Calco Chemical Company

King returned to the United States in 1915 and went to work with Thomas A. Edison. When our country entered World War I, he was asked by Bernard Baruch and Charles McDowell to act as chief of the dyes and intermediates section of the War Industries Board. Through this work he became associated with the Calco Chemical Company, where I came to know him. King was closer to the development and manufacture of dyes and intermediates than was Herty. However, they were two valiant knights who fought lustily to protect and develop the American dye industry. 

FIGURE 17. Advertisement for Calco Chemical Company, Bound Brook, New Jersey, 1925. Edel-stein Collection... 

In 1933, the Calco Chemical Company began the manufacture of 97 by reacting aniline, carbon disulfide and sulfur together at elevated pressure (Scheme 31), and late in 1936 introduced mercaptobenzothiazyl disulfide (MBTS) (98). Goodyear was the major customer. Zenite ultra-accelerators , incorporating zinc (99), that brought about vulcanization in a few minutes, were introduced by Calco in the late 1930s100. 

A. S. Travis, Dyes Made in America, 1915-1980 The Calco Chemical Company, American Cyanamid, and the Raritan River, Edelstein Center/Hexagon Press, Jerusalem, 2004, pp. 47-50. 

Russell, War and Nature, pp. 18-21 A. S. Travis, Dyes Made in America, 7975 1980 The Calco Chemical Company, American Cyanamid, and the Raritan River (Jerusalem, Hexagon Press, 2004), pp. 37-60 Aftalion, International Chemical Industry, pp. 123-124. Government funding of plant construction Travis, pp. 47, 60 W. Haynes, American Chemical Industry (Van Nostrand, New York, 1945), vol. 3, p. 404. 

Tetranitroaniline (TNA) was used by the Russian government as a booster and fuse explosive. Aetna Powder Company produced TNA for Russian export at its plant in Noblestown, Pennsylvania. The plant exploded, ending our only source for this explosive. A new plant was built at Bound Brook, New Jersey, operated by the Calco Chemical Company. 

Calco Chemical Company (Bound Brook, New Jersey), which Robert C. JefFcott founded in 1915 he was drawn into the production of intermediates and synthetic dyes and pharmaceuticals initially when the dye crisis threatened his wall-covering fabrics business. Jeffcott wanted to specialize primarily in providing intermediates to other manufacturers. 

Yale is another case in which a university developed particularly strong ties to one company. Yale s relationship to the Calco Chemical Company initially derived from the same shortage of reagent chemicals that prompted the University of Illinois and Kodak to respond. In its annual report of 1914-1915, Yale University proposed building a small unit plant, in which advanced students could simultaneously manufacture the scarce chemicals while gaining invaluable experience. Without stating matters too explicitly, the report s authors hinted that the department of chemistry lacked only a donor to provide the equipment. If the proposal could be realized, the production of reagents would lead to a closer cooperation with chemical industries, which at the time was... 

Dow purchased aniline from the Calco Chemical Company. 

In addition to Calco s in-house research, the firm relied on a frequent consultant. Treat B. Johnson of Yale, to conduct investigations of TNA. The plant was incomplete at the armistice. P. H. Ashmead et al., Report on Calco Chemical Company s Plant for the Manufacture of TNA, c. March 1919, pp. 1-58, NARA, RG 156, entry 524, box 7. Quotations come from pp. 48 and 33. See also Travis, Dyes Made in America, 1915-1980, 47-50. 

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