Inventor Name
Labovsky, Joseph X.
Repository
Chemical Heritage Foundation
Othmer Library
315 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106
215-873-8265
http://othmerlib.chemheritage.org
Physical Description
1.5 linear feet
Summary
Joseph Labovsky was born in Kiev, Ukraine in 1912 and emigrated with his family to the United States in 1923 to escape the ongoing chaos of the communist revolution and civil war. His father was a tailor and counted the Du Pont family among his clients. When Labovsky graduated high school in 1930 the depression was at its height, and his father asked his influential clients if there were jobs at the DuPont company. So Labovsky was sent to work as a chemist helper to Wallace Carothers at the Experimental Station. Carothers helped Labovsky to go to college. Again the DuPont family stepped in, and Lammot Du Pont paid for his education. He studied industrial chemical engineering at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. Box I. Notebook Contents: “Only in America,” Working with “Purity Hall” Scientists, Letters, Nylon Goes to War, Nylon Semi-Works and Pilot Plant, Mrs. Helen S. Carothers and daughter Jane Wylen, The Seaford Nylon Plant, The Martinsville Plant and my “A” Bonus, Nylon Safety (Cross reference to Box 3: Folder 4), Nylon Quality, Employee Relations, Chestnut Run and NP-! (Tyvek?), Disa Geneva, My Nylon Museum and How Nylon Got Its Name, Dr. Carothers’ Centennial Symposium, Nylon Documentaries, “DuPont Ambassador at Large,” Epilogue. Box II. Notebooks 1. Photographs: 1946 – April 9, 19472. History of Nylon: Process, Machinery, etc., 1930-1938 Box III. Correspondence and Ephemera 1. Correspondence, 1949-19972. Talk notes, articles, clippings.3. Corrections for ACS brochure “The First Nylon Plant,” Article “The Technical Division of the Rayon Department, 1920-1951,” Nylon: The First 25 Years”4. DuPont Safety Standards (cross reference to Box 1: Notebook, Chapter 9).5. Award of Individual Production Merit, 5 October 1942. Box IV. Artifacts I 1. 1936, Fiber “66” Test Hose. Gift of Joseph X. Labovsky.2. 2 Weartest nylon panties, 1938. Given to Joseph X. Labovsky by Mrs. Josephine B. Osborne.3. Fiber 6 Brassiere. Weartest, 1937. Gift of Joseph X. Labovsky.4. Nylon Hose. 15 D. Monofil. 5/15/1939. Gift of Joseph X. Labovsky.
Finding Aid
http://othmerlib.chemheritage.org/search/?searchtype=a&searcharg=labovsky&searchscope=5
