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Review

Reviewed Work(s): Nylon: The Story of a Fashion Revolution by Susannah Handley

Review by: Robert W. Rydell

Source: The Business History Review , Spring, 2001, Vol. 75, No. 1, Computers and Communications Networks (Spring, 2001), pp. 210-212

Published by: The President and Fellows of Harvard College

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3116573

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Book Reviews / 210 Book Reviews / 210

technological choice generally. Here he provides a useful analysis of California's 1990 legislation, creating a mass market for so-called zero- emission vehicles, as well as automobile makers' varied responses. Fi- nally, Kirsch frames several policy insights, responding to the general concern that technological "lock in" can occur prematurely and freeze out promising designs. Perhaps Kirsch's sensible consideration of a "failed" technology will upend the truism that influential policy is de- rived only from "successful" technologies.

Thomas J. Misa is associate professor of history at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. His book, A Nation of Steel: The Making of Moder America, 1865-1925 (1995) was awarded the Society for the History of Technology's Dexter Prize. He is presently finishing a wide- ranging interpretation of technology and social and cultural change since the Renaissance.

Nylon: The Story of a Fashion Revolution. By Susannah Handley. Bal- timore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. 192 pp. Photographs, notes, bibliography, index. Cloth, $29.95. ISBN 0-801-86325-2.

Reviewed by Robert W. Rydell

During the twentieth century, according to Susannah Handley, a "silent synthetic revolution" occurred that transformed social and economic relations around the world. At the cutting edge of this revolution was nylon, a synthetic substance that the Du Pont Company took eleven years to research and develop before exhibiting it at the 1939 San Francisco and New York world's fairs. Nylon, Handley tells us, was im- portant because it allowed the company to polish up the tarnished rep- utation it had acquired as a "merchant of death," following its shady munitions dealings during the First World War. The new fabric also profoundly altered the way people represented themselves through fashion.

How did nylon weave its way into the fiber of global cultures? The story begins with long-standing efforts by European merchants to break the Chinese silk-production monopoly. By the early nineteenth century, chemists were becoming convinced that a quasi-synthetic sub- stitute could be produced. By the close of the century, these dreams had become reality. In 1904, the English firm Samuel Courtauld and Co. gained exclusive rights to the "viscose" process of producing artificial silk. Then, in 1910, the Du Pont Company in the United

technological choice generally. Here he provides a useful analysis of California's 1990 legislation, creating a mass market for so-called zero- emission vehicles, as well as automobile makers' varied responses. Fi- nally, Kirsch frames several policy insights, responding to the general concern that technological "lock in" can occur prematurely and freeze out promising designs. Perhaps Kirsch's sensible consideration of a "failed" technology will upend the truism that influential policy is de- rived only from "successful" technologies.

Thomas J. Misa is associate professor of history at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. His book, A Nation of Steel: The Making of Moder America, 1865-1925 (1995) was awarded the Society for the History of Technology's Dexter Prize. He is presently finishing a wide- ranging interpretation of technology and social and cultural change since the Renaissance.

Nylon: The Story of a Fashion Revolution. By Susannah Handley. Bal- timore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. 192 pp. Photographs, notes, bibliography, index. Cloth, $29.95. ISBN 0-801-86325-2.

Reviewed by Robert W. Rydell

During the twentieth century, according to Susannah Handley, a "silent synthetic revolution" occurred that transformed social and economic relations around the world. At the cutting edge of this revolution was nylon, a synthetic substance that the Du Pont Company took eleven years to research and develop before exhibiting it at the 1939 San Francisco and New York world's fairs. Nylon, Handley tells us, was im- portant because it allowed the company to polish up the tarnished rep- utation it had acquired as a "merchant of death," following its shady munitions dealings during the First World War. The new fabric also profoundly altered the way people represented themselves through fashion.

How did nylon weave its way into the fiber of global cultures? The story begins with long-standing efforts by European merchants to break the Chinese silk-production monopoly. By the early nineteenth century, chemists were becoming convinced that a quasi-synthetic sub- stitute could be produced. By the close of the century, these dreams had become reality. In 1904, the English firm Samuel Courtauld and Co. gained exclusive rights to the "viscose" process of producing artificial silk. Then, in 1910, the Du Pont Company in the United

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All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Book Reviews / 211

States began devoting its considerable resources to improving the Cor- tauld product. Fifteen years later, Du Pont coined the name "rayon" for its product and began to expand the markets for its array of under- garments and clothing accessories to the masses of ordinary Americans.

Although it was an important step toward "the promised chemical- clothes utopia" (p. 28), rayon, at base, still depended upon chemically reconstituted organic matter for its production. The final step toward synthetics manufactured by humans occurred in the pure science divi- sion of Du Pont. First established in 1924 by Charles Stine, Du Pont's chemical director, the pure science division acquired the talents of Wallace Hume Carothers from Harvard. With a small fortune in unre-

stricted, in-house research dollars at his disposal, Carothers' lab first produced a synthetic fiber in 1934. Three years later, Du Pont filed for a patent. The timing, as Handley makes clear, was perfect.

At the time of this synthetic fiber's discovery, the popular press was heaping scorn on Du Pont and other munitions makers, calling them "merchants of death." Fearing a public relations disaster, Du Pont turned to advertising impresario Bruce Barton for advice. Barton's company came up with a new slogan for Du Pont, "Better Things for Better Living ... Through Chemistry," and encouraged Du Pont to spend $650,000 to clean up its sullied public image. The scheme they concocted was brilliant. Armed with Carothers' discovery, Du Pont de- clared war on imported silk, promising American women indepen- dence from foreign, primarily Japanese, producers. Du Pont launched a two-pronged attack. First, the company worked to coin a catchy name for its product, jettisoning some 400 suggestions before settling on "ny- lon." Second, they began to promote it in the context of futuristic vi- sions of a technological and scientific utopia that animated the world's fairs of the 1930s. Their efforts paid off. On May 15, 1940, or "N-Day," nylon stockings were distributed to national retailers, and 780,000 pairs were sold over the course of one day. The nylon revolution had arrived.

Over the next three decades, synthetic fabrics became a mainstay of American culture. Equally important, as Handley's fine account makes clear, was the upward mobility of synthetics, as they rose from the lowly status of material for undergarments to the heights of Pari- sian couture. Even more impressive is the author's account of how this utopian fabric simply fell out of fashion by the close of the 1970s, as a "back-to-nature" movement generated a backlash, sending the postwar synthetics industry into a tailspin from which it is only just beginning to recover. What about the future of synthetics? Handley concludes her book with a revealing investigation of the pioneering research, initiated

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Book Reviews / 212 Book Reviews / 212

by Japanese industrialists and fashion designers, into microfibers, which are already propelling people around the world to buy "smart clothes." Among the advantages of this new category is their capacity to ward off harmful magnetic fields and offer protection from microbial infections.

These projected changes in fashion, Handley argues, and I agree, are not terribly far-fetched, especially in a world that values technolog- ical and scientific solutions to problems that are often political and eco- nomic. Handley concludes with this observation: "the sickness of the twentieth century is the deadening uniformity of things, the spreading

homogeneity and the shrinking choice that has accompanied global mass production" (p. 181). She is pretty much on target, but I would maintain that the sickness to which she refers is of a second-order vari-

ety. The real sickness is not so much the "deadening uniformity of things," but the political economy that nurtures their production and consumption. On this count, Handley's otherwise fine book falls short, especially as she shifts her analysis toward synthetic fashions at the end of the twentieth century. What political and economic forces are driv- ing the resurgence of synthetics? What about the social and political spaces occupied by fashion models and the fashion industry? These criticisms notwithstanding, Handley has produced an impressive book that deserves a wide audience among business and cultural historians.

Robert W Rydell is professor of history at Montana State University- Bozeman. He has written many books and articles about world's fairs, including Fair America: World's Fairs in the United States (2000), which he coauthored with John E. Findling and Kimberly D. Pelle.

Henry Rand Hatfield: Humanist, Scholar, and Accounting Educator. By Stephen A. Zeff. Stamford, Conn.: JAI Press, 2000. Cloth, $89.00. ISBN 0-762-30622-X.

Reviewed by Richard Vangermeersch

Accounting is a field of numbers, not of names, and accounting text- books may leave students with the impression that the field has devel- oped without the intervention of individuals. Few accountants are fa- miliar with Henry Rand Hatfield, a leading accounting scholar in the United States during the first forty years of the twentieth century. Stephen A. Zeff took up the challenge of critiquing the life and writings of a man whose name would be recognized by very few Americans.

by Japanese industrialists and fashion designers, into microfibers, which are already propelling people around the world to buy "smart clothes." Among the advantages of this new category is their capacity to ward off harmful magnetic fields and offer protection from microbial infections.

These projected changes in fashion, Handley argues, and I agree, are not terribly far-fetched, especially in a world that values technolog- ical and scientific solutions to problems that are often political and eco- nomic. Handley concludes with this observation: "the sickness of the twentieth century is the deadening uniformity of things, the spreading

homogeneity and the shrinking choice that has accompanied global mass production" (p. 181). She is pretty much on target, but I would maintain that the sickness to which she refers is of a second-order vari-

ety. The real sickness is not so much the "deadening uniformity of things," but the political economy that nurtures their production and consumption. On this count, Handley's otherwise fine book falls short, especially as she shifts her analysis toward synthetic fashions at the end of the twentieth century. What political and economic forces are driv- ing the resurgence of synthetics? What about the social and political spaces occupied by fashion models and the fashion industry? These criticisms notwithstanding, Handley has produced an impressive book that deserves a wide audience among business and cultural historians.

Robert W Rydell is professor of history at Montana State University- Bozeman. He has written many books and articles about world's fairs, including Fair America: World's Fairs in the United States (2000), which he coauthored with John E. Findling and Kimberly D. Pelle.

Henry Rand Hatfield: Humanist, Scholar, and Accounting Educator. By Stephen A. Zeff. Stamford, Conn.: JAI Press, 2000. Cloth, $89.00. ISBN 0-762-30622-X.

Reviewed by Richard Vangermeersch

Accounting is a field of numbers, not of names, and accounting text- books may leave students with the impression that the field has devel- oped without the intervention of individuals. Few accountants are fa- miliar with Henry Rand Hatfield, a leading accounting scholar in the United States during the first forty years of the twentieth century. Stephen A. Zeff took up the challenge of critiquing the life and writings of a man whose name would be recognized by very few Americans.

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