Spitz, Peter

Spitz, Peter H., Petrochemicals The Rise of an Industry, Wiley, 1988. 

Spitz, Peter has spent most of his career in the chemical industry, first as a group leader and executive at Esso Engineering and Scientific Design Company, and later as head of Chem Systems, a respected global management consulting firm. He recently founded Chemical Advisory Partners. He is the author of two books on the chemical industry. 

Spitz, Peter, "Petrochemicals The Rise of an Industry", John Wiley and Sons Inc., One Wiley Mve, Somerset NJ, 1988... 

The story at MIT is engrossingly told and massively documented by John W. Servos, The Industrial Relations of Science Chemical Engineering at MIT, 1900-1939, Isis 71, 531-549 (1980). As Servos tells it, the story was a prelude to the changeover of MIT presidents in 1930 and to subsequent Depression pressures. But there had also been a national debate see A Symposium upon Co-operation in Industrial Research, Trans. Amer. Electrochem. Soc. 29, 25-58 (1916), in which W. H. Walker and W. R. Whitney inter alia took part and The Universities and the Industries, J. Ind. Eng. Chem. 8, 59-65 (1916), which quotes Richard C. Maclaurin, president of MIT, Henry P. Talbot, professor of chemistry at MIT, W. H. Walker, and A. D. Little. Fritz Haber s role in the unleashing of war gas is remarked by Peter H. Spitz, Petrochemicals The Rise of an Industry [7], p. 28 and sources listed on p. 61. 

In the early postwar years, the oil companies realized, in the words of Peter H. Spitz, the historian of the petrochemical industry, that petrochemicals, made from the raw materials in the gas fields and the refineries, were growing at 10 to 15 percent annually, or faster. Surely this would be a great area for business diversification. The only question was—how far to go downstream That would have to be decided but, in the meantime, there was plenty to do. ... 

Peter Spitz, Petrochemicals The Rise of an Industry (New York John Wiley Sons, 1988), p. 514. V. M. Walsh, J. F. Townsend, B. G. Achilladelis and C. Freeman, Trends in invention and innovation in the chemical industry, reached similar conclusions about the importance of demand and feedstocks (see page 5.20). By contrast, Achilladelis played down the importance of feedstocks in his thesis see Process Innovation in the Chemical Industry, p. 245. The Krauch family form an impressive dynasty. Carl Heinrich s grandfather, also called Carl, was a pharmacist and production manager at Merck (Darmstadt). See Heine Verstand Shicksal, p. 98, and H. Benniga, A History of Lactic Acid Manufacture (Dordrecht Kluwer, 1990), pp. 129-134, 153. 

Readers will recognize my debt to Peter H. Spitz throughout the Union Carbide section. Spitz, Petrochemicals The Rise of an Industry, 69-82. C. K. G. Billings, Noted Sportsman, New York Times, May 7, 1937, p. 25 Luncheon in a Stable, New York Times, March 30, 1903, p. 14. 

Union Carbide III, 59-62 Spitz, Petrochemicals, 78-79 Paul S. Greer, oral interview by Peter J. T. Morris, November 13, 1985, Chemical Heritage Foundation. 

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