28 February 1935 his colleague Gerard Berchet, working under his supervision, made polyamide 6-6, the polymer DuPont sold as nylon.

Tarkio, Urbana and Harvard

Carothers took his first degree at Tarkio College in Missouri and then went to the University of Illinois, where he earned an MA in 1921 and a PhD in 1924 under Roger Adams. He taught organic chemistry at the University of South Dakota and at Harvard before leaving teaching for industry.

The Experimental Station, 1928

In 1928 DuPont hired him to lead fundamental research on polymers at its Experimental Station in Wilmington, Delaware. The brief was research for its own sake, long chain molecules built from repeating units, without a product in mind.

It produced results quickly. In 1930 Arnold Collins, working in his group, isolated chloroprene, the basis of neoprene, the first synthetic rubber. Carothers's patents from 1935 to 1937 covered polyesters and linear condensation polymers, the families of fiber that much modern lingerie is made from.

Wallace Carothers and polyamide 6-6

Nylon was the group's breakthrough. Berchet's polyamide of February 1935 could be drawn into a fiber that was strong, elastic and cheap to make from chemical feedstocks. In April 1936 Carothers became the first industrial organic chemist elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

He did not see the product. Carothers died in Philadelphia on 29 April 1937, more than a year before DuPont announced nylon on 27 October 1938, describing it as the first man-made organic textile fiber, derived from coal, water and air.

From the lab to the stocking counter

DuPont went straight for hosiery. Nylon stockings were shown at the 1939 New York World's Fair. On 24 October 1939 the first 4,000 pairs went on sale in Wilmington and sold out within three hours. National sales began on 15 May 1940, and 64 million pairs were sold that year.

An older version of this page said five million pairs sold on the first day. No source checked supports that figure, and it has been replaced with the ones above.

War and the nylon riots

From 11 February 1942 nylon production went to the military, for parachutes, tents and other supplies, and stockings disappeared from shops. When they came back, demand overwhelmed supply. In the nylon riots of 1945 and 1946, an estimated 40,000 people lined up in Pittsburgh for 13,000 pairs.

In the lingerie drawer

Nylon went on to replace silk in much more than stockings. Most microfiber and mesh lingerie fabrics today are knitted from nylon or polyester, often blended with elastane. Both polymer families trace back to the research program Carothers ran in Wilmington in the early 1930s.

Last updated October 7, 2026