Chapter XVIII The Influence of the War Upon the Dyestuff Industry
In Chapter II of this book it has been explained how the dyeing industry of the whole world was changed by the discovery and commercial preparation of the first aniline dyestuff, mauveine, in 1856, by the English chemist Perkin. Under his leadership the supremacy in this new industry was kept in England; but when he retired from the field the manufacture of dyestuffs was soon concentrated in Germany. For over forty years before the beginning of the Great War, the Germans had almost complete and absolute control over the whole color business, including many allied industries like the manufacture of organic chemicals, drugs, perfumes, flavoring matters and the like, derived originally from coal tar. In Germany were four or five great and splendidly equipped factories, and some ten or fifteen others of less importance, all thoroughly organized and working together most harmoniously under what would, in the United States, be called a most perfect specimen of a Trust. Opposed to them all over the world there could be found but a handful of comparatively small and unimportant firms in Switzerland, France, England and the United States—producing altogether not over about ten per cent of the output of their German competitors.
Compared to other industries the output of dyestuffs needed for the whole world’s consumption is not a very large one—some sixty or seventy million dollars a year all told; and it was freely boasted, and more or less accepted by the rest of the world, that “the dyestuff industry is a one-nation industry, and that nation is Germany!”
Rise of the German Dyestuff Monopoly.—The story of how this came about was once told the writer by Sir William Perkin, when he was in New York, in 1896, at the time of the “Coal Tar Color Jubilee,” the fiftieth anniversary of his famous discovery.
He said that in the early days, when he was running his plant near Manchester, the most dangerous competitors he had to face were the French. He described them as excellent chemists and keen, but fair-fighting business men; and the Germans, in those days, were far inferior to them in every way—in ability, in originality, and, above all, in honesty.
He went so far as to say that, for years before he left the business, he and other English chemists had entirely abandoned attempts to patent their discoveries in Berlin. He had found, by sad experience, that whenever he sent over an application for a patent on a new dyestuff, or new chemical compound of importance, the German Patent Office would at once call in, for consultation, the leading German chemists who were interested in that line of work. He would get request after request for more and more detailed information about every part of the process; and then, when they had got from him every bit of information that they could, they would grant the patent to some one of his German competitors, who, in many cases at least, had never even dreamed of the thing, until Perkin had sent his application to Berlin. In fact, he said the English and French chemists considered them as rank, bare-faced pirates, and none too successful pirates at that.
Two Germans however, in 1869, did work out the composition of alizarine, the dyestuff of madder, and published their discovery in the chemical journals. But while they discovered and patented one method for preparing this Alizarine from coal tar on a commercial scale, Perkin in England, and some dyestuff chemists in France discovered other methods equally good or perhaps better for producing the same identical color at less expense. So they still kept well ahead of the Germans even in that.
Soon after this, in 1870, the Franco-Prussian war broke out. At once the French and German factories closed, at any rate for any foreign trade, and as the cultivation of madder had by that time been abandoned, Perkin found that all the Turkey red for the whole Eastern market must be dyed with his Manchester alizarine. Orders came pouring in, and in order to keep up with the demand, it would be necessary for him to greatly increase the size of his plant, and to put back into it all his savings of the past fourteen or fifteen very profitable years.
This, he told me, he was unwilling to do. But, just at that moment, he was approached by a firm of Manchester business men, who had been supplying his works with some of the raw materials from coal tar (crudes and intermediates as they call them now), with an offer to buy his works and his interest in the business. He was perfectly frank and open with them, showed them his books, his profits for the past few years, his present orders and the rest, and after a little bargaining he sold out to them for a very fair price, which he immediately invested in the best of securities and on which he lived in comfort for the rest of his long and extremely happy life.
Ruin of the English Dyestuff Industry.—As soon as they had gained possession of his factory, the Manchester people began to pass word around among their friends, that they were going to show the whole world how to run a chemical industry. Perkin, they agreed, was indeed a clever fellow in his way, and undoubtedly a good chemist, but he was nobusiness man. They were going to run those works on good, practical, common-sense business lines, and they and their few friends whom they allowed to join them, boasted loudly and deeply of their expected profits. Their motto was the well-established one “Manufacture cheap and sell dear”—and they proceeded to follow it implicitly.
They went over all the details of the business with the greatest care, and soon found what seemed to them a willful piece of extravagance. Perkin himself, and three or four other chemists, were drawing salaries, not for the actual making of the dyestuffs but forexperimental purposes, and they had quite an expensive laboratory used for that purpose alone!
Of course this was at once eliminated—and great was their satisfaction when they found that they had thereby cut down the price of making their dyes two or three cents a pound.
Then it came to the “selling dear” part of it. Perkin told me that the last few years that he ran his factory, he kept the price of his dyestuffs at a reasonable figure, so that, indeed, he would get a good profit from them, but that, on the other hand, it would be no easy matter for competitors to break into his field with success. His alizarine, in particular, he had kept at a price just below what it would pay to grow madder in opposition to it, and he had not raised the price to any great extent since the war had given him a monopoly. These Manchester people, however, fully recognized that they were the only manufacturers of alizarine, anywhere, and were over-flooded with orders—so they instantly jumped up the price of their alizarine to four or five times its former figures.
Barely had they completed their “business” reorganization of the plant when the war came to an end, and the Germans marched back to their own country, with “five milliards” of French money, full of self-confidence (to use a very mild term) and looking around for new fields to conquer in peace, now that they had won all that they could at that time by war. Instantly every German with any knowledge of the textile or dyestuff industries turned his eyes at once in that direction. “What! Alizarine at five dollars a pound instead of a dollar; why, any fool can make a profit on colors at that price!” And immediately, in different parts of the country, factory after factory was started, each one centered around some first-class chemist, of national if not international reputation, with instructions to gather around himself a staff of the most brilliant and best trained organic chemists he could find, to be used first of all in experimental and investigating work as well as for the mere preparation of dyestuffs.
As a result, in a very short time, these new German firms were supplying alizarine and other dyestuffs to the Manchester Turkey red manufacturers at lower prices than they could be made for in Perkin’s old factory in the immediate neighborhood; and, before the end of the year, those clever business men were complaining bitterly to Perkin that he had cheated them in the sale of his works, and were wanting him to give them their money back, which, as the old gentleman told me with a chuckle, he very positively and decidedly refused to do.
From that time until the beginning of the Great War the great English textile industry, with its enormous trade all over the world, was obliged to buy practically all its dyestuffs from Germany.
Dyestuff Industry in the United States.—The manufacture of dyestuffs in this country was a little better than in England, because of the tariff protection granted it by the Government for many years. Four or five factories of very moderate size kept up a rather precarious existence, because their chief raw materials, the so-called “intermediates,” organic chemicals made from coal tar and from which the principal products, dyes, drugs, perfumes and the like are made in turn, all had to be imported from Europe, and, in most cases, from their German rivals who naturally kept a tight rein upon the quantity and quality of their output.
In 1913 even this industry was destroyed by the abolition of the duties on dyestuffs in the new tariff, thanks to the pressure for free raw materials brought by the great textile industries, probably at the instigation of the foreign color houses.
Changed Conditions Due to the War.—Since 1914 this whole situation has been radically and completely changed all over the world. Appreciating the great danger to their textile trades from the lack of dyestuffs, and also the vast military importance of a large and highly developed coal tar products industry, for the manufacture of high explosives, smokeless powder and the like, nation after nation has given government assistance not only in the line of money, but also with patent legislation and new tariff. England with its British Dye Works, Ltd., France with the St. Denis Works, now greatly enlarged and strengthened, Italy, Japan, all have made arrangements for supplying their trade with home-made dyestuffs, of excellent quality, not only during but after the temporary disturbance due to the actual fighting.
In the United States there soon were made many more or less independent and spasmodic efforts to supply at least the principal and most generally used colors, notably the Basic dyes, Methylene Blue, Methyl Violet and the like, so much used in calico printing, silk and wool dyeing, leather and other lines, and the simpler Sulphur colors, like Sulphur Black, Blues, and Browns. These were selling, before the end of 1914, at comparatively huge prices, and until the peace will probably still command from five to ten times their usual values.
But out of these scores of generally quite small and isolated factories, there have sprung, by the fourth year of hostilities, a few large, well equipped and fully financed organizations which will be able, within a very short time, indeed probably before these lines appear in print, to fully provide this country with the main standard dyes, quite as good in every respect as the same dyes made by the best German color houses. And, unless very adverse tariff legislation should be introduced, they should be in a position, after the close of the war, to hold their trade against any foreign competition. It will, of course, take several years before they can supply in this country the very finest special dyestuffs, of which but small quantities are ever needed or used, and which in most cases are fully protected by patents, as well as by secret methods of manufacture. But, with the exception of the vat colors, of which artificial Indigo and the closely allied Brom-indigo are at present the only ones made in this country, the dyeing trade will be, in a short time, well supplied with excellent standard colors “made in America.”
The three important American dyestuff houses already started with the addresses of their New York offices are as follows:—
American—American Aniline Products. Inc.,
80 Fifth Avenue.
Marden—Marden, Orth and Hastings,
61 Broadway.
National—National Aniline and Chemical Co.,
244 Madison Avenue.
And also, soon to engage in the manufacture of dyestuffs on a large scale:—
The Dupont de Nemours Chemical Co.,
of Wilmington, Del.
Lists of the Best Dyestuffs, in the Different Classes, Made Thus Far by the American Manufacturers
At the present moment, November, 1917, but few of the home-made colors are as fast to light as the specially selected dyes of the great German houses, listed on pages 66, 89, 103 and 127. Those in the following lists are the best made at present, in the United States, and will be steadily improved upon as time goes on.
Direct Cotton or Salt Dyes.—
| American— | Benzo Fast Yellow, A |
| Direct Sky Blue | |
| Marden— | Stilbene Yellow |
| Direct Blue | |
| Direct Brown | |
| National— | Delta Red, 2 B |
| Niagara Fast Yellow, F | |
| Niagara Blue, 2 B | |
| Erie Black, G X OO |
Sulphur Colors.—
| Marden— | Sulphur Black |
| Sulphur Brown | |
| National— | Sulphur Brown, W F |
| Sulphur Yellow, B W | |
| Sulphur Direct Navy Blue | |
| Sulphur Black, F conc. |
Vat Colors.—
| Dibrom Indigo, powder and paste | |
| Synthetic Indigo, 20% paste |
Made by the Dow Chemical Company of Midland, Michigan. New York Agents, Geisenheimer & Co., 134 Cedar Street.
Synthetic Indigo and Sodium hydrosulphite can also be obtained from Klipstein, 634 Greenwich Street, New York.
Basic Colors.—
Many of these such as Methylene Blue, Methyl Violet, Phosphine, Bismarck Brown and others, including leather Black, are being made by American, Marden and National, as well as by many firms that so far have not gone into the general color business. One of the most important of these last, who, besides the above, make a brilliant basic Green, called by them Methylene Green, is the Meth-O-Lene Co., Inc., 81-83 Fulton Street, New York.
Auramine, at present, can best be obtained from Klipstein. Nigrosine soluble in water, in jet black and bluish shades, is made by Marden, Meth-O-Lene and other firms, and is largely used for dyeing leather fast brilliant shades of black.
Acid Colors.—
| American— | Fast Yellow, H Ex. |
| Brilliant Blue, conc. | |
| Cloth Red, H | |
| Acid Black, L conc. | |
| Marden— | Metanril Yellow |
| Orange, No. 2 | |
| Fast Acid Red | |
| Croceine Scarlet | |
| National— | Azo Yellow, A S W |
| Scarlet, B R | |
| Acid Black, 4 A B |
Also Tartrazine, a fast acid yellow much used for wool, not for silk.
Special Note
Further information concerning dyestuffs, apparatus, textiles, chemicals, etc., connected with this work, may be obtained on writing to the author at 7 West 43rd Street, New York.