Men of Mark in Textile Chemistry

1922-1926

Men of Mark – a series of articles devoted to members of AATCC who made a difference in 1920s.

 

M.L. Crossley, Calco Chemical, Bound Brook, N. J. 1922

M.L. Crossley was born July 3, 1884, in Saba Island, Dutch West Indies of American parents.  He received his early education in the Dutch West Indies Academy, and later completed secondary school in the United States.   He was graduated from Brown University in 1909 with the Bachelor of Philosophy, completing the four year program in three years.  He continued studies at Brown and received the M. S. in 1910 and the Ph. D. in 1911.   During the period 1909-1911, he was Instructor of Chemistry under Prof. John Howard Appleton.  Through this association, he became interested in dye chemistry and conducted work on anthraquinones.  With Professor Appleton, he studied vat dyes and simultaneously, the biological chemistry of creatinine to body metabolism. He was prepared to teach either biology or chemistry.

He became Associate Professor of Organic and Biological Chemistry at William-Jewell Liberty MO from 1911- 1913; Associate Professor of Organic Chemistry at Wesleyan University Middletown, CT, and acting head of the Chemistry Department at Wesleyan from 1914-1918.  In 1918, he became Chief Chemist of the Calco Chemical Company.

His research during the academic years was in several fields related to the constitution of color, the effect of toxins on nerve metabolism, and the relation between chemical constitution and physiological properties. He was a member of the Eight International Congress of Applied Chemistry, and is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a member of the American Chemical Society, the Society of the Chemical Industry, and the Societe de la Chimie et Industrie.  He was past president of the Connecticut Valley Section of the American Chemical Society 1916-1918, and is the author of several papers on scientific and educational subjects.

Crossley, Culver, and Davies

 

Ralph F. Culver, Ciba Company, Inc. Providence, R. I. 1923

Ralph Farnsworth Culver was born in Groton, MA and received his preliminary education in the public schools.   In 1901, he entered The Lowell Textile School, and graduated in 1904 after completing the course in Chemistry and Dyeing.

He joined the Glenlyon Print Works for one and a half years and left to join the Arnold Print Works, North Adams, MA as assistant dyer and was promoted in about one year to superintendent of dyeing.  In September, 1908, he joined the Holliston Mills, Norwood, MA as manager.  After four years, he accepted the position as manager of the dyeing departments of the Joseph Bancroft & Sons Company, Wilmington, DE.

In 1916, he entered various dyestuff businesses.  In February, 1921, he joined the Ciba Company, Inc. and became manager of the Providence office.  In 1922, he became a director of the company and recently was elected vice president.

He is the Chairman of the Providence section of AATCC and ex officio a member of the National Council.  He is a member of the Society of Dyers and Colourists and the Providence Engineering Society.

 

Harry R. Davies, Dyestuffs Corporation of America, 1924

Harry R. Davies, a native of Manchester, England, was educated in the public schools and graduated from Manchester Municipal College of Technology, where he took the Chemistry and Dyeing course under Professor E. Knecht.  He was Silver Medalist in Cotton Dyeing, Ordinary and Honors, in two successive years.  After graduation in 1897, he joined Levinstein, Ltd. and worked in the dyeing laboratory under the direction of Julius Huebner.  From 1900-01, he was a demonstrator in the evening class at the Salford School with J. R. Appleyard.

In 1902, he came to the United States to take charge of the laboratories of Thomas Leyland & Co., recently

appointed agents for Levinstein, Ltd.  When I. Levinstein & Co. was formed in 1905, he became chief chemist.  

He was appointed a director in 1915.

In 1924, The Dyestuffs Corporation of America was formed to distribute the products of the British Dyestuffs Corporation, successor to Levinstein.  Mr. Davies is vice president. Mr. Davies is president of the Drysalter’s Club of Boston, one of the oldest and best known organizations of dyestuff men in the country,  

 

Herbert Grandage, The Clark Thread Co., Newark, N. J. 1925

Herbert Grandage was born in Bradford, England, June 12, 1891.  At an early age he moved to the United States and after graduating from the Philadelphia Central Manual Training High School in 1908 he continued his studies at the Philadelphia Textile School and at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn.

His first position in the textile field was as Assistant Dyer at the Industrial Dyeing & Finishing Company, Frankford, Philadelphia, where he remained two years.  Later, he became Laboratory Assistant and Color Matcher for Read Holliday & Sons, in New York City, which position he resigned to become Superintendent of Bleaching and Dyeing at the Bay State Thread Works, Springfield, Mass., where he remained until 1919.  For the next two years, he was Superintendent of Bleaching and Dyeing for Gerald Cooper, Providence, R. I.  In June 1921, he became Superintendent of Bleaching, Mercerizing and Dyeing at the Clark Thread Company, Newark, N.J., which position he still holds.  In addition to exercising the entire supervision of all chemical processes for Clark Thread Company he is also Manager of the Bloomfield, N. J., works of the same company.

Mr. Grandage is regarded as one of the best informed and most progressive of the younger generation of dyers who have helped to raise the occupation from the rank of skilled labor to that of a highly trained technical profession.  His popularity among all elements of the textile-chemical fraternity has led to his being the recipient of many honors.  He was formerly Secretary and later Vice-Chairman of the New York Section of the American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists, and is at present Chairman thereof.  He comes of a long line of dyers centered about Bradford, England, there having been at one time or another no less than twelve of his family following the profession of dyestuff application.

Grandage, Hadley, and Jorgensen

 

Walter E. Hadley, The Clark Thread Co., Newark, N. J. 1923

Walter Eastman Hadley was born in Lowell, Mass., and attended the public schools. He completed the Chemistry and Dyeing Course at Lowell Textile School, and graduated in 1908.  After graduation, he remained at the school as an Assistant Instructor in the Chemistry Department for four years.  In the fall of 1912 he joined Roessler & Hasslacher Chemical Company as a research chemist in the bleaching station at Perth Amboy, N. J.  After 3 ½ years, he left to join The Clark Thread Company as Chief Chemist. Hadley is Secretary of AATCC, a position he has held since the formation under Dr. Olney.  He is also a member of the American Chemical Society and The New Jersey Chemical Society.

 

Axel J. Jorgensen, Bibb Manufacturing Co., Macon, GA, 1926

Axel J. Jorgensen was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, September 5, 1868.  He was educated at Wolfsen Institute, Copenhagen and graduated from Copenhagen University.   After spending several years in Germany and Austria learning his trade, he came to the United States in the late 1890s.  He worked for several companies before joining the Bibb manufacturing Co., Macon, GA in February 1900 as Assistant Superintendent of Dyeing.  In 1902, he was promoted to Superintendent of Dyeing, Bleaching and Finishing.  During his more than twenty five years of uninterrupted service with Bibb, he has witnessed the expansion of Bibb from a group of four mills to eleven.  During January, 1925, his department set a production record with an increase of 138 per cent over the same month twenty five years earlier.  That mark was also 19 per cent higher than during any month achieved during World War I.

Jorgensen is widely known in the business throughout the South and is recognized as one of the most progressive and competent men in the field.

 

Herman A. Metz, General Dyestuff Corporation, New York, 1925

Herman A. Metz was born in New York City October 19, 1867.  After attending grammar and high school, he entered the dyestuff field as an office boy with P. Schulze-Berge, an importer.  He continued to advance through various consolidations and name changes until 1898 when he became owner and president of Victor Koechl & Co., whose chief business was to represent Farbwerke, vormals Meister Lucius & Bruening, Hoechst am Main, Germany.  He continues to control this business.  This business was later succeeded by two new companies – H.A. Metz & Co. and H. A. Metz Laboratories, Inc. – the former carrying on the dyestuff business and the latter, the pharmaceuticals.

In July 1925, Mr. Metz’s entire dyestuff selling businesses were consolidated into a new firm, the General Dyestuff Corporation.  This concern is also the U. S. representative of Leopold Casella & Co. and other European manufacturers and sales agent for the Grasselli Corporation.

Outside the dyestuff and pharmaceutical fields, Metz also owns the Textileather Company, of Newark, N. J., and the Ettrick Mills, Auburn, MA.  He also has a long and varied public career: Comptroller for the City of New York; a member of Congress; a member of the Board of Education of Brooklyn and of New York City; a member of the State Board of Charities; a director of the Interborough Transit Company; Colonel and Ordnance Officer New York National Guard and the United States Army Officer’s reserve Corps.  He is director of numerous banks and member of numerous chemical and industrial societies.  He received the honorary D.Sc. from Union College and the L.L.D. from Manhattan College.

Metz and Mitchell

Rose, 1922 and 1943

 

William Ewart Mitchell, Ciba Company, Inc.,

William Ewart Mitchell was born December 10, 1891, in Pawtucket, R. I., and shortly thereafter, his family moved to Boston where he attended grade and high schools.  In 1907 he entered the laboratory of Arthur Merritt, a dyestuff distributor of Boston and also entered the night course in chemistry at Franklin Union.

In 1909 he went to the Boston laboratory of the Badische Company where he remained until 1918 when he moved to New York to take charge of the Application Laboratory of Aniline Dyes & Chemicals, Inc.  Ciba is the direct successor of this company.  In 1918 he became sales manager of Ciba Company and in February of this year was elected Vice-President in Charge of Sales.

 

Robert E. Rose, DuPont Company, Wilmington, DE 1922

Robert Evstafieff Rose was born June 2, 1879 in Palermo, Sicily of Norman-Scotch-English-Italian-Spanish- Russian-American descent. His travels began at the age of four when his parents homesteaded in the Canadian Northwest.  Before returning to Europe, the family went to California where he began his studies.   With only two years of study at an English private school, he matriculated at the age of sixteen in the University of Leipzig, the youngest student to enroll.  In 1903, he obtained his Ph. D. in Organic Chemistry for work under Professor Johannes Wislicenus, a research pioneer in modern carbon chemistry.

He accepted a position at the University of St. Andrews and did specialized research on sugars (and learned to play golf at that famous course).  In 1905, he moved to University College, Nottingham, England, where he studied optically active silicon compounds. In 1907, he moved to the University of Washington as Assistant Professor of Chemistry.  In 1917, he became a Fellow at the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research, Pittsburgh, PA and worked on special problems submitted by the petroleum industry.

He moved to DuPont in 1918 and devoted his research to dye chemistry as assistant to the head of the Organic Research Division.  In 1921, he  was appointed head of the Technical Laboratory of the Dyestuffs Department of E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., Wilmington, DE and remained there until retirement in 1943.  He served AATCC as president for several years in the mid 1930s. (2)

 

Walter Moody Scott, Cheney Brothers Silk, South Manchester, CT 1922

Walter Moody Scott was, as he himself put it ‘born and raised a Connecticut Yankee.’  After finishing his primary and prep school education, he entered the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale and graduated with a Ph.B. in 1912.  During his senior year he was elected to the honorary society of Sigma Xi.  For the next three years he remained at Yale and earned a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry and served as an Assistant Instructor.

He served for one year in the US Army as a Lieutenant in the Sanitary Corps.  He began service with Cheney Brothers in 1915 and has been with them except for the year in the army.  He is chief chemist in charge of the laboratory and the purchase of dyes and chemicals for the plant.

He is a member of AATCC and serves as one of the Councilors.  He serves on the Research Committee.  He is a member of the American Chemical Society, and the Chemist’s Club of New York. He is also an active sportsman in lawn tennis and acts as an official representative of the Manchester Country Club with the U. S. Lawn Tennis Association.

Scott became director of the Southern Regional Research Laboratory, USDA.

 

Harrison F. Wilmot, Synthetic Organic Chemicals Manufacturers Association of the United States 1924

Harrison F. Wilmot was born in 1888 in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada, where he attended the local grammar and high schools.  He enrolled at the Bradford Durfee Textile School, completed the special course in dyeing and engineering and graduated in 1911.  The next two years were spent as colorist with the following:   The Algonquin Printing Co., Fall River, MA; D.A. Higgins Dye Works, Edgewater, N. J.; and Davis & Quick, Brooklyn, N. Y.  For the following three years, he was a color chemist with the Kalle Dyestuffs and Chemical Company and moved on to William Beckers Aniline & Chemical Works as a chemist in charge of the Boston Laboratory, and finally as a salesman and laboratory demonstrator in their New England region.  During 1918, he became vice president of S. R. David & Co., Boston.  In 1919, he founded the TincTura Laboratories, Inc., Brooklyn and for the next three years, he was president and director. In 1922, he was appointed technical adviser to the Synthetic Organic Chemicals Manufacturers Association of the United States.   In this capacity, he works with U. S. attorneys with technical information in customs cases where dye imports have been involved. Mr. Wilmot is a member of the American Chemical Society, Chemists Club, treasurer of the New York section of AATCC, and third vice president of the Salesmen’s Association of the American Chemical Industry.

Scott, Wilmot, and Wood

 

Percival J. Wood, Oriental Silk Printing Co., Paterson, N. J. 1922

Percival J. Wood was born June 21, 1880 in Leeds, England and received his primary education at Leeds Boys’ Modern School and the University of Leeds.  He took the full course in Dyeing and Tinctorial Chemistry and graduated in 1898.  He began his apprenticeship with William Grandage Co., The Brownroyd Dyeworks, Bradford, which is now a branch of the Bradford Dyers’ Association.

In 1901, he became Assistant Lecturer and Demonstrator of Practical Dyeing at the University of Leeds, where he spent two years.  He emigrated to the United States and became Chief Chemist with American Dyeing & Finishing Co., Hawthorne, N. J.  In 1906 he joined Peerless Finishing, Nyack, N. Y. and became Assistant Superintendent until 1908.

He joined Oriental Silk in 1908 as Superintendent and Colorist in the Paterson works.  In 1911, he became Treasurer and General Manager, and in 1913 Vice President and General Manager. Wood eventually joined Royce Chemical and continued his extensive interaction with AATCC.  He was awarded the Olney Medal by AATCC in 1957.

 

Sources:

1. American Dyestuff Reporter issues 1922 – 1926
2. American Dyestuff Reporter, 1943 p431.