Carothers helped Labovsky to go to college. Again the DuPont family stepped in, and Lammot Du Pont paid for his education. He studied industrial chemical engineering at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. After he graduated, there were few jobs because of the Great Depression. In 1934 he managed to get a job digging ditches on the grounds of Experimental Station, of all places.

Carothers found Labovsky working in a ditch on the grounds. The next day Carothers had Labovsky working as his assistant again. Labovsky carried out experiments for Carothers while nylon was being researched, and contributed over a thousand ideas in the scaling up of nylon production. Most of the people who worked under Carothers were research chemists, not engineers, and they found Labovsky's background in chemical engineering made him well suited to this work.

Like many people Labovsky recalls that Carothers was an unusual person to understand and know. But the two had in common a love of classical music, especially Russian music. Tchaikovsky was a favorite of both. The two spent many evenings in the laboratory discussing their favorite music and literature as well.

Labovsky's vast collections of nylon artifacts, photos, memorabilia, reports, memos, and personal knowledge of all the "Purity Hall" chemists and events was instrumental and indispensible in creating this website and its companion stationary exhibit.

References

1. Hermes, Matthew. Enough for One Lifetime: Wallace Carothers, Inventor of Nylon. Washington, D.C.: American Chemical Society; Philadelphia: Chemical Heritage Foundation, 1996.

2. Labovsky, Joseph. Oral history by John K. Smith, 24 July 1996. Philadelphia: Chemical Heritage Foundation.