Nylon was first made on 28 February 1935 at DuPont

Nylon was first made on 28 February 1935, when Gerard Berchet, a chemist in Wallace Carothers’ research group at DuPont in Wilmington, Delaware, heated hexamethylene diamine with adipic acid and produced nylon 6,6, named for the six carbon atoms in each of its two building blocks. By that autumn the team had spun the first nylon threads.

Why 6,6? In 1934 the team’s best fibre was actually nylon 5,10, but research director Elmer K. Bolton judged its ingredients unsuitable for commercial production, while those of nylon 6,6 could be obtained from chemicals in coal. Commercial judgement, not just chemistry, picked the winner. Carothers never saw the payoff: he took his own life in April 1937, shortly after applying for the patent.

When was nylon invented: 1930, 1935 or 1938?

All three, because each date marks a different step. Carothers’ lab began the polymer research that led to nylon around 1930. The specific polymer DuPont would sell was made in February 1935. The patent was issued in September 1938, and the public first heard of nylon on 27 October 1938, when DuPont vice-president Charles Stine announced it to a meeting of women’s club members in New York.

What was the first nylon product?

Toothbrush bristles, in 1938, though DuPont had aimed nylon squarely at a silk hosiery market worth about $70 million a year. Stockings went on sale nationwide on 15 May 1940, “N-Day”. Accounts of the first day differ, about 4 million pairs in one history and 5 million in another, but around 60 million pairs had sold before the year was out.

During the Second World War nylon was diverted to parachutes and tow ropes, and peacetime shortages led to near-riots at stocking counters.