When Charles M. A. Stine first proposed that DuPont establish a fundamental research department, Elmer K. Bolton was opposed to the plan. Strangely, it was Bolton who would end up saving the fundamental research program, and prove essential to the development of nylon. In 1930, DuPont made Bolton the Chemical Director of the fundamental research program. The pragmatic Bolton pushed Carothers and his team to research in areas which related to the product markets in which DuPont was involved. It was Bolton who first pushed Carothers to carry out synthetic rubber research, and the result was neoprene. In 1930, when the polyesters that were developed by Carothers and his team showed that synthetic polymers had potential as textile fibers, Bolton pushed the Carothers team to focus their research on making a synthetic polymer which could replace natural silk.

Bolton did not like the idea of an industrial lab carrying out fundamental research. Ironically, by steering the fundamental research program in a more product-oriented direction, he saved it from elimination during the fiscally tight years of the Great Depression.

Once Carothers had invented polyamide fibers, Bolton also made the decision as to which one was going to be produced commercially. Carothers had wanted nylon 5-10 to be produced. But Bolton decided that nylon 6-6 would be the commercial product. Nylon 6-6 was cheaper to produce because its starting materials were easily obtained from benzene, which was in turn an inexpensive coal-tar product.

Nylon was the direct result of Bolton's emphasis on making useful products from basic research. While Carothers was not opposed to applied science, it took a pragmatist like Bolton to turn his inventions into useful products.