Agriculture Department Insecticide Division

Insecticide Division, Livestock Branch, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C. 

When Congress created the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) by statute in 1862, the Agricultural Division of the Patent Office, and its chemical laboratory, were transferred to form the nucleus of the new department. A Chemical Division was immediately formed within USDA. This became the Division of Chemistry in 1890, the Bureau of Chemistry in 1901, the Food, Drug and Insecticide Administration in 1927 and the FDA in 1930. ... 

After the war Hercules returned to the production of commercial explosives as well as military propellants and continued to build on its cellulose and naval stores capabilities. In 1958 its explosives department created a chemical propulsion division to develop propellants for missiles and space vehicles. In 1959 it received contracts from the U.S. Air Force to develop new solid-fuel rocket motors and subsequently produced the motor for the third stage of the nation s first solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), the Minuteman. Hercules played an even larger role in the development of the Navy s submarine-launched Polaris ICBM. With cellulose came new specialties, including synthetic resins and paper chemicals, as well as carboxymethylcellulose (CMC), an intermediate used in the production of foods, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetics. From naval stores came other new specialty chemicals and an effective insecticide, toxaphene, and other agricultural chemicals.3... 

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