Interwar period industry

In the early 20th century, Finland had some potential to develop a thriving chemical industry. However, various other industries competed for the same resources, such as waterpower, funding, and qualified experts and managers. The lack of higher education and relevant research facilities were weaknesses in the Finnish chemical industry. Theoretical education was not supported by experimental work in well-equipped laboratories, and, with the exception of two institutes directed by A. I. Virtanen, there were very few research facilities. In the interwar period, industrial companies seldom had their own research staff and laboratories, and R D was, consequently, neglected and the number of professional chemists remained small. Intellectual resources were, therefore, insufficient for basic research and innovative development. 

A.J. Robertson, The British aircraft industry and the state in the interwar period a comment . Economic History Review, 28 (1975), 648-57. 

Nevertheless, despite the gloomy forecasts, Horrocks has shown that during the interwar period many women chemists did find employment in industry, particularly the food, pharmaceutical, cosmetics, textiles, and photographic industries.37 We will conclude this section with one case study, the life of Kathleen Culhane. For so many of the forgotten women chemists, scanty information remains on their life and work but for Culhane, we have a rich narrative that epitomises the struggle of women seeking an industrial chemistry career during the interwar period. 

During the interwar period, market growth in chemical products was much slower than before 1914. Companies therefore adopted various strategies aimed at strengthening competitiveness. One dominant feature was the perceived need to step up research and development (R D). However, in many states a gap between academic science and chemical industry still had to be bridged. How... 

Cited from Forbes and O Beirne, op. cit. (25), p. 456. Royal Dutch/Shell, in common with ICI and Standard Oil of New Jersey, also became closely involved with I.G. Farben in negotiations over high pressure processes for coal to oil conversion. This and other aspects of high pressure industrial chemistry during the interwar period are reviewed in Anthony S. Travis, The High Pressure Chemists (Wembley Brent Schools Industry Project, 1984). 

Hafslund was a fairly new manufacturing company in the interwar period, starting out in 1919 by merging its electricity business with the remnant of a foreign owned carbide factory. Historically, however, Hafslund was already an important Norwegian industrial enterprise. It was formed in 1898 as the first main new Norwegian company to exploit hydroelectric power for industrial purposes. 

Fred Aftalion, A History of the International Chemical Industry (Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991) briefly treats Denmark and Norway as appendices to Sweden and singles out Nordisk Insulin and Novo, the two pioneering companies in insulin production, as noteworthy Danish enterprises in the interwar period (on p. 313). 

Harm G. Schroter studied in Hamburg and at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, and wrote his doctoral thesis on the relationship between state and industry in the interwar period. He has published widely on economic competition and concentration, particularly cartels and multinational enterprises. Since 1990 he has focused on the history of technology, mainly chemical industry. He now is guest professor of social and economic history at the University of Konstanz. 

I will try to explain the strategies and structures of the German chemical industry before 1914, in contrast to Britain the growing importance of chemicals in World War I the structural changes in the chemical industry during the interwar period the perception of this industry by German and foreign industrialists and finally the efforts of the latter to create similar structures. 

Each of the societies, as could be seen, had - in spite of their similarities -their own specific profiles shaped interestingly enough by the same leading personages, Hungarian scientists and university professors of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century. All these persons were working in the societies to prepare the great boom in the chemical, and in particular in the pharmaceutical, industry of the country in the interwar period. 

Danish industry experienced a marked expansion during the interwar years, with an increase in the industrial workforce between 1914 and 1935 from about 134,000 to 190,000. In the same period mechanization accelerated, and the energy requirements of industry increasing from around 146 khp to 430 khp. However, even by the late 1930s agriculture remained dominant and the century-long preparation for industrialization had still not resulted in a noticeable modernization process. As an illustration, by 1939... 

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