Piece of Melted Nylon Polymer

• ca. 1938
• Manufactured by E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company
• 1 in. H x 4.75 in. W x 2 in. D
  Nylon
• On display in Making Modernity
• Gift of Joseph X. Labovsky
• The Joseph X. Labovsky Collection
• 2004.543.187

Description

Nylon, developed in the late 1930s by a team headed by Wallace Carothers at E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, was the first totally synthetic fiber. Developed as a replacement for natural silk, nylon is a simple monomer-chain polymer created by polymerizing a polyamide in a salt mixture.