E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company. Central Research and Development Dept.

The Du Pont Company's Central Research and Development Dept. was created in 1975 from elements of the Development Dept. and the Central Research Dept. The Development Dept. was formed in 1903 and has operated as the company's research arm at the Experimental Station in Wilmington, Delaware. The Central Research Dept. was formed in 1911 as the Chemical Dept. and renamed in 1958.

Centralized research at the Du Pont Company resulted from the company's need to diversify its product base after its 1902 reorganization. In 1911 the Chemical Dept. was organized, and all company research came under its jurisdiction. By 1922 research became decentralized with each manufacturing department having its own research division, but all research remained based at the Experimental Station. The Chemical Dept.'s second director, Charles M. A. Stine, initiated a formal program of fundamental research in physical and organic chemistry, physics, and chemical engineering in 1928. Wallace Hume Carothers came to work for Du Pont under this new program that same year. Less than a decade later Carothers and his team laid the groundwork for the commercial development of neoprene and developed nylon.

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