Working in DuPont's experimental laboratory, chemist Wallace Carothers and his team produced the first successful batch of nylon 6,6, a polymer strong enough to be drawn into fibers rivaling silk. Announced publicly in 1938, nylon transformed everything from women's stockings to military parachutes and would become one of the most consumed synthetic materials in history.
Carothers had been hired by DuPont in 1928 to conduct pure academic research into polymers, an unusual arrangement for an industrial lab, and he initially resisted pressure to focus on commercially useful outcomes. His fundamental research into long-chain molecules nonetheless led directly to nylon's creation.
The substance was first publicly unveiled at the 1939 World's Fair in New York, where DuPont marketed nylon stockings as stronger and sheerer than silk. When they went on sale nationally in 1940, women lined up outside stores; wartime demand for military uses like parachutes and tents created the famous "nylon riots" after the war when supply couldn't meet consumer demand.
Carothers himself never saw his invention's full impact. Plagued by depression for most of his adult life, he died by cyanide poisoning in 1937, a year before DuPont's public announcement of nylon. His work nonetheless launched the synthetic fiber industry, eventually leading to polyester, spandex, and a fundamental shift in how humans clothed themselves, away from dependence on natural fibers like cotton, wool, and silk.