Search Results

This chapter describes how computers came into the petroleum, chemical, and pharmaceutical process and manufacturing industries. It argues that computers fundamentally changed the nature of work in all three, making each “high tech,” and discusses how this came about. It also describes the extent of deployment and recent trends in each in the use of information technology.

This chapter examines the experiences of three US industries — chemical manufacturing, tobacco, and nuclear power — that came under political, legal, and rhetorical attack following World War II, and identifies cross-cutting patterns in the public and private interests who besieged the industries, and in how they responded. At varying times and with few notable exceptions, the conflicts progressed through five stages: industry success and optimism following the war; sustained challenges by social movements; increasing regulatory control by a ‘new social’ regulatory regime in the early 1970s; new, specialized accommodationist public relations strategies and tactics; and involvement in large-scale tort regulation. Unlike most studies of alleged and real corporate malfeasance, this chapter considers both corporate and anti-corporate interests and actions, and suggests a framework for understanding post-World-War-II political economy more broadly.

Examines the major changes in technology that followed the adoption of the Montreal Protocol in 1987 and the completion of the period of initial formation of the ozone protection regime. Examines the reactions of major producers and users of chlorofluorohydrocarbons (CFCs) to the challenge posed by the negotiation and adoption of the Protocol. Discusses how major CFC producers in the chemical industry revived previously abandoned efforts to commercialize less ozone‐damaging chemical alternatives to CFCs. Also examines how CFC users, many of whom faced more serious risks from CFC restrictions than the producers, responded with intense efforts to reduce their dependence on all ozone‐depleting chemicals — efforts that reduced most CFC uses much faster than had seemed possible, and directed large shares of former CFC markets away from similar chemicals entirely.

Although there are hazards that may be characteristic to a particular industry or workplace, individual workers may be primarily exposed to hazards that are not common to the industry as a whole. For example, welders in a mine or in a chemical industry are more often exposed to the hazards of welding, not those of mining and chemicals. Another is that in every industry, there are many jobs, such as boxing products and shipping, that have the same hazards. In occupational health that old hazards, even when they are controlled in one industry, never disappear for long: they reappear in new industries and new technologies, where professionals are unfamiliar with them and do not expect them. Among the industries discussed are biomedical research and biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, electronics, energy, heavy manufacturing, light manufacturing, metal fabrication, mining and smelting, paper and pulp manufacturing, plastics, rubber, steel, shipyards, transportation, and wood products.

In this section, the chemicals industry of Canada is described, with emphasis on its two sub-categories: multinational corporations (MNEs) and small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Each type encounters difficulties in entering the international sector of chemicals and in dealing with the challenges accompanying such involvement. These changes and adjustment processes will be facilitated by the employment of effective strategies caused by sound network ties that are distinct with each type. On the one hand, leaders of MNEs have to seek selling propositions compatible with their global consumers’ preferences and necessities. On the other hand, leaders of SMEs should maintain strong bond with significant leading MNE flagships in order to cope with increasing global economy requirements, competition, and challenges.

This chapter examines the status of the synthetic organic chemicals industry in the United States during the period 1919–1930. It first looks at German firms before turning to the major players in the U.S. market in the 1920s. It then assesses the U.S. industry's relationship to the transatlantic political economy and how the manufacturers' strategic decisions influenced national identity. It also describes the industry's shift to commodity aliphatic chemicals, which coincided with other important developments such as the advent of new technologies on both sides of the Atlantic, the birth of petrochemicals, and the expansion of chemical engineering in the United States. Finally, the chapter discusses the emergence of petroleum and natural gas as the new source material for synthetic organic chemicals; the expansion of the industry's product offerings ranging from lubricants and solvents to antifreeze, lacquers, and plastics; and the role of automobiles in the “Americanization” of the industry.

Many leading product manufacturers with brand name recognition maintain restricted substance lists and are working to assure that suppliers do not introduce those chemicals into their supply chains. While the chemical industry has reduced the production of some hazardous chemicals, there are significant forces for change that are opening up opportunities for shifting towards safer chemicals, particularly chemicals derived from plants and biomass. Pressure from industrial standard setting organizations, non-governmental organizations and investors is growing but the mainstream chemical industry has been slow to shift its product mix to safer chemicals.

This chapter describes the conditions of the synthetic organic chemicals industry in the United States after World War I, with particular emphasis on the years 1919–1922. More specifically, it examines the domestic industry's strategy to win the postwar economic contest over Germany. It also considers the creative public-private cooperation designed specifically to aid the industry, and how the continuing resentment toward Germany and German Americans benefited the manufacturers. Finally, the chapter discusses the industry's call for promotional policies in the name of national defense; the industry's mobilization of political support in the wake of the war; and the help provided by Congress and other government agencies to manufacturers.

This chapter examines how the political and economic fallout from World War I affected the synthetic organic chemicals industry in the United States during the period 1922–1930, especially with respect to Germany and its chemical industry. It considers the role of the judiciary, the Department of Commerce, the U.S. Tariff Commission, and related customs agencies in shaping the industry's future in the 1920s. It also discusses the importance of the Synthetic Organic Chemicals Manufacturers' Association to the industry's cause. Finally, the chapter analyzes the 1923 case USA v. The Chemical Foundation, Inc. and the issues it had raised, including the formation of the Chemical Foundation and the sale of patents to it, along with German chemical patents and patenting strategies.

This chapter examines the economy of synthetic organic chemicals prior to World War I, first by sketching a typical journey of a synthetic dye and a synthetic pharmaceutical from Germany to the United States in 1914. It cites two products, indanthrene blue GCD made by BASF and Salvarsan developed by Paul Ehrlich, both of which were embraced by Americans upon their introductions to the world markets. It considers indanthrene blue GCD and Salvarsan within the context of the complex global networks underlying the synthetic organic chemicals industry of the late 1800s and early 1900s. Finally, it discusses the synthetic organic chemicals industry in Germany and the United States.

This chapter examines the introduction of Germany's synthetic organic chemicals, dyes, and pharmaceuticals, to the United States and their manufacturing between 1914 and 1918. It considers how American entrepreneurs seized the opportunities born of World War I to wrest chemical markets from the German industry not only for economic aspects but also as a sense of patriotism. It also discusses the strategies adopted by American manufacturers in their attempt to acquire expertise and establish a domestic synthetic organic chemicals industry, including the formation of the trade associations; the characteristics of the new American industry; and the challenges faced by the nascent industry in the manufacture of synthetic organic chemicals. In addition, the chapter looks at the American importers and subsidiaries for German chemical companies. Finally, it describes three U.S. companies that aspired to create large, vertically integrated operations in dyes and related synthetic organic chemicals before the end of the war: Federal Dyestuff & Chemical Corporation, National Aniline & Chemical Company, and E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Company.

The global chemical industry makes up nearly 5 percent of worldwide gross domestic product with some $4.12 trillion in annual sales. The industry is highly integrated both vertically and horizontally with long, international supply chains that increasingly are expanding in Asia and South America. The chemicals from the industry form the raw materials for thousands of product manufacturers who export products into the high consumption economies of Europe and North America and become the exported wastes that often end up in developing countries. This massive system makes up the global chemical economy that today stretches across every country in the world.

This chapter examines the role played by chemists, many of which had trained in Germany, in building a synthetic organic chemicals industry in the United States during World War I. More specifically, it considers the American chemists' involvement in fighting the war and the sense of patriotism that motivated them to “free” synthetic organic chemistry from German dominance. It also looks at the chemists' use of the American Chemical Society and its journals to voice out their sentiments, together with the reorientation of their research and teaching from universities to the nation. Finally, the chapter discusses the challenges posed by the war to the ideology of scientists, particularly with respect to issues of nationalism and internationalism.

This book documents the rise of the synthetic organic chemicals industry in the United States during World War I and the 1920s. It examines the role played by government agencies, firms, and universities—and their collective development of a relevant knowledge and information infrastructure—in forging an industry that they somehow managed to connect to the issue of patriotism. It cites the shortages and soaring prices for German synthetic dyes in the United States as an impetus toward the industry's development. It also looks at federal government policies that were meant not only to promote a synthetic organic chemicals industry, but also to inflict hardship on Germany.

The failure of aggregate demand in the 1930s meant that employment and output in industrial economies declined, but the capabilities of these economies did not disappear with jobs. Idle capital reduced the need for net investment, but replacements still offered the opportunity for improvement, and new products and new methods continued to be introduced even in the worst of times. This chapter shows that the abundant capital flows from rich to poor countries of the 1920s vanished completely in the Great Depression. It goes on to record the progress of individual economies and industries in the various world regions in this more hostile economic environment, and to review the policies adopted to promote recovery in different contexts. It records the astonishing improvement in productivity that provides a positive counterpoint to the doleful economic condition that dominated contemporary discussions. It closes with the final attempt at international cooperation before the Second World War, the Tripartite Agreement of 1936.

This chapter examines the production of synthetic organic high explosives in the United States during World War I and compares it to the production of synthetic organic war gases. More specifically, it explores how the nature of the two groups of chemicals, and the varying levels of American expertise in each, shaped mobilization efforts during the conflict. It considers how war chemicals contributed to the long-term establishment of the U.S. synthetic organic chemicals industry, both technologically and politically. The chapter also assesses the political benefits to the industry accrued from America's increased hostility to Germany once it entered the war, with particular reference to the promotion of the industry as necessary to the national defense.

Chapter 2 provides an overview of the history of flame retardant production, regulation, research, and activism in the United States, from early controversies over toxic chemicals used in children’s pajamas, to the discovery of the chemicals in women’s breast milk, to dynamic activist campaigns to ban dangerous chemicals, to lobbying efforts by well-funded chemical industry front groups.

This chapter examines how the crisis in dyes and pharmaceuticals during World War I shaped American public policy. It shows how synthetic dyes and pharmaceuticals contributed to the shift to autarky and isolation that gripped the United States during and after the war. It also considers the surge in political support for the tools of the federal government on behalf of the domestic synthetic organic chemicals industry, and how the hostility to Germany was linked to the production of synthetic dyes and pharmaceuticals. Moreover, the chapter discusses some of the federal government's multifaceted promotional industrial policy, including the use of tariffs and legislation. More specifically, it looks at the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917 whose provisions related to supervising German-owned property in the United States were carried by the Alien Property Custodian. One of these provisions, Section 10, addressed patents and evolved directly out of controversy over Salvarsan, a synthetic organic pharmaceutical.

Developing a truly effective chemical management approach in the United States requires changing the way that the chemicals problem has been framed. Instead of controlling a few hundred truly dangerous chemicals, we should be focusing on all the chemicals on the market today and progressively shifting towards safer chemicals and non-chemical alternatives. This will require understanding chemicals as products of a massive chemical production, consumption and disposal system that needs to be restructured. A new safer chemical policy framework is needed and a comprehensive chemical conversion strategy that involves three strategic fronts; converting the chemical market, transforming the chemical industry and designing greener chemicals.