Industrial Research Labs Flourish

Industrial Research Laboratories like General Electric grew and flourished in the worlds of new science, like electricity and electronics, photography, petroleum, rubber and glass and synthetics.  DuPont Laboratories appeared in 1911 and in 1912, George Eastman founded the Kodak Research Laboratory.  United States Rubber Company followed in 1913, Standard Oil of New Jersey in 1919, and the Bell Telephone Company in 1925.  By mid-century the nation had 200 large industrial research laboratories.  Some laboratories began branching out and making seeming irrelevant discoveries such as Kodak finding that concentrated Vitamin A could be distilled from fish-liver oil, or United States Rubber discovering latex threads, latex textiles, latex insulated wire, new adhesives and paper.

Besides industrial laboratories there were also governmental laboratories pioneered by the Department of Agriculture and Department of Commerce, established by the Bureau of Standards.  In 1930 scientific research costs by the federal government far exceeded those of private industrial labs, but by World War II it topped $750 million.   After World War II continuing research in atomic energy, aircraft development, and space exploration, kept the research costs in government rising each decade.

The Mellon Institute, founded by the University of Pittsburgh in 1913, offered industrial firms the opportunity to finance a researcher and claim any discoveries made by researcher to their firm.  The Battelle Memorial Institute, founded in 1929 from iron and steel money, vowed to make education and inventions for industry its focus.  One of those discoveries was Xerox in its early stages.  

The trade associations opened their own research labs beginning with National Canners in 1913 and followed by companies like National Paint, Varnish and Lacquer Association, The Institute of Paper Chemistry, the American Petroleum Institute, and the Textile Research Institute.  These are just a few of the many labs that supported industrial research for public relations purposes.

Next time...The Pioneer in Private Consulting Laboratory

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Today in Pioneer History: "On May 28, 1937, the government of Germany under the control of Adolf Hitler form a state owned automobile company, then known as Gesellshaft zur Verbereitung des  Deutschen Volkswagens mbH.  Later that year it was renamed simply, Volkswagen, or "The People's Car."  The "Beetle" as Volkswagen is affectionately called by owners, has remained relatively unchanged since 1935.  After nearly 70 years and more than 21 million cars produced, the last original "bug" rolled off the line in Puebla, Mexico on July 20, 2003."