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Wilson College of Textiles 
Textiles History

Arthur C. “Pop” Hayes

School of Textiles, North Carolina State University
Arthur C. “Pop” Hayes Born 1906? China, Died Raleigh, NC
Years of Service 1936 -1971

 

Arthur C. Hayes received a Ph.B. in Chemistry from Brown University and joined the John B. Lewis Co., Mansfield, Massachusetts as a chemist. He moved on to Atmospheric Nitrogen Corporation, Hopewell, Virginia. He earned Master of Science in Textiles from NC State in 1933. Later, he joined his parents, Dr. and Mrs. Charles A. Hayes, who were medical missionaries in China. There he became a Textile Chemist at Kwang Tung Provincial Sericulture Bureau in Canton, China. He made experiments in dyeing, printing, and the chemical treatment of silk. His many contributions included resist printing by the vat method, introduction of indigo blue for the girls’ schools throughout Canton, and a “coloring machine” for home. Until Hayes introduced ferric chloride in a gum tragacanth paste, the common practice to obtain a black was to use the juice of a bulbous root called shu leung and river mud. The silk was dipped over 20 times into the dye liquid and allowed to dry. The cloth was then stored in river mud. Iron from the mud mixed with the 18% tannic acid in the shu leung. The process took a week; Hayes’ process took one day. No details were given about this process, except that the ferric chloride was the activating ingredient and no mud was required. Hayes was born in China and literally went back to his roots to work on dyeing. (2,3)

He moved back to the states and taught Organic Chemistry at the University of Southern California.

In 1936, he moved to Raleigh earned a MS in Textile Chemistry and Dyeing and began teaching junior­level textile chemistry courses and dyeing and finishing courses for textile technology students.

Retirement Dinner.  Rutherford, Chaney, Pop, Mrs. Hayes, Dean Campbell School of Textiles News 1971

He was married and had several children. Hayes retired in 1971.

I often saw him and his wife working in their yard along Brooks Avenue when I walked in after parking my car far north of campus before I was allowed to purchase a parking permit. His home and yard were well­maintained and featured a large American flag on a tall free­standing flagpole. (4)

 

Sources:  

  1. Rutherford, Henry A., “Textile Education, Department of Textile Chemistry,” Textile Forum, October 1958, page 10. 2.
  2. Press release, North Carolina State College News Services, August 2, 1936. 3.
  3. Mock, Gary N., A Century of Progress: The Textile Program North Carolina State University 1899­1999, North Carolina Textile Foundation, Raleigh, 2001. 4.
  4. Personal recollection, Gary N. Mock, 2012.