Rubber Reserve Corporation

During World War II, Carl Marvel was of great service to the government. He served in the Rubber Reserve Corporation and organized a team at the University of Illinois to synthesize substitute rubbers. He received the President s Certificate... 

The biggest problem facing polymer science in 1953 was the sustainability of the funding for future work. With the demise of the Rubber Reserve Corporation, one major source disappeared. The National Science Foundation established a small effort in polymer science. But, industry itself discovered that investment in polymer research could be profitable. Major expansions in research throughout the worldwide polymer industry led to one new discovery after another. And the military establishments decided they could not do without unique polymers, both in the United States and in the Soviet Union. WhUe individual workers needed to be entrepreneurial, there was money to be found somewhere. 

I Work done under contract with the Office of Rubber Reserve, Reconstruction Finance Corporation. 

Dr. Bovey was born in Minneapolis in 1918. He received a B.S. degree in chemistry from Harvard in 1940, worked during World War II for the National Synthetic Rubber Corporation, a 3M subsidiary, and entered graduate school at the University of Minnesota as a Rubber Reserve Fellow in 1945. His thesis work, carried out under the direction of 1. M. Kolthoff, dealt with the mechanism of free radical polymerization. During this time he worked out the mechanism of oxygen inhibition and discovered oxygen styrene copolymers. 

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