The Domestic Dyestuff Industry

The Aniline Color, Dyestuff and Chemical Conditions
from
August 1st, 1914,
to
April 1st, 1917.
A series of Addresses and Articles
Compiled by:
I. F. Stone
1917Article in American Wool and Cotton Reporter, January 18, 1917.

I. F. Stone

The manufacture of aniline dyes in the United States began in the 1870's, and our factory, now known as the Schoellkopf Aniline & Chemical Works, Inc., was established in Buffalo in 1879, by two brothers, J. F. Schoellkopf and C. P. Hugo Schoellkopf, both of whom are still actively identified with the factory and have consequently had a continued experience of over 36 years in the manufacture of coal tar products.

In about 1880 there were ten factories in the United States engaged in the manufacture of aniline colors, but owing to adverse tariff legislation in 1883, most of them dropped out, until, in about 1890, there were only three left in operation. In 1898 there was a new factory started, and in 1914 another new one, so that at the beginning of the present European War there were five factories actively engaged in this industry. The Schoellkopf factory, however, from its inception, and up to the present time, has been the largest of the American factories; and since the European War it has developed the most rapidly, I think I can truthfully say, of any other American factory, so that it still holds its position as the leading industry of its kind in the United States. It now has many buildings covering some forty acres of land and an investment of several millions of dollars, employs upward of two thousand people, and its

PRODUCTION OF COLORS

is many times larger than at the beginning of the European War. With this increase of production it is now able to serve the American consumers with enough of such dyes as direct colors for cotton, wool and union goods; acid colors for woolen and silk goods; chrome colors for woolen goods; sulphur colors for cotton goods; basic colors for paper, silk and leather; and nigrosines for general purposes, so that the shortage of supply of these colors, occasioned by the war, has now been overcome by our factory until we are at present in a position to furnish consumers with sufficient to meet reasonable demands, and those who took the precaution of contracting with us last year (1916) for their estimated supplies for this year (1917) will have all of the colors for which they have consumption, and, consequently, there is no question of shortage as far as our works are concerned.

The other factories have also developed rapidly and new factories have been established, so that instead of the five original factories there are now some

120 FACTORIES

engaged in the manufacture of coal tar products aniline dyes and intermediate products, but aside from those manufacturing the intermediate products the original five factories are still by the far the largest and most prominent in the production of finished colors, and all of these factories, together with our own, are now producing all the necessary colors to meet the reasonable demands of American consumers. The only important colors not now manufactured in the United States are indigo, indigo and indanthrene derivatives, known as vat colors and alizarine colors, although there is now being erected a factory for the manufacture of indigo, and should the present conditions continue for a sufficient length of time, no doubt the vat colors and alizarine colors will eventually be produced.

The final result of the advance in the manufacture of coal tar products is that this industry is now so well established in the United States that there is no question but that they will in the future control the bulk of the American business and will be able to compete successfully with European factories after the war is ended, if the United States Government will continue to give them 

PROPER TARIFF PROTECTION

with an inclusion of what is known as the anti-dumping clause, viz.: the preventing of dumping into this country by European factories colors at lower prices than they are sold for in other countries, for the purpose of preventing the success of the American factories.

I repeat that the Schoellkopf Aniline & Chemical Works, Inc., and its selling agents, the National Aniline & Chemical Company, the largest concerns of their kind in the United States, and the successful increase in their production during the war has been of great benefit to American consumers, so much of a benefit, in fact, that I do not know what the American consumers would have done if we had not been able to take care of them.