E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company. Textile Fibers Dept.

The Textile Fibers Department of the Du Pont Company was established in 1936 as the Rayon Department. It was renamed in 1952 to reflect the wider range of fibers being produced and was renamed the Fibers Department in 1988.

The Du Pont Company first began to explore the possibility of diversifying into artificial fibers around 1909, when there was as yet no such capability in the country. Work was delayed by World War I, but in 1918-1919 the Development Department began studying the three existing processes for making artificial silk and selected the viscose process as the most promising. In 1920 Du Pont purchased the American rights to the vicose rayon process from the French cartel, Comptoir des textiles artificiels, and established the Du Pont Fibersilk Company as a joint venture with a plant at Buffalo, N.Y. It was renamed the Du Pont Rayon Company on March 18, 1925, in recognition of the new generic term for artificial silk. A second plant was constructed in 1924-1925 at Old Hickory, Tenn., on the site of the old World War I smokeless powder works.

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