Herbert Henry Dow

• Born: February 26, 1866
• Birthplace: Belleville, Ontario, Canada
• Died: October 15, 1930
• Place of death: Rochester, Minnesota

American chemist

Dow’s work in developing processes for extracting chemicals from brine and combining chemicals into compounds with commercial potential helped establish the chemical industry in America and led to the development of hundreds of products that improved Americans’ lives and raised the country’s standard of living.

Primary field: Chemistry

Primary invention: Method for extracting bromine from brine

Early Life

Herbert Henry Dow was born on February 26, 1866, in Belleville, Ontario, Canada, where his father had recently moved from New England to oversee operations in a sewing machine factory. The job did not pan out, and the Dows moved back to New England until 1878, when they relocated to Cleveland, Ohio.

Dow graduated from high school in 1884 and enrolled in the new Case School of Applied Sciences (later to become a part of Case Western Reserve University). For his senior thesis, Dow decided to investigate a process for chemically extracting various elements from brine, saltwater residing in pools below ground throughout the Midwest and filled with trace elements of bromine, chlorine, calcium, and magnesium. Dow was particularly interested in capturing bromine, because bromide compounds were being used in the production of pharmaceuticals and photographic supplies. At the time, bromine was being obtained by first boiling the brine to allow the salt to crystallize, then mixing chemicals into the remaining solution to separate the bromine. Dow was convinced he could capture bromine directly from brine without evaporation, speeding up the process of extraction and eliminating the need to dispose of tons of salt, the commercial value of which fluctuated widely.

After graduating from Case in 1888, Dow moved to Canton, Ohio, where he set up a company to put his theories into practice. Although his initial effort failed to bring commercial success, he was convinced of the efficacy of his processes. In August, 1890, he moved to Midland, Michigan, site of the largest underground brine sea in the country. With financing from a group of Cleveland businessmen, he set up the Midland Chemical Company, building a small plant to extract bromine from brine and process it for commercial sales. Although he worked at the plant almost incessantly, he took time in 1892 to marry Grace Ball, a local schoolteacher, with whom he would have four children.

Life’s Work

Dow’s early efforts to combine his work as a researcher and businessman were not particularly successful. In 1892, he reorganized his company, obtaining financing from several new company directors who turned out to be less interested in experimentation than in making money from proven methodologies. Hence, Dow’s decision to switch from manufacturing ferric bromide to potassium bromide pleased his directors when it led to increased profits for the company, but his insistence on spending time looking for other ways to use the brine solution when the company was doing well led to his dismissal as Midland Chemical’s general manager. Dow returned to Ohio briefly to perfect a method for extracting chlorine from brine, but by 1896 he was back in Midland. New sources of financial support allowed him to build a new plant and organize the Dow Chemical Company in May of 1897. The firm had difficulties initially, but within three years Dow Chemical was so successful selling chlorine bleach that it absorbed Midland Chemical and became the country’s principal supplier of a number of chemical products. Though his investors realized handsome dividends, Dow insisted that a portion of profits be invested in plant improvements and continuing research. In 1900, he instituted what was then a revolutionary practice: a profit-sharing plan for his employees to allow them to benefit from the company’s continued growth.

In 1902, Dow fought off a challenge from British manufacturer United Alkali, the world’s largest manufacturer of bleach, to drive him out of the bleach market. Buoyed by that success, Dow determined to begin exporting bromides to Europe. At the time, the worldwide market was controlled by a cartel of German companies that had already seen their U.S. sales adversely affected by Dow’s emergence as a major supplier in America. In 1904, the German cartel informed Dow that he must cease efforts to export bromine or face economic repercussions.

Dow refused to cave to pressure, and for four years his company engaged in a price war with the German firms who dumped bromine on the American market, charging as little as 10.5 cents per pound—well below production costs. These companies maintained a much higher sales price in Europe in order to keep their operations solvent, so to compete with them Dow bought imported bromine at the discounted price, repackaged it, and sold it in Europe at the going rate there. Finally, in 1908, the German companies proposed a new arrangement whereby Dow would control the American market but not export to Germany; other parts of the world would be available for open competition. For the first time in history, an American firm had actually bested the German chemical giants, and when the Germans proposed a similar arrangement to Dow for sharing the chlorine market, he was able to turn down their offer, confident that he could compete by producing his products more cheaply while maintaining high quality. Surprisingly, in 1913, at a point when sales for chlorine bleach were at a peak, Dow announced that the company would move away from manufacturing that product—presumably because he saw that competitors would eventually be able to challenge Dow Chemical’s undisputed prominence in that field.

During World War I, as Germany’s relations with the United States became increasingly more hostile, it became exceedingly more difficult to import products from that country. The problem turned out to be a boon for Dow, who discovered that he now had new markets for some of his products and additional markets for ones he had only recently begun to develop. One of the principal new lines Dow Chemical produced during the war was synthetic indigo dye, an item in high demand in the clothing industry. Dow was convinced that another derivative from brine, magnesium, had a future as part of an alloy replacing steel and even aluminum. Its light weight made it appear to be perfect for aircraft and automobiles, but Dow was unable to convince manufacturers to use magnesium alloys during the war. Only years later, during World War II, did magnesium alloys become a major component in aircraft construction. Dow managed to sell a small amount of magnesium to the government, as it was an important component in making flares. He also found himself serving as a major supplier of phenol, a component critical for manufacturing explosives. Shortly before the United States entered World War I in 1917, government representatives asked Dow to participate in manufacturing poison gases. Reluctantly, he provided space and personnel for research and development, and ultimately tear gas and mustard gas were produced at the Dow facility. Fortunately, none of these products were ever used by the United States on the battlefield.

By the end of the conflict, Dow Chemical was an undisputed leader in chemicals manufacturing, offering a wide diversity of products for a variety of industries both at home and abroad. Although Dow was forced to lay off much of his workforce immediately after the armistice was declared, the company soon returned to profitability, largely because Dow had continued his practice of product diversification. Over the next decade, the company began producing dozens of new products, including aspirin, which was sold to others who marketed the product under their own brand names. In 1922, Dow led efforts to gain some tariff protection for the American chemical industry, ensuring his company a level playing field with European competitors. Meanwhile, the men Dow had hired as his chief lieutenants during the company’s first twenty years were spearheading sales, research, and production at the Midland headquarters and offices in other American cities, operating on the principle Herbert Dow had articulated during the company’s infancy: Dow Chemical would make a product only if it could do so better and more economically than any competitor.

After the war, Dow turned his attention to the automotive industry. For some time, he concentrated on creating a new magnesium alloy for use in making automobile parts. The pistons he created showed promise in race cars, but fears that magnesium was highly flammable kept automobile companies from adopting Dow’s parts on a wide scale. He did achieve great commercial success with a new fuel additive, tetraethyl lead, a product with high bromine content. This product prevented “knocking” in automobile engines, allowing them to run more smoothly. The exceptionally high demand for tetraethyl lead drove Dow Chemical to explore ways to extract bromine and other chemicals from seawater, a project that proved commercially successful in 1934. Unfortunately, Herbert Dow did not live to see this new advance. He died on October 15, 1930, from cirrhosis of the liver—but not before his peers in the industry awarded him the Perkin Medal for his achievements in industrial chemistry. At his death, the company he created was doing $15 million in annual sales and employing approximately two thousand people.

Impact

Dow’s work to produce bromine and later chlorine in large quantities for commercial sale, and his concurrent effort to establish the business that would carry out his revolutionary ideas for the manufacture of products generated from chemical processes, led to the establishment of one of America’s largest and most influential chemical products companies. Dow Chemical supplied products used for cleaning, for manufacture of pharmaceuticals, for agricultural products, and for military weaponry. Research at Dow Chemical led to the development of dozens of products that materially improved the living standard of American citizens. Dow’s insistence that his company continually investigate new products or new uses for existing ones set a standard for others involved in manufacturing products made from chemicals. Dow’s practice of involving faculty and students from the Case School in research and product testing set a precedent for university-industry partnerships that became a standard adopted across the nation during the twentieth century.

Nevertheless, even in Dow’s time the company became involved in manufacturing chemical products that would have an adverse impact on the environment. To many in the United States, Dow Chemical’s role in manufacturing napalm, a powder mixed with gasoline and used in a “scorched earth” bombing campaign during the Vietnam War, seemed a natural outgrowth of Dow’s complicity in producing poison gases in 1917-1918. Increasingly, the company came to be seen as a greedy international firm intent on making money regardless of the impact its products had on the environment or individuals. These unfortunate judgments marred the otherwise remarkable record of a company founded by a man who believed in the power of chemistry to make life better for his fellow citizens.

Bibliography

Brandt, E. N. Growth Company: Dow Chemical’s First Century. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1997. Highlights Dow’s contributions to the development of the chemical industry in the United States and traces the growth of the company he founded to its emergence as a major international corporation.

Campbell, Murray, and Harrison Hatton. Herbert H. Dow, Pioneer in Creative Chemistry. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1951. Brief biography of Dow written for a general audience that highlights his achievements and the personal qualities that made him an exceptional scientist and businessman. Traces his early struggles to perfect methods of extracting trace elements from brine and his battles to establish his company in the worldwide marketplace.

Chandler, Alfred D., Jr. Shaping the Industrial Century: The Remarkable Story of the Evolution of the Modern Chemical and Pharmaceutical Industries. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005. Contains a discussion of the Dow Chemical Company’s rise to prominence within the context of a larger examination of the growth and development of two important American industries during the twentieth century.

Levenstein, Margaret. Accounting for Growth: Information Systems and the Creation of the Large Corporation. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1998. Extended analysis of Dow Chemical as an example of a company employing increasingly sophisticated information management systems to control operations and growth. Contains a chapter outlining Herbert Dow’s role in establishing the business, an appendix offering brief biographies of principal figures involved in the company during its early days, and a chronological record of compounds and products sold by Dow between 1891 and 1914.

Mayo, Anthony J., and Nitin Nohria. In Their Time: The Greatest Business Leaders of the Twentieth Century. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press, 2005. Discusses Dow’s career in the context of a wider analysis of the lives and accomplishments of the most influential business leaders of the twentieth century.

Whitehead, Don. The Dow Story: The History of the Dow Chemical Company. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968. Account of the founding and development of the multinational chemical company, focusing on Herbert Dow’s life and his contributions to the growth of the chemical industry in the United States.