Document oDwbEJwKE0qZb8B0mm2VjNrgR

THE DU POM mBCBZinE ROUGH CHEMISTRY BRILLIANT GIFTS THAT SPEAK YOUR THOUGHTS TO HER Brilliant with the gem-like, sparkling beauty of "Lucite" methyl methacrylate resin and other new Du Pont plastics are these new boudoir accessories made by the Plastics Department of the Du Pont Company. The hair brushes, bristled with nylon, add good cheer and long wear to these everlasting Christmas gifts, which are available at all leading retail outlets. 1 i 111 i I By 0. M. A. St in s o am `old ikai the present generation of American More greens on the American dining tableTM and I youth :> lalkr and broader of shoulder than the more vitamins--are given as a major reason for these yum h .ii yi-ara ago; lhat young women are wear- and other astonishing changes that have taken place bus; rtiwkhig;:'. which average a size larger than those since the first World War* worn hy their mothers at the same age. Tailors report Imports of cod-liver oil, noted for its high contents the masculine waistline is growing slimmer. Food experts of Vitamins A and D increased 1,200 per cent between lire discussing the possibility that fat men may become 1920 and 1989, In the latter year, Americans and their an rare as wing collars, that short men may in time animals and poultry consumed more than 8,000,000 become extinct except in a few backward places. gallons of the oil, together with a mounting quantity in of other !ish oils at which we once wrinkled our noses disdainfully. In two decades, the consumption of vitamin-rich leufy vegetables has trebled. Fruits and fruit juices have become standard items on our bill of fare. Sun bathingt the great free source of Vitamin D, has attained the dignity of a national cult that has changed fashions, influenced city planning and architecture, helped raise golf to a lending sport, and routed beach censors from Barnegat to Catalina. Upheavals without precedent have taken place in agriculture and in our systems ol shipping, storing and handling foodstuffs all the way from the farm to the cook-pot. The vitamins arc being added to bread and breakfast foods, candy and cosmetics, even to beer. They are being sold in department stores. Estimates are that the vitamin industry, and it can be called no less, represents a sales volume in excess of $50.000,Odd annually. When one rimsiders (hat vitamin molecules are too small to he seen by the naked eye? and that knowledge of them is still monger, the figure is astounding. The question arises, are we riding another food-fad rocket or is the public interest in vitamins resting upon a foundation of scientific truth? Authorit ies are unanimous in their answer tha: in the vitamins and kindred discoveries we have come upon substances of enormous importance tu human welfare. They have enlarged our conception of preven tive medicine. They may, conceivably, give m new standards for regulating growth, health and mental development. Some go further. They say it is possible we are on the verge of developing a super race. That race, they say, will be highly resistant to disease. It will live longer, insanity and other abnormalities will he diminished or, perhaps, become historical curiosities. And loud will be man's chief preventive medicine! It should be emphasized that I speak not as a medical man, but as an organic chemist. However, the vitamins are chemicals. The task of prescribing vitamin concentrates and diets for specific ills and deficiencies is, of course, a medical function, but the even larger task of making the proper food available in the most beneficial form to everybody is an industrial and agri cultural function, with which the industrial chemist: is intimately concerned. The Du Pont Company, for example, is one of the largest manufacturers of synthetic Vitamin D, and for eleven years Du Pont laboratories have been engaged in vitamin and related research both of a fundamental and an applied nature. It is to the organic chemist that, we m\ e our accurate? knowledge of the nature and structure cil these complex organic compounds, and medicine is dependent on chemistry for the synthesis of them. Above all, is Hie growing recognition that the body is a machine, the operation of which is dependent upon the proper sequence of a large number of chemical reactions. In a much closer alliance of chemistry with medicine, 1 believe, lies chemistry's most brilliant: future as a great alleviator of human ills. Prior to Pasteur--a chemist --the idea of germs causing disease was laughed at. Similarly, prior to the discovery of the vitamins in food, it was believed that if one ate enough calories of proteins. Cuts, starches and sugars, and obtained some mineral salts such as iron, calcium and phosphorus, all the body's normal nutri tional needs would lie met. When ills came, few blamed diet. As late as 1917-1$, we felt we were benefiting our soldiers in France by sending there white Hour for bread, while at home we ate dark bread as a duty. The trend was toward highly refined foods. Yet, for almost- forty years, the evidence had been accumulating in labora tories that calories of energy units alone will not support health and life, and that too much refinement of food leads to physical and mental disturbances, because of the removal or destruction of the vitamins found naturally in food. The hormones were discovered. These are chemicals of varying .structural complexity secreted by the body glands. They share with the vitamins the ability to bring about important chemical reactions in the body. The sex hormones, for example, control the eharaeter- Shit-hotUing, fh gn-fd frrf mum*, of YHowhi- I), / utfninnl the dignity of a ttafionui volt, /TivV one dcmtrr ni a ahorr rur/. Underwood be 1-iHirrwO^ ifitics by which men and women diil'er in physical siruct.un% hair, voice, temperament and personality. They determine whether one is a giant or a dwarf, a "he-man" nr a "sissy*" Then, scientists uncovered the enzymes. These mysterious chemicals condition the body's ability to digest fats, carbohydrates and proteins, three of the most important classes of foodstuffs. Lately, a beginning has been made in undcmst.amling their chemical structure, and other siibstances.hav'e been synthesized which, to an extent, duplicate some of their properties. The feat opens a new avenue of attack, essentially chemical, upon human infirmities, through the digestive system. Finally, it was learned that a fourth set of complex chemicals known as the amino acids must also he iyrkupx nmi, too, haw netIced the wcreaaifnj popularity of these icoyKttlv sfomh in wet at ymrs as more people became VlUrmhi C coiiseUms, Tix <iHl - < >rr- r< J>!i '<"! ih> > I- >:' \ `ini'iti / present in one's diet to stay well and happy. These acids are the building blocks out of which beefsteak, cheese, eggs arid other foods high in proteins are made, arid 22 of them have been discovered in proteins. At least ten of these are believc?d to he "essential to growth." The uncovering of such highly important sub stances in food, a field supposedly exhausted of the sensational years ago, has brought some of the ablest explorers of science into food research. Every medical laboratory in the world is today attentive to some phase of it, and all of them are interested in the various vitamins, and their interrelated chemical roles, rt is not my purpose to discuss the remedial value of vitamins, nor to suggest, diets. However, speaking as a chemist.it is permissible to outline the broader phases of this subject, in which chemistry is intimately concerned. Tli*> physiological fu m r A.-ns of Vita min A range all i he way ;ynni keeping the skin h':,;dli.y :>> acting w j: h a u-eoific protein la respiring : b< \ i-uah purplr of the eye, Failure u> st*e well a; hi;;!n. which often means lhai ihe visual purple is deph-ied, Aft I'll* a iigij of \ iii;:!ii'i A deficiency. Long exp'Mire ti> caiabi?:-.' may produce a nporary case >! nigh:, hlir.dne^?, u:di .sa the intake of A is increased. This suggests that more A in the diet- might he one way ' of reducing the number of automobile ac cidents at night. Collectively, the R vitamins promote appetite, aid growth, help in the functioning of the nervous system, and some of them act very much like enzymes in assisting ihe digestion. They are speeilies for preventing beriberi and pellagra. Once it was believed that beriberi was limited ehielly to the Orient where polished rice is a large part of the diet. Physicians arc not so sure of that now. Associated with the disease in the Orient is a condition known as "beriberi heart." A strikingly similar condition has been observed among many sulferers of heart disease in the United States, to which must be added the highly suggestive fact that fully half of our common foods contain no appreciable Vitamin Hi content. This scarcity has been a, challenge to the chemist to provide a synthetic source of Vitamin Ri, identified as thiamin, and fo-tn-  iw tV f HHH In many mill town* 07rr thUfdie anltre-ektfr! m//* pf'talruU'only feebly through the ihintandswoke that are no injnrionb Pi puhlie health. :*<prjintsn)r"'H :____ --------------- ^ nately that- challenge has been met. Thiamin is now produced synthetically. Food processors are adding it to their products in growing number. Pharmaceutical companies are selling it in concent rated forum as a supplement to the diet. Here, then, chemistry in co operation with medicine has made one of its many important contributions to human health. The mortality under old methods of treating pellagra was ~*4 sufferers out of every 100. Ordinary brewer's yeast ;rich in Vitamin B Complex), careful nursing and medical attention, phu a balanced diet, reduced that mortality to five in 100, but the treatment was cumbersome. Finally, chemists determined the individual factors of Vitamin B Complex, and one of them, nicotinic acid, turned out to be unusually simple. Tins diet rural, derived from tobacco, and used in con junction with a rich vitamin diet, recently has been cfToeUagsonie near-miraculo11 eures of pellagra sufferers. Luck uf Vitamin C causes scurvy, dental ailments, pyorrhea. Our great grandparents obtained their Vita min recjuiroments from "weeds," such as milkweed and dandelion, cooked or eaten raw in salads. However, the phenomenal rise of the citrus fruit Industry and the exploitation of Hawaiian pineapples and tomato juice have provided new and unrivaled sources of this vitamin. And it is also obtained chemically from dextrose, an ordinary corn sugar, and sold commercially. On the one hand. Vitamin 14 is the most abundant of all vitamins because sunshine produces it in the human body. On the other hand, it is the one vitamin not supplied in a well-balanced modern diet. Fish-liver oils are the only natural products known to be rich in L>, Nature did not anticipate the rise of factory towns and ehies wherein people live under a perpetual pall of smoke and dust, through which the suits ultra-violet rays penetrate only feeMy. Rome of the consequences may he spindling bone formations m youngsters, stunted growth, and the disease known as rickets. Knock-knees and bow-legs are the most obvious signs of too little sunshine. You rarely see them among country-reared children, and they are becoming rarer among all chil dren, thanks to the research which has made Vitamin I) abundantly available. Among the naturally-occurring sterols, specific ones have been found which are responsible for the formation 14] of Vitamin D. One of these nai oral products is ergusterol, obtained from yeast. Another lias been found in certain forms of marine life. Through this work it has been found possible to produce Vitamin D as a pure chemical which} is fully 400,000 times as antl-rachitlc as end-liver oil. And this chemical is being sold at prices so low that poultry breeders, quick to see its value in increasing egg production, are using huge quantities of it. Drug houses are putting out cod- and other fish-liver oils, which contain Vitamin A as well as Vitamin D, on mass production scale. Breads and cakes are being irradiated by a patented process which adds the sunshine vitamin. So are canned milks, cereals and other foods. This industrial development means sturdier, more dlseaseresiRtant children. There are also Vitamins E and K. The former, known as the anli-sterility vitamin, is widely distributed in nature. K Is believed to he vital to the first step in the process resulting in formation of a blood clot, a very beautiful bit of colloid chemistry. Tins vitamin, too, has been reproduced synthetically. Furthermore, once the struct ure of Iv was known, a number of related chemicals were tried mid found to possess K activity. Still other vitamins are reported, but little is known of them as yet. The fact to be emphasized is that all of these vital substances, not forgetting the enzymes and amino acids, have been found in foods or fish-liver oils, and that: each has shown promise of becoming a specific for some human shortcoming or ailment. A few, indeed, have definitely attained that status. To this extent then, food in itself id a medicine. It is being so recognized by all competent physicians. Let us go a step further. In food, if it is of the proper variety and quality, may ho ail of the biological and chemical substances tmui needs for normal develop ment and perfect health straight through from birth took! age, burring excesses, accidents and direct, bacterial infection. Since the vitamins were brought to light, the whole subject of food and its effects on growth and health has been reopened. And the results have continued to he startling. The researchers have found, for example, that, there is little exact knowledge of the mineral needs of the body. Iron is required by the human adult in an amount fixed at 0.015 gram per day. Also 0,7 gram of calcium ami 1.5 grams of phosphorus arc considered daily essentials. But what about the other minerals present in various foods? The question is answered as yet only in part, II. is now believed good health demands n daily intake1 into the body of some form of copper, zinc, manganese, magnesium and perhaps some other chemical elements, but why and how much are still problematical. In improper combination or closes, these become poisons. Some researchers suspect Umt certain types of nuneivddef.ciency mav ha'**-much ludo wilh die di-eiiniiig bin-u-ate of large- dkiruqs. where anii mil as v, LI as in. mail hr and in hu> I-`Wi affected. Ah n are beginning P> vnnder, and to in ; Uire. V by tile people who li\V hi SOI lie lands ill*- n chon of si;.tun-; why other lands pro duce i all p *ople. is id'* rearo-n that the soils of Mina - remit ecu aui SUI isi an Co s . p:!a-'0d along through food. L.ri:ii the sods, of other countries e one of (lie mo?-.; complex and farjf all i la- !> ihleiiis nosed about foods, soiIs (ji si>me area?- are known to be B. \i }-U<iVi r\ Fresh vcyeluhlc* rote hitjh as a if important snarer of rihfiahis, ami imimdays they me easily procurable the- year 'round. 4W MW UtchMottd, Virginia, as "Cardura" rayon yarn moves frmn the ends to a beam. Be l o w : Women employee;; are kept busy working on rayon yarn hi ike physric-Lil testing laboratory. Ce n t e r : Skiff member* on, duly in the Technical IMmiry, Wilmington-, Delaware. IUg h t , on facing page: experimental remireti' at the New Brunswick, New Jersey, laboratory. View nkwv* an assistant at work as the head of the laboratory staff compares perfume odors. Women Workers of Du Pont By Be t t i n a Sa me a mt iv e niurnhigs a week, 7,500 women report for work Fwith the Du Font Company. Those on the Pacific Coast start the day about the time their Atlantic Seaboard sisters are thinking of lunch. Almost 1,500 of these workers are concentrated in the two headquarters buildings in Wilmington and at the Experimental Station on the outskirts of the city. Branch sales offices. labora tories and faetoriesseattered through thirty states claim the remaining h,000. Clerks, secretaries and factory operatives; chemists, nurses, technicians and librarians; youngsters just out of high school; gray-haired women with long service records...all share in carrying on the many operations of the Company. Women's names comprise almost fifteen per cent i[61 of the 0ompanyh i ntal wage and salary mils. They number ton per cent of the wage roll and twenty-live per cent: of the salary roll. As a group they exceed hy HOO the to tad number of Hu I Amt employees thirty years ago. Statistics in large doses are forbidding, hut from a numerical potpourri there emerges a figure we can christen "Miss Average Du Pont." Factory or office employee, she is in her twenties, unmarried, and has worked for the Company five to seven yeans. She is a high-school graduate, lives with her family, and is inter ested in social and civic activities. She enjoys better than average healUi and takes care to keep healthy. All Uii Pont employees, when hired, must pass a thorough medical examination and have a check-up annually thereafter. The composite Du Pont woman lives In a moderate-sized city and, like most urban dwellers, prefers lo spend her vacations in the mountains or at the seashore. She gets along well with her fellow workers and makes the mostuf her duties, responsibilities and opportunities. As to educational background, five and a half per cent of these women employees have attended college, but only three per cent hold degrees. They represent 197 American and eleven foreign colleges. Among the college women, about 200 are techni cally trained. Most of these are chemists and laboratory assistants. Many are textile experts in the Rayon Department. A few combine technical and secretarial [7 training-, which m an especially valuable combination. The Medical 1Jivmkm alone employs more than a hundred registered nurses, technicians and laboratory assistants in connection with its activities. Twenty-seven libraries in nine states arc staffed by fifty-five women. Eleven are trained librarians. Clerical and secretarial workers total a/HlO. Almost half are located in Wilmington, where the1 Du Font Company is an important outlet for the city's business schools. A few of the secretarial workers hail from other states, hut the majority are local girls. Re c r e a t io n a l In t e r e s t s The head quarters buildings are located in the heart of Wilmington's business district. An area approxi mately three blocks square? daily absorbs from noon until 2 F. M. more than 1,100 Du Font women. Lunch counters are crowded, and stores of all kinds enjoy a midday boom. Not only bore, but in all communities in which they live, Du Pont women employees represent an important customer group. Du Font women join and support Wilmington churches, civic associations and service clubs; in addi tion, about 300 active women members find recreation at the Du Font Country Club just outside the city. Two eighteen-hole golf courses and a dozen tennis courts provide exceptional facilities for the devotees of these sports. Women members participate in all the golf and tennis tournaments as well as the many soda! activities in the clubhouse throughout the year. At Ihe moment, interest centers on a new and larger house which will be built to meet the needs o the rapidly-increasing membership. Incidentally, the Board of Governors* roster customarily includes an active woman member. The winu r program of activities for women includes monthly dinner parties, bridge luncheons and evening bridge? parlies. Average attendance at these functions m about 125, Private parlies arc? organized at no cost except for food, which m notably good. Also from October through April each year, about 150 Du lkmt women are organized in three bowling leagues. At the end of the season, banquets are held at the Du Pont Country Chub, where team and individual trophies am awarded. Ho much for 1 he work and recreational pursuits of women employees in the Wilmington arwi. Kow what about those ir other communities? Approximately 4,000 women are engaged in manu facturing hundreds of diversified chemical products. In jobs involving manual work only, women operators generally report to women supervisors, or forchidias. If machines are used, however, supervision is exercised by foremen who know what to do when mechanical breakdowns occur. Women are not engaged in handling toxic compounds, nor arc they employed on any but day shifts. - The Rayon Department is the largest employer of U mlninefaetory workers. Rayon and nylon yarns, "Cello phane" cellulose film, cellulose sponges and "Cel-O- Seal" caps and hands for bottle closures are all products in the manufacture of which women are concerned. Twelve hundred women are kept busy in Du Pont rayon plants in Virginia, New York State, and Tennes see. After the syrupy viscose or acetate solution emerges from the spinnerets and hardens Into continuous fila ments, the product passes into the hands of women operators. Trained inspectors classify the yarn according to definite grade standards. Appearance and "feel" guide their tWisionson the sorting rack. Some women chemists, too, an found working in the plant laboratories. At Southern rayon plants foreladies and women's group leaders are participants i n the Company's fore?man tra! ning programs. At discussion meetings both men and women cooperate in solving the problems relat ing to operation and personnel. At Buffalo, we find 1 0 women assorting, inspecting and packing "Cellophane," cellulose sponges and caps and bands. At the Richmond and Old Hickory "Cello phane" plants, almost a hundred more are engaged in similar activities, initial inspection of cellulose sponges involves the use of the X-ray to detect any foreign particles in the sponge blocks. Nylon is of special interest to women because of its extensive use in fine hosiery. More than a hundred women are employed at the Beaford, Delaware, plant, spooling, testing and inspecting the yarn; as at Richmond and Old Hickory, they work under the guidance of fore ladies who are also active in the foreman-training courses. As id e f r o m Te x t il e s ft may surprise you to learn that the Explosives Department in one of its plants employs more women operators than are required at any other Du Pont plant manufacturing a single product. At Pompton Lakes, New Jersey, almost 70b women assist in the manufac ture of small metal cylinders which. In finished form, become electric blasting caps. Before any high explosive* is loaded, they skilfully solder, seal, and test those caps, many millions of them in the course of a year. At Arlington, New Jersey, the Plastics Department employs more than a hundred girls for a variety of operations. One group, for example-, inspects fountainpen barrels, measuring tneir diameter and examining them closely for delects at the rate of 7f>0 to 850 an hour. Another group Inspects the plastic shoots* which are used for safety-glass interlayers to make sure they are of specified thickness and free from any defects. Lous move on to the Leominster, Massachusetts, plant where tooth brushes ami hair brushes are manu factured by the Plastics Department. Here, more than 300 women are sorting, inspecting and "bundling" nylon bristling filament, decorating plastic articles and packing the finished products. At Bridgeport, Connecticut, Ilion, New York, and Kings Mills, Ohio, more than a thousand women serve the Remington Arms Company as inspectors, packers, polishers and bench workers. Before Remington shot shells are loaded, sharp-eyed girls, aided by mirrors placed at precise angles "fore and aft," are able to see at a glance the outside, inside and bottom of each shell. Similarly, the inspection of delicate gun parts is one more instance of the aptitude of women for work involving sensitive fingers and patience. Go with me to the Du Font plant at Newburgh, New York, whore pyroxylin-coated fabrics are manu factured, and watch women cutting and sewing the washable atrip material into card-table covers, shelflinings and table mats. See women operators at Tarim, New .Jersey , helping to make motion picture Him. At the* Technical Laboratory, Deepwater Point, New Jersey, you will find more than a hundred women employees preparing dyed samples for distribution tn the dyestuffs and textile trades. In New York City, a small group of women style writers strives to make American women more familiar with Du Pont- products for the household and far the fashion field. They maintain contact will: imp >rtant women's service groups, cover trade conferences, handle annually hundreds of inquiries from publications and women's groups. .More than J.,nOh clerical and secretarial workers are scattered among branch sales oil ices ami the nitres of plants and laboratories throughout the country. There is no great concentration of these workers in any one locution. News garnered from thirty plant publications, however, indicates that Du Pont women everywhere have their uvwi clubs, athletic teams, and social activities. Their economic and social positions in various communities compare with those occupied by l)u Pont women employees in Wilmington. Clubhouse facilities for men and women workers are available at- all the large Du Pont Company plants. Kmt l o y me x t Ne e d s The story of Du Pont women employees is repeated, with variations, in virtually all important industries, and for the same reasons. There are millions of women who lions/ not only support themselves, hut others as well. The Women's Bureau of Urn U. S. Department of Labor estimates that more than one-tenth of the em ployed women in the l-ruled Suites are the sole wage earners in families consisting of two or more persons. In our American industrial economy, there is a proper niche fur everything and everybody. Women are fast, finding theirs, thanks to more intelligent voca tional guidance, which is relleeied in the changing curricula of commercial ami graduate academic schools. Today, the emphasis is cm training that will prepare young women for work that is suitable and easy to find. Personnel executives of most large companies give much thought to problems of young women. Every efi'orr m made to provide suitable jobs that girls are qualified to fill--jobs that are compatible wilh the varied temperaments and personalities of the applicants. Under I he improved working conditions generally existing today, women enter intotheir work with as much zeal and enjoyment as they bestow upon other pleasant elements in their lives. This attitude is a tribute to the enlightened employment policies of business and indus try, as well as to the earefully-traitied, well-balanced personnel organizations of all progressive companies. As jin employer--and, specifically, as an employer of women--the Du I'ont Company's policies with respect to industrial relations and benefit, plans are enlightened and progressive. Women employees share equally wilh men, in plans which include accident and health insurance; salary allot ment insurance, disability wages, special assistance to employees, vacations of two weeks with full pay lor wage-roll and salary-roll employees, and pensions for employees. The group of pensioned women workers in the Du Pont, organization is not a large one --less than fitly --which reflects the fact that- relatively few women entered the business field until the World War. But. this picture is changing. As of this date more than LfihPU v\ omen have worked ten years or more for 1 >u Pont, tUdouhtedly, the great majority of them will continue in service with the Company until ev onliuilly the lime comes for their retirement. * +-rb} -- .*.v ?* J' hr:!A .1 v>. TfoTt :>vV.vv-V I-fe-';'lW pi .jy Y j 7 >. : i *; - The Du Pont Country Clubhouse where many women employees of the Company in the Wilmington area are na tive in Hie sports and social activities throu,gkoat the year, At the noon hour each day many women employees leave th-e headquarters office buildings after lunch to go shopping in the central city district. This view shows a few of them near the Tenth Street entrance of the Du Pont Building, m * Ht Toothpick Engineering A dentist's childhood dream becomes a popular hobby with the organization of the National Pick Builder Club By Je w e l B, d e Bo n il l a N ILL midst of your every-day bisks, or at home I after the hmg day's grind, does your mind sud denly go oif at a tangent and bring you visions of far-away places with yourself in the heroic role of empire builder. Hinging web-like traceries of steel across deep chasms or building fanciful takers and palaces of architectural perfection? Do your fingers itch, then, to get to work? It in the creative instinct in you seeking expression. Well, perhaps yon weren't- cut out to be an engineer or an architect. Perhaps life has tucked you away into one of the less gioriihKi professions or businesses. What of it? You can still hnd an outlet for that creative urge, for there's a new hobby abroad in the land . . . toothpick engineering. How did it start? Twenty-two years ago, a hoy of twelve dreamed a brave dream--of becoming a great engineer. The urge to build was so great that he look to constructing things with whatever materials came Dr, and Mrx. M. Busadl Shin at work vondradin-g a fire-tower from- their nmfuUy-dnum fAans. Note, ahoce l ft, the base. of the Eilfd Tower model which shuufr 7} > fed high. HeUm, left, the Ferris wheel model which required about 2S,oth "yaYET' to make. The builders xpenf a ratiidh mid a hntf'n e-pare- time on lhoi project. to hand; thus, when even the simplest of kits was not available, toothpicks and glue became the logical stand bys. His first major achievement ended in tragedy, however, for the beautifully executed mode] of France's famed Eiffel Tower which he had laid away with such tender pride on that hot summer's night was naught hut a mass of meaningless sticks when he run to vinw his work next morning. The glue had molted in the excessive heat. But the young lad was not engineeringminded in vain. He studied his problem carefully and experimented with a number of materials until he found a combination that would hold fast even under the pressure of heavy weights--fiat toothpicks and household cement. Today, the hoy with the ambitious dream is a successful New York City dentist, Dr. M. Russell Stein, who also lectures on anthropology at Columbia Uni- versiby. His youthful knack for construction he has developed into the fascinating hobby of toothpick engi neering and some of his recent projects have been h o complicated in craftsmanship and intricate in design as to be undreamed of even in the wildest flights of boyhood fancy. Mrs. Catherine Stein, his wife, derives equal pleasure from this constructive; hobby and together they have built some architectural and structural master pieces that arc such accurate models and work so well that even practical engineers marvel at their perfection. Dr, Stein begins bis projects with carefully drawn plans. Each section is designed and laid out on paper; the toothpicks are placed along the lines of the drawing and then cemented together. Various sizes of beams and girders are achieved by cementing the picks in lengths of two, three and four. Completed :iat planes are tied in place with string and then cemented. The only tool required is a pair of small cutting pliers. [ 20 j " of hndltpicks v< writh'd together. Bridges, large and small, towerstminngs andFerris wheels are only a few of the interesting possibilities open to model builders. The ten-inch truss span -pictured directly above lips the scales at less than half an ounce, but it is strong enough to support the com bined weight of all the articles shown here. It has even carried a six-pound flatiron without buckling--proof of its sturdiness. Sumo of thf? outstanding creations of the Steins arc illustrated here. The replica of the EilTel Tower stands seven and a half feet high and contains about 30,000 picks; it took a month to make. The arch bridge, with two towers and a span of forty-four inches, is fifty-two inches long, has hi,000 pieces and was also built in a month's spare time. It is shown here supporting a toy train of thirty pounds which, according to Dr. Stein, is far less than its actual load capacity. Perhaps must, remarkable of all is the Perris wheel with its twenty-four free-swinging cars. Tn this working model, turned by a seventy-live cent motor run by batteries, about 25,000 picks were require*;, each little car containing 200. The gears are toothpicks, the hearings collar buttons and tiie axle and drive shaft, broomsticks. One month and a half of painstaking and skilled eirort was rewarded by this exquisite but amazingly workable miniature. Not all of these projects require so long a time : complete. On a single afiernoon, a twenty -inch replica of a high-tension tower was built and. on another afternoon, a model of a giant swing with Cs ; twelve cars rotating in a two-aiid-a-half-fnot circle. Truss bridges are also quick jobs, but competent, for though a fen-inch span weighs but half an ounce ir. can support several fairly heavy articles, oven a six-pound flatiron. These really remarkable pieces of toothpick engi neering have aroused great interest and elicited much praise, admiration and inquiries. Following the sugges tion of his friends, therefore. Dr. Stein has organized the National Pick Builder Club, Inc., with headquarters at Ilf) West 57th Street, New York City, Its purpose is to furnish model builders with carefully prepared plans of various structures to be made with toothpicks and cement, and to conduct an ethical educational program through members, schools, hospitals and public institutions. Since one of the major materials used in the con struction of these models is "Puco" Household < lenient, Dr. Stein's creations were put on display during the past summer in the products showrooms of the Du Pont. Exhibit at Atlantic City, New Jersey, During the month of July alone, approximately 225,000 persons, who came from all parts of the country, saw the display and most of them stopped to carefully examine1 the* models. The demonstration was held over, by popular request, for another two months and thousands of cards and pieces of literature on the National Tick Builder Club were distributed to mteroHled visitors, AH of which is indica tive of how the new hobby of toothpick engineering has `'caught on A `ihiC'/' Uonxt hold i'email, pttckmjcd in wow-nient tabes, in well rre.a,amended for joining Unjdhcr firmly iht liny pin*# umd hg (he -model hniMtrv in their work. Christmas Gifts with Personality ' 1f 1 - '.07^ -* WWv y~ . V :: ' \TM. "iiiij' \ . . Dut to conditions abroad, rnouq of the Juuropivtt novelHcs for tree divination arc no lowjrr itraUuhW, Thanks to the iruje-nini it of Amc-neen munnfacturcys, hom-nrr, there will be no shorhitfi of CAirhhitos decorations Ihi? )jeor. il( 'tUophanv' rnhSuse film Sparkle Halls and Spirals for the tree on- new -ite-ms By Ja mk s Sh e l l j c n r e r u e r k MEJUCANS arc? naturally generf\ ous and love to bestow gifts. JL. JL Not only oil the convent ional birthdays, anniversaries and wed dings, but on all sorts of occasions, we offer these tokens of affection or esteem. But, of course, the real peak, the grand climax of our gift giving comes on Christmas day. During the days preceding this great holiday, the stores are jammed with shoppers, everyone in a dither trying to find appropriate gifts for Aunt Mabel, Grandfather or the country cousins. Finally, the allimportant purchases are made: the Christmas list is cheeked off. Then comes the most exciting ritual of all--adding the personal touch, giv ing to each of the gifts an individu ality that transforms if from a commercial to a personal thing. (12 Never before has there been such a variegated assortment of gift wrapping materials to help in this fascinating task. Rheum of sparkling "Cellophane" cellulose film and cleverly designed ribbons, colorful cords and decorative straws made from the same transparent material are just a few of t ho accessories which will help to personalize your gifts. Gift-wrapping, like many other arts, has tricks and short cuts that make the whole thing comparatively easy, it's lots of fun to wrap pres ents, but even more so if you know how to get unusual effects with a minimum of effort. A booklet entitled ``Gift Magic with `Cellophase/ " tells how lo use these ma terials to the best advan! age. For your copy, just write to Department 15, Du Font Company,"(k?llopharie" Division, Wilmington, Delaware. - Base Metals in plating. The silver spoon, unless it is sterling, is not silver throughout. It is made Tom an inexpensive base metal electroplated with silver, which gives it that brilliant, decorative, durable finish. Modern plating methods thus take attractive silverware out of the Fancy Dress luxury class and bring it within reach of everyone. The familiar tin can is iron with inner and outer jackets of tin; thus plating makes safe and sanitary containers for our foods and other products. The shining chromium surfaces on automobile trim, hardware, golf clubs and your electric, lousier are typical of the practical, lasting Modern electroplating processes beauty obtainable, through electroplating. Today's achievements in plating are almost be assure lasting beauty and yond one's imagination. Experts have produced gold deposits so thin that the finest; tissue looks like a wood protection to metal surfaces plank in comparison. These coatings are measured in millionths of an inch, yet they give a beautiful and fairly' lasting finish to jewelry and other articles. But the process Is not confined to thin coatings of precious metals for decorative purposes. This is but a small part of the service rendered by modern plating. It is in the buttle between man and nature--the continuous war against corrosion of materials such us iron and steel--to fend oil' the forces exacting a loss estimated at $10,000,000 daily, that plating is a vital necessity. Steel is cheap and strong and needed for many useful things, but it must he protected from the weather, moisture and other destructive influences. Plating it with zinc or cadmium affords this protection. In general, electroplating is widely used for the purpose of beautifying less expensive and more uiili- tarian metals. Many different processes are required for the various attractive finishes now available. The Electroplating Division of the Du Font Company offers no less than sixteen major processes, each of which can he modified to produce scores of diverse finishing effects. Zinc is not ordinarily considered a bright metal, hut one of these processes nukes possible extremely bright to brilliant zinc finishes. "CudalyUC finish, a silvery-white cadmium plate, can be had from gleaming to satiny effects. Also available now are yellow gold and ANY articles, familiar to us through daily me, owe a brush gold novelty finish, a bright and oxidized silver, M their attractive appearance and serviceability to bronze, nickel, chromium and tin. There is even a a durable, protective coating of another metal lustrous jet black surface, achieved by molybdenum applied by electroplating. This process lias been in unsicekel plating. Quito recently two new processes, which for the past hundred years, yet, despite many refine make it possible to obtain coatings very quickly, have ments, the hade principles have not changed. These been introduced for industrial plating. These are High involve the deposition of one metal on to the surface of Speed Copper and High Speed Brass, which operate at another by means of an electrolytes a solution in which from two 1 o four times the speed of old processes and a solid piece of the surfacing metal is suspended and in produce smooth, bright, uniform coatings much thicker which the implated article is also immersed. Electric than are obtained by other methods. To industry High current is then made to flow through the solution from Speed Copper means a quicker, surer method of getting the surfacing metUl--the anode--to the article---the bright, protective undercoatiug for decorative surfaces cathode. Tn so doing, it picks up metal from the elec of nickel and chromium. To the consumer, it means a trolyte and deposits it uniformly and beautifully on the hotter and more durable metal finish. article. During the process, the anode gradually dissolves The change from an art to a science in electro in the solution, thus keeping up a constant supply of plating didn't happen overnight. New chemicals and metal for deposition. processes are the results of years of planned research Few people realize how many important contribu and development. They may Boom new to you, but not tions to every-day living have resulted from technical to electroplating chemists who are constantly striving progress in this industry. Look about you. Wherever to improve surfaces for modern living. See a few ex you see metal, there is a good possibility that it involves amples of fine plateware on the next two pages. [ IS ] "\ JEV ^ W1 BP AnlllfaiiSNBiH ' . --1 Illustrated 071 these pages are just a fern among the many thousands of electro- pkmd things that are distinguished for their bemdy. They all have their places m the scheme of American living. Plating art has made them possible. [14] "Kivu Star" Anti-Freeae. based on a "KahrikoifT pyroxylin-coated ethanol and containing seven other chair cushion given punishment, hiemien ingredien is, and ` `Zerox*' equal to 1 > 188,000 a\erage-HSzed permanent -type ethylene-glycol adults silting in it and getting up anli-msi anti-freeze. again, with no sign of failure: a PUBLISHED AND COPYRIGHT 1943 BY E.I.DU FONT DE NEMOURS & CO. irseerpttrafed WILMINGTON, DELAWARE, U. $. A. Subscription Si.00 the year . B. MANCHESTER, EDITOR ruhihli'.-''* nay repnnl. with c"edt, ail aMkbs and iiiuili otiofK except I'iOJt carrying special copyright. Vof. XXXIV HOLIDAY NUMBER No. 12 Peace on Earth... HRISTMAS l!MU finds the world "Cavidon" rubberized fabric cover Looking Backward ing on n bar stool ``sat upon" by mechanical proxy 2,370,000 times without breaking down; 2,000,000 Fo r o t ic theater party, 9,734,438 house:iold flies slaughtered in the people are n lot of guests! Rut: the flu Pont Company was host to fly-spray testing chamber; 0,120,000 yards of acetate rayon yarn rnmin- that many at a varied and dynamic fuctured on one of the world's conti.iuousshow averaging an hour's smallest rayon spinning machines: duration for each guest. The party 3,7811.400 Spanish pea mi is auto- which began May 30, 1939, and tnaf irally wrapped in "Cellophane** ended October 27, 1940, was the cellulose film, and the containers Wonder World of Chemistry exhibit given away to visitors. We could go at the World's Pair in New York. on like this Indefinitely. The spectators of a similar show But it /s important that four and at San I-Yancbco's Treasure Island a third million visitors in 1940 and C in greater need of a spiritual uplift than ever before in his Tory. Angelic voices are still ringing "on earth peace, good will to men," seven and a third million in 1939 were given a comprehensive View of the chemical industry at work. Most of them...If we are to judge by hut it] many lands the din of war voluntary comments, the reports drowns out the chorus. The star of of l)u .Pont salesmen throughout hope still shines to guide people of the country, and independently- good will everywhere toward peace conducted public - opinion surveys and understanding. May the spirit of the Prince of 1 *eace control our lives in these times --came away with a greater appre ciation of the way Du Pont makes ``Better Things for Better ) fivmg... and he a living hiiluence not alone Through C In>m istry. '' on Christinas day hut throughout the year to come. To all readers of this publication we offer hearty greetings and good wishes. Three Anti-Freeze Products y t h is time millions of motorists B have already protected their cars by the addition of anti-freeze in the cooling systems. And well they know it is a wise precaution; for when the mercury drops to 32 and below--as it has a way of doing at this season--it is annoying to dis cover a frozen radiator or cracked engine block as the price of neglect. Anti-freeze solutions--and there are many on the market--are de signed to keep car-cooling systems In 1939 raised the total to 11,792,637 newf or renewed acquaintanceships which Du Pont made among Fairgoers in the two years. Perhaps it may not matter much to posterity that the 4,371,227 visi tors to the 1940 Wonder World of Chemistry in New York saw 8,500 miles of nylon thread being knitted, looped, seamed and pre-boarded into lovely nylon hose; that 27,300 tooth brushes were bristled with monofila ments of nylon; that 10,000 spar kling tumblers were made from "Lueite" methyl methacrylate resin "Whit a Yarn!" a k h a k k t Fir h b a c ic 'b verse M about nylon, reprinted by per mission in the October number of this Magazine, has inspired a reply in kind by Janet Del monte, of Glen dale, California. The original verse expressed what: "Dad" considered a bully good idea, and we quote: "Said Dad to his expensive daughter, *This^nt*kingsmsdeof eoalandwater, With just a little air thrown in, Hound economical as skin. With summer here, j \u coal to burn R4t. in iho bin, so kindly Darn To knit your own, since wo have air .And also il;0 to spare.1 ,f His suggestion is spurned in the answer by Mrs. Delmonte: in serviceable condition, even at sub-zero temperatures. And this year for the first time motorists have a choice of three well-recommended products of Du Pont manufacture. You have seen them advertised at service stations under the trade molding powder. Guests saw a crys tal - clear "Lueite" rod vigorously thwacked on the counter some 20,000 times without breaking; 40,800 pieces of safety glass made and broken by a steel ball which exerted enough energy over the ``Said daughter to her stingy Dad, `Now you louk here, you old tightwad. With water, air, and coal to burn. There's xtil! so much 1 have to learn, 'Twmild he a crime to waste my time On things that Du Pom's do so line, Ho l will /,/?/ rny nylon hose, And then you waleh mo catch the beaus.' " marks "Zerone" Anti-Rust AntiFreese using methanol as a base; season to lift the four-mllHon-pound Trylon three inches off the ground; NOTH: -Wliili'thiw controversy r;ti*s, v/c think h. w.'jt i< mention Unit. I>u Pinl" produces avion yarn; hu.-:i<:r> u.i:iul"mcur\-ss kail ihv >iickiu^s. [16] "My c o b a n " propionate salts to Th e Dyestuffs Division of this inhibit mold and rope in bread have Company has added to Its line: been reported previously in this "Polyform" Scarlet 2GF (P.A.F.); Magazine, but a recent announce Produces very yellow shades of scar ment by the Company indicates let, particularly on viscose rayon. that they have a wider range of "Polyform" Blue 2RF (P.A.F.): practical applications. Tests re Highly recommended as a ground ported by both dairy producers and shade on viscose process rayon that dairy bacteriologists of several agri is subsequently to be discharged, cultural colleges show that the use "Ponsol" Green 2BL Paste: A of these salts will prolong the mold- new anthraquinone-type vat color, free life of cheese and butter by as with exceptional fastness properties, much as 200 to 300 per cent. "MyTM for use on uniform cloths, work coban" products are sold by the clothing, awning fabrics and the like, A g e n e r a l price adjustment and reduction on all nylon yarns manu factured by the Du Font Company became effective October 28, accord ing- to an announcement by the Nylon Division. Two types are pro duced at the Seaford, Delaware, plant--a hosiery yarn, which is used largely for ladies' full-fashioned stockings, and a "high-tenacity" yarn for other textile uses such as National Ammonia Division of the Du Pont Company, Frankford P. O., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. "Diageo" Bordeaux MR (Fat.): A stabilized azoic printing color for cotton, and well suited for use on fabrics that are subjected to occasional laundering. "Diagen" Red Violet DR: An other printing color producing red dish shades of violet, similar in strength to those of "Diagen" Bordeaux MR, but considerably bluer in shade. sewing thread, braided articles, fish ing lines and webbing. Both types A NEW concentrated detergent, of yam are basically the same- The trade-marked "Moduml" D, has "high-tenacity" yarn, however, has be en announced by the Gardinol less stretch but ten per cent higher Corporation, Wilmington, Delaware. breaking strength. On the net weight basis, price reductions on low-turn hosiery yarns which are sent to commercial "throwsters" for processing range from seventeen to thirty-two cents per pound, as shown below: Denier 80 40 70 Vila- _ Iit*due- incuts Turns Price per Pound tion lil 2 From $-1.27 to $3.9,S .32 18 2 " 3.52 3.27 23 2 " 8.17 " 3.00 ,17 Computed on the net weight basis, Lo u v e r g i.a s , made from "Plastacelo" cellulose acetate sheeting, is manufactured by the Plastics De partment of the Du Pont Company for the Dearie Products Corporation of Meriden, Connecticut. According to the angle from which ft is viewed, as shown in the accompanying illus tration, Louverglas appears either as transparent sheeting, with liny, vertical hair lines, or midway be tween transparency and truns- The greater strength of this product, in comparison with "Modinal" ES permits of economies which should broaden its use. The new detergent, almost equally efficient in hard and soft water, is a wetting and pene trating agent, dyeing assistant and general all-around surface active agent. It: is recommended for all libers and can he obtained from the Du Pont ('(impany, Wilmington, Delaware, a safes agent. price reductions on. fully processed hosiery yarns ("thrown" at the Seaford plant) are as follows: Fila Reduc Donier ment* Turns Price per Pound tion 30 n 30 From $4.04 to $4,8$ 40 18 10 " 3,83 " 8.80 .03 40 18 25 " 4.07 4.04 .03 70 20 10 " 3.40 " 3.40 .06 lueeney. Tills material, intended primarily for fluorescent lighting fixtures, is said to combine the effi ciency of direct lighting with the comfort of indirect illumination. lev: 'TS concern ing pol yri nyl ace A NEW Super-Clear Varnish finish designed fur use on floors, interior trim and woodwork, and exterior work not. completely ex posed to the elements, has been announced by the Finishes Division of the Du Font Company. Nylon yarn was introduced to the tates, the thermoplastic resins pro This varnish, the latest develop textile track? commercially early this duced by the Du Pont Company, ment in the research laboratories of year. Prices had remained at the are contained in a technical bulletin the Division, possesses good dura same level since the first pound was issued by The R, & H. Chemicals bility, is excellent in its resistance sold from the nylon research labora Department, Information concern to both hot and cold water, and tory in October, 1935. Increased ing different grades and specific dries overnight. J1 is unusually high volume and operating economies applications is given. The bulletin in gloss and build, hut at the same have made possible the present also contains a discussion of the uses time shows little discoloration over reductions announced only ten of polyvinyl acetates in various in light-colored woods. Tt is recom months after the first unit of the dustries. Copies may he had cm ap mended for previously finished as Seaford plant started operations. plication to the Wilmington office. well as new and unfinished woods. [IT] Uncle Bert solves some Gift Problems By Du n b a r S. Re y n o l d s Nrlj; Bk u t stretched his slippered fee:* out to the U coxy warmth of the hearth fire. The resinous smell of burning logs seemed to bring his beloved woods indoors. Evergreen wreaths in the windows, holly sprigs over the mantelpiece and mellow pinepaneled walls, nil proclaimed the return of the holiday season. Aunt Martha and Gladys had gone about their decorating tasks with so much enthusiasm, he reflected, that il. was perhaps a veiled hint for him to make some effort: to get his own Christmas shopping done. "Well, may he they're right, at that , . . only a few days left, now." Picking up the Baraesville "News," he spread it out on his knees, refilled Isis pipe, and settled down to a leisurely study of the advertising pages. Possibly he might get some idea of gifts for las family. He already had a deposit down on a fur coat for Martha, hut Christmas or not he would have purchased that anyway. What else could he get her? He turned another page* and read about a special showing of Christmas gifts at the Hendricks Hardware Store. The advertisement: gave him some idea of the offering. One picture of an attractively arranged kitchen featured gleaming cutlery and utensils. Maybe she'll like some of these gadgets. Below it was an appeal to sportsmen: "With a Remington gun you'll he sure to bag your game!'3 `'There, by gully, is the gift- for Fred. Guess i'll mosey down to Barney Hendricks' store.'' Although reluctant to leave his cozy nook, he put on his shoes, stumped into the hall, wound a shaggy muffler around Ids neck, pul on his overcoat and hat, and strode out into the blustery December night. Already a light mantle of snow lay on the ground and large flakes were still whirling about. Arriving at the store, he was still brushing the snow from his coat, as Barney came forward with the usual greeting: "Hi, Bert, how's tricks?" "Can't kick. But 111 be glad when this dunged holiday is over. Don't know what to get the family. Noticed your ad. in tonight's paper and thought Fd drop in and see your stulL If it's half as good as it looks In the paper you've got a customer." "Here's the works , . . from ihe Remington line. Where do you want to start? A rifle for the youngster7 Righto. ! l(`reT a dandy .. . my own lad has keen pester ing me to give him one. It's a hSporter' . . . swell general purpose .22 with detachable magazine box and streamlined sporting stock. Reasonably priced, too." liaising the gun to his shoulder, Uncle Bert sighted it, put it down again, looked over some others and dually allowed the Sporter was the ticket. "Fred's only fourteen, but 1 guess lie can handle this gun. Wrap it up ami put in a carton of those .22 long rifle cartridges, too." "Now, how about, some streamlined kitchen tools," he continued. "Martha's crazy about cutlery and might like some." Barney led him to a model kitchen, set up in a corner of the store. Hanging on the wall was a "No Fumble Hack" containing a complete set- of kitchen Utensils--pancake turner, purer, mixing spoon, knives and a fork. He demonstrated hmv each piece fitted into its place by means of a notch in the handle1. "Mark that, one as sold," said Fncle Bert, And then his roving eyes were attracted to a get of st ain less steel tableware with red plastic handles. [18] Uncle Bert was already fingering the set with the pride of ownership- Finally, he said, "All right, HI take it," and with that selection he declared that he was through for the night. 'Til shut up shop, too; it's getting late. Come along, I'll take you home in the flivver." On arriving there, Uncle Bert sneaked up to the attic and hid his treasures. When they were safely stowed away, he came downstairs with an exaggerated air of nonchalance just in time to unlatch the dour. Martha entered, beaming excitedly as she dropped a box on the table and hastily untied the string. "Been Christmas shopping?" "Sli! Don't let Gladys hear you . . . this is for her, a Clarepotter sheet costume. That'll keep her warm as toast even when shooting weather is brisk. We'll mark it To Gladys, with love from Mother and Dad.'" "That will please her," he said, and Ins unspoken comment was, ' That settles tlie women problem, too. I guess we're ready for Christmas!" "These Domino sets are the very latest. They come with ivory handies, too, and look mighty nice.1' "Guess we could use some new tableware." A pause followed as Bert critically examined the knives. Then, looking up, he added, `Til put a set tinder the tree for Martha, a set, with the red handles." "One thing more, give me one of those Boy Scout sets for Fred and those heavy brass candlesticks for the living-room. Martha's been hinting about them and I've found it pays to give the missus what she wants." Ab Bert surveyed the pile of gifts, he said. "Well, 1 guess that takes care of everyone but the pooch. Hand over that harness for Snooper. Til let the wife do the picking for Gladys." As Hendricks started to pack the order. Uncle Bert aimlessly strolled around in the store examining various and sundry items of merchandise, lie was looking at a de luxe carving set, Barney came up at that moment with the package, and, noting this further evidence of interest, said, "You've selected useful gifts for the family, why not give yourself a present? Martha was in yesterday looking at this Remington Master's Special which is really a fine set--buffalo horn handles, highcarbon steel blade, hollow-ground to a razor edge that, stays sharp . .. said she wanted to buy one for you, hut didn't dare to make the purchase." [19] The Call for Color By Ams c o G. Br u in ie r , Jr . n TEfio holiday spirit color plays a major role. While I red and green may be dominant- at Christmas lime, nil the hues of the rainbow may now he seen. Perhaps you remember the flashy necktie your wife bought Inst year under the holiday spell. Shirts, too, are favorite gift items, but this year there will he less cause for embarrassment, for shoppers need no longer go astray on color. The shirting industry has been outstanding in the successful use of color. While its appeal was recognized many years ago by dyers and printers of shirting fabrics, color did not get full play until the invention of vat dyes. They gave the designer richer materials to work with and the consumer a quality never before approached. Before the advent, of vat colors, the dyes used did not have suiHeient fastness to withstand the exposures a shirt is subjected to in service. The disappointments over color failure were many. The dyes and pigments then in general use for printing shirtings imposed limi at.ions in designing and color - fastness properties as well. From 1914 to 1918, the shortage of dyes in the United States brought into use colors of an interior [20] Fist-colored shirts an increasing in popularity quality. An that time Loth manufacturers and consumers voiced their dissatisfaction. Large-scale production of vat colors In America by Du Pont and other chemical manufacturers early in 1920 gave the shirt industry a sound basis for using color, and ever since then the trend in colored shirt ings has been on the tip-swing. A few years ago the ratio of white shirt sales to colored was in the neighborhood of 65 per cent to 35 per cent. Gradually color moved up, and 1939 saw nearly an even distribution between the two--white, 52 per cent with color taking up the balance. This year, according to the National Association of Shirt and Pajama Manufacturers, over 1-50,000,000 men's and boys' shirts will be produced with more than half carrying color in one form or another, either printed, dyed in solid shades or woven with colored stripes arid effects. Fa .s t n k .s s Attractive designs, patterns and weaves, coupled with harmonious color effects, have a tested soles appeal. Bui consumer acceptance goes beyond the point, of purchase. Serviceability is highly im portant. Colors are expected to last; they should not fade, wash out, run or rub off. * The demand for color has continued to grow Weans* of the general nst* of the hightvL-qualify dyes available-- vat colors. Their resistance t o colcr-dest roving influences has been accurately determined, and the industry now recognizes their merits. Few wash goods are sent to either the home or professional laundry as frequently as shirts. Week sifter week they go through soaping, rubbing, drying and ironing. If colored with a vat dye, ike color remains fresh and clear after many trips to the tub. The1 color will outiast the Tiber to which it has been applied, and no one should expect better service than that. George Johnson, general manager of the American Institute of Laundering, has this to say: "Shirting materials, oil her dyed or printed with vat colors, are able to withstand repeated laundering satisfactorily, according to the numerous brands of shirts which are guaranteed to the consumer under the Institute's Laundry-Tested and Approved Seal." Millions of shirts annually are now processed with vat dyes, and the consumer gets complete color satisfaction without even asking for it. Ve r s a t il it y Vat colors may he applied to materials inpmded for shirtings by piece-dyeing, yarn dyeing, and by printing. Du ring the past several decades much progress has been made in the technique of applying this group of colors, and the processor is no longer restricted to pastel shades, jieuet! stripes and small, figured designs. Today, fabric designers may create checks, squares, dot*, stripes, plaids and heavy blotch patterns, knowing that, they can be duplicated. The popularity of heavy shades requiring one hundred per cent coverage gave added emphasis to the success story of vat colors. And vat-dyed filling yarns with the same shade and fastness properties as the warp threads was another achievement. The art of vat-color application hy the medium of printing has attained a high degree of perfection, such as processors of a generation or so ago would scarcely have believed possible. The methods of those days did not permit printing intricate patterns on a piece of cotton doth. But advances in application and engraving have given the designer a free hand. Textile printers are now able to reproduce any design, whether it be large or small, one color or sixteen, with amazing fidelity. By double printing and other methods, stripes, textures, photographs and clipped-figure effects are printed so cleverly that few consumers know how they are obtained. COMPARAW.K Kah t NKSS 11 should be pointed out thai one of Urn most important characteristics of vat colors is that they cun he applied to vegetable libers in the iWm of raw stock, piece goods or yarn without any sacrifice of color fast ness. Whether dyed or printed, these colors have com parable resistance to light, laundering, perspiration or other destructive htfhieneoK. Sa l e s Ap p e a l Although women purchase 75 per cent of the men's and boys' shirts, styles change slowly, with the staple items constituting most of the volume sales. Un doubtedly, women have influenced the swing to color and have tuned their demands to quality at a price, as well. There is now evident a strong, normal demand for color in shirts. The present, popularity of fancy shirts has opened a larger potential market, giving the de signer the opportunity to appeal to current fashion interest. Merchandising tie-ups with related items are of course based upon color. Increasing use of color has perhaps marked the most constant trend In styling shirts during the past twenty years. Other style factors are collars, pattern, construc tion and general design. These in turn have influenced the use of color. While staple items change slowly, new style offer ings attract a considerable portion of the public. This (Cmtinmd on Page Twmiy-Fmr .4 batter# of Franklin package*dyemg machines in service. Each unit is capable of accommodating 1,000 pounds of yarn at a time. Advertisers* St tidies After the dyed packages of yam are- removed from the machines, they are transferred to dryers mid subjected to controlled heat. [211 Rambles in the Wonder World of Chemistry {FROM CAVALCADE OF AMERICA) HPN' you stop into a grocery anti-freeze such as Du Font's Wand ask for a bottle of "XeronosM "Zerox" or "Five Star' household ammonia you takes care of the two natural faults, are speaking Ancient Egyptian. aTsheyou might call them, of water. subs! anee we now know as ammonia *** wan used in bleaching their cloth under the raging Egyptian sun J,o make it h iiu w v while--not a sur prising thing when you recall they were priests of a sun god and held a sort of monopoly on the local sun shine. `'Anmioif by the addition of an "i" and "a" becomes our word "ammonia." Ammonia today is used In the year 1(>3h, in the austere little settlement of Charlestown, Massachusetts, a clergyman who had sin nod grievously was brought before the elders of the town council and charged with a wicked offense, lie had actually painted the rooms inside his house! Such worldly van as an alkalizing agent in bleaching, but- instead of depending on the sun's rays and the dew on the grass to liberate oxygen which did the actual bleaching, we now have "chemical .sunshine" --peroxide compounds which do the trick in a tiny fraction of the time once necessary. 4t * * Why do you need an anti-freeze solution in your ear? When you drive at thirty miles an hour you're burning fuel fast enough to keep a seven-room house comfortably warm on a zero day. You're gener ating so much heat-, in fact, that if you didn't- get rid of it. somehow the engine in your ear would melt! Temperatures inside an automobile engine mount as high as 2,000 de grees. Why doesn't, your motor melt ? Because* water in the cooling system is rushing around at the rate of fifty or more gallons a minute. Without a cooling system, driving would be different--and very awkward! if you wont out. for only an hour's drive you'd have to hitch a tank trailer behind your car and tow along 3,000 gallons of water! But water has two faults. It rusts iron and steel--and it freezes. A good ity was not to he forgiven; nor was it any more pardonable because the reverend gentleman had used his paint indoors. Not the worst sinner in Charlestown would have dared to paint the oidnith' of a house, where everyone could see it! Time plays curious tricks with our notions of rigid, and wrong ... A hundred and fifty years later in New England a painted house became a mark of social distinction, thanks to the fact that a barrel of paint cost a small fortune. If your house was painted, people felt pretty sure you were a line gentleman or a rich one. How different those curly atti tudes arc1 from our own! While we can understand the Puritans' sever ity, we wonder how they emu Id have believed that a Creator who gave us held daises and mauve winter twilights could wish His children to live in ugliness. As for the oilier New Englanders who thought painted houses were only for the rich -- why didn't they have gumption enough to invent some sort of paint they could afford, we wonder? Our modern feeling is that not only houses but our health and hap piness, too, are better oil' for color. And the part- Du Pont has played in brightening the surface of America is no small one. *** There is mystery everywhere around us. Why do the leaves turn red in the fall? Why is apple eider sweet? Why is water wet? We take mystery as a matter of course. So with rayon. Once thought of as a possible substitute for silk, today a textile liber in its own right. rayon is made of cellulose from eot> .on or wood. Most people know that. Not so many know that rayon yarn is also spun of Time, the fourt h dimension. The chemist knows Time must be r/eeped into rayon, soaked into it. ttpv.n into it. He knows exactly how much Time; two days hero. ninety-four minutes there. Because lie wants to make the bust rayon he gives it the Time ii needs. Tima is an ingredient he stirs into it along with his other materials; every bit as much a part of the mixture as t hey are--a master ingredient with out; which the others would not flow harmoniously together. Everyone bus heard these days of relativity, the fourth dimension, space-time. The woman who buys a dress made of rayon yarn may think she is merely buying a dress, but it's every bit as true to say she is buying a garment cut of the mysterious cloth we call Time, She is wearing seconds, minutes and hours from the great brocade of the Ifni verse with its clock-face pattern that no man has deciphered. 122) 4 The first ditch blast Tkc story of an emergency that started a new technique in explosives engineering c e f l o e s in the Delaware River during the spring of La Mottc, he directed that a ditch be upened up at I 1890 were unusually troublesome along that water once with dynamite. And n few moments later a quantity way from New York State to the sea. Jams formed of the explosive, electric blasting cups, leading wire and at bridge piers and canned floods at many points along a blasting machine were rushed to the place. So fur as is I he upper reaches of the river. Newspapers were warning known, explosives had never been used before for this residents downstream to prepare for a serious flood. purpose. Holes about three feet apart were made in the Below Philadelphia, complications other than ice ground and into each one was loaded three or four had to he taken into account. High tides, prolonged cartridges of 40 per cent straight dynamite. One car rainfall arid a stiff easterly wind added to the fhnxl- tridge in each hole wan primed with an electric blasting water menace at the dynamite plant of the Repay no cap. The work was done hurriedly, and, according to Chemical Company, across the river from Chester. Mr. La Mot re's recollection, with not too much con- Pennsylvania. TOven then ii was the largest operation Iklenee that the shot would be effective. However, when of the kind along the Atlantic seaboard. Now it rates all connections were finally made, the ruck-bur of the among the world's largest. blunting machine was thrust' down. The blast was Years before, a levee had been constructed at spectacular. A tall column of mud and water rose high liepauuo, but plant officials were fearful that it was in the air and came down again. When the smoke neither high enough nor strong enough to cope with cleared, the new ditch began to function, and before such conditions as prevailed at the time this story begins. long the pool of water surrounding the nitrating house Due morning as U. R. Jackson, plant superintendent, was drained into the lateral. This shot, made in an looked over the ice-filled river battering the levee, he emergency, Ls believed to be the first one--and it was saw that something must be done immediately to avert a successful; the flood menace in that locality was relieved. disaster. The bank of mirth and stone was beginning Ditch blasting by the propagated method, which to give way m two or throe places, mid workmen with requires only one blasting cap to detonate a succession sandbags were rushed to the scene. of charges loaded in the; ground, was a later development. He realized that unless an amimnktiYm of water A hunt 101)7 or 1008, word came from California of near the nitric acid house could be led oJT to lower ground, ditches blasted by this new method. Since then ditching the fire-boxes would be flooded. Clearly, there would with dynamite has become commonplace practice in not be lime fo dig a trench with hand-tools to a lateral agricultural districts throughout the world. Wherever ditch that wa*still functioning. Furthermore, men could conditions make ii impracticable io construct ditches not hr* spared from the levee work. The immediate and by hand or with machine tools, Du Void Ditching pressing problem was to avoid shutting down the plant. Dynamite can do the job quickly, effectively and eco Could a serviceable ditch he blasted with dynamite? nomically. The first emergency ditch blast at Repmino Possibly. He would see. started more than water flowing; it. was the beginning Culling one of the explosives chemists, Arthur of a new technique in engineering. I an Vitamins a la carte O 'ut'ii d i-1 if Ji'n'ii. /?,!/!- fi.-r) trace elements ns t hey are railed. The chemical function of these elements in the soil and their effect upon the rate of growth ami yic.Id have become matters of keen interest. 1 mtsmuch as cmr mineral sales come to us through what, we eat, and they ran he present only in food that has been grown on land which con tains them in .sufficient quantities, it now appears that soil deficien cies may become luiiimn and animal defiesendoH as well A new science of soil chemistry is evolving, ft is experiment mg with all kinds of inorganic chemicals and with a number of complex organic compounds produced synthetically, it is analyzing WL. studying the condi tion and performance of live slock that is reared on their products, and In ally the chemistry of the animal products which become human food. Likewise, a new conception L developing of fruits ami vegetables. They breathe just as animals do. They give off or take in moisture. They arc subject to illnesses. Nobody would think of eating a sickly chicken. A sickly vegetable nuiv he equally undesirable in t he family cook pot. Let rne say, in closing, the fact that so much is yet to he done is encouraging rather than otherwise, in the light of what has been accomplished. It is said that what is now known of food values car add seven years to the average span of life, if generally applied. The work is not stopping there. In spots, the ballyhoo may he overdone; some claims may he exaggerated in the enthusiasm of salesmanship, hut the inherent sound ness u? the development has been demonstrated, its promise of greater good to come is established. The need is better understand mg, through more and heller cooperative research. Swinging into Winter "Aridex" water-repellent finish serves indoors and out The Call fir Mir iCmdmmdfmm P<w Tmeuty-O*,-) season gray instead of white is used in the filling to soften the pastel grounds that have been well received. Plain colors, iridescent and novelty shades should he prominently featured. Flannels are again popular and many now come in small self-clu-eks, strips and con trasting checks. Fancy oxford weaves should also he in demand. Matched shirts, handkerchiefs and ties will he heavily promoted this year and will help- to increase sales on the coiohiimUor: items as well as on unit sales. Color fastness in these shirt- and kerchiefs is extremely important because the color must, continue to mutch or harmonize in spite of repeated launderings and wearing*. In this vital mention of original color quality and value, no other class oi dyes will give service comparable lu that of vat colors, and lhe shirting industry in using them is giving consumers qualify that is doing much to stimulate increased purchases. So, when you open your wife's gift: this year and tind a colored shirt, chances are nil in favor of its being both attractive and. in good taste. You cun wear it with confidence (or Use colors that give it snap and appeal will probably outlusi the shirt. Itself. f y o u could see "Aridex" on fabrics, you would be I surprised by the versatility of this repellent, which is used cm articles ranging from automobile seat covers made from paper-fiber fabrics to velvet evening wraps. Borne of its most common applications are on woolen sportswear, marquisette curtains, mattress tick ing, topcoats and shower curtains. Many a family dog, too, stmts in a blanket treated with this finish. To all these, "Aridex" adds service and appear ance values, for it sheds water, resists spots and stains, helps to keep fabrics looking fresh and smart, and wearers of treated apparel dry and comfortable. "Aridex" does not coat or seal the fabric, but forms an invisible film on the individual fibers. The pores of the fabric are not closed, so that normal circulation of air needed for body comfort is permitted. Peace of Mind ..at a Quarter a Quart Wh aa FI V STA a a is Economical Heavy unbroken line represents unbroken film produced by tlie exclusive dual-retatdant in "Five Star" Ami-Freeze. By pre venting vapor from es caping, it bolds evapo ration to a minimum. Broken line allows how broken film of ordi nary retardants allows anti-freeze solution to evaporate freely. The vapor, rising to the surface, passes off at the points where the film baa separated. This filling-station attendant knows nothing about chemistry--but be cause be knows a lot about cooling systems he will use "Five Star" this year as he did last. His comely young customer knows nothing about either chemistry or cooling systems, but that doesn't matter. With "Five Star" in her car she need not worry about freezing or corrosion--rust-clogged radiators, engine overheating, or excessive evaporation. "Five Star," du Pont's ethanol anti-freeze, affords full protection against all of these. It is the research chemist's answer to the widespread demand for low-cost, all-winter protection. The "Five Star" salesman sells far more than just another anti-freeze. He sells "Peace of Mind" in cans!--at a quarter a quart. r | ii p C T A THE imp r o v e d e t h a n o l M Vb 5>TAR ANTI-FREEZE <N a u< OVa. ,,w Z& o5 ;z* < a C u O3 C o wC3 6C So 3O _C H Z 7 : S> a* >> ~ uw E <</D> 2*" =C dCj PCL "O --3 Q c'n O oi -- a> -O T3 ?E ra m _"D O OS *s "3 a <-> H rc