Growth Company: Dow Chemical's First Century

by E.N. Brandt

Book Overview

As the focus of protest against a hated war in Vietnam it became one of the best-known company names in America almost overnight during the 1960s. "Dow makes napalm, napalm kills babies," chanted student protesters on hundreds of campuses during that war. "Dow shalt not kill." This feisty company did not back off from making napalm (it was the only U.S. company that did not), and it was soon embroiled in other front-page controversies--Agent Orange,...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0870134264
• ISBN13: 9780870134265
• Release Date: May 1997
• Publisher: Michigan State University Press
• Length: 649 Pages
• Weight: 3.06 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 7.3" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Continued Growth will be a challenge

"Growth Company: Dow Chemical's First Century," by E. N. Brandt, Michigan State University Press, East Lansing, MI, 1997. This 649 page hardback tells the story of Dow Chemical Company from its founding in 1897. Herbert Dow, the founder, was born in Belleville, Ontario Canada, where his father worked as a machinist, and later moved with his employer to Cleveland, OH. He graduated from Cleveland High School and was a member of the third graduating class of the Case School of Applied Science. There he did a senior thesis on the salt brines of Northern Ohio. He soon developed a process to recover bromine from brine. His first company, Canton Chemical failed. He then turned his attention to Midland, MI, where brines contained higher levels of bromine. His financing came from associates in Cleveland. The Dow process apparently required oxidizing bromide in the brine to bromine and then blowing with air. Bleach, calcium hypochlorite, made by chlorinating lime, was the oxidizing agent. Chlorine and caustic soda were produced almost from the beginning by electrolysis of brine. Hence, chlorine and caustic soda were early basic Dow products, but Dow was unique in several ways. It located its facilities near the salt and made its own electricity. It sold caustic soda; chlorine was sold as derivatives. Initially bleach was the main derivative, but later carbon tetrachloride, chloroform, trichloroethylene (industrial degreasing solvent), perchloroethylene (dry cleaning solvent), vinyl chloride monomer, ethylene dichloride, hexachloroethane (Naval smoke screen agent), and chlorinated herbicides/pesticides (2,4-D, Agent Orange, DDT) were added. (Epichlorohydrin, epoxy resins, polycarbonate plastics, and isocyanates also fit in this family of chlorine derivatives.) Prior to World War I, most chemicals in the US were supplied by European, especially German, chemical companies. Dow found its bromine business blocked by bromine cartels. A US cartel was affiliated with the German cartel. The Germans attempted to put Dow out of business by cutting prices in the US. But Dow countered by buying up German product and reselling it in Germany. A similar cartel was encountered in the bleach business. But bleach ended as a business for Dow when Penn Salt of Philadelphia began to ship rail cars of liquid chlorine in 1909. The cost of cylinders was considered prohibitive. Hence, Dow decided to sell other derivatives instead. Calcium chloride, magnesium chloride, and magnesium sulfate (Epsom Salt) followed. During World War I, supplies of many chemicals were caught in the blockade of German ports. Dow and other US companies responded by undertaking production of needed chemicals. Dow made phenol, a raw material for artillery explosives. Dow also helped with mustard gas after the Germans introduced its use as a war gas in 1917. A process was developed reacting sulfur chloride with ethylene. The army ran equipment to make mustard gas at Midland.