Who invented nylon and what happened to him?

Nylon was invented by Wallace Carothers, a Harvard-trained chemist hired by DuPont in 1928 with an almost unheard-of brief: invent something new. His team synthesised the world's first fully synthetic fibre by 1935. Carothers struggled with depression his entire life, and after the sudden death of his favourite sister he took his own life in a Philadelphia hotel on April 28th, 1937. Nylon was not publicly announced until October 1938. He never knew it existed as a product.

Is nylon still in modern clothing?

Yes, in enormous quantities. Nylon is the primary fibre in tights, hosiery, and most activewear, and is used heavily in puffer jacket shells, sports bras, swimwear, lingerie linings, and even toothbrush bristles. Wallace Carothers' molecule is woven through almost every wardrobe, usually invisibly. Check the composition label of any stretchy black tight or athletic top and you will almost certainly see nylon, sometimes labelled as polyamide.

The Day Women Rioted Over Stockings: The Strange Birth of Nylon

Q: Were the nylon riots of 1946 real?

Yes. After nylon stockings were rationed throughout World War II for parachutes and military gear, their post-war return triggered chaos in cities across the United States. The Pittsburgh Press reported around forty thousand women queued sixteen blocks deep in pouring rain outside Kaufmann's department store in June 1946 for roughly thirteen thousand pairs. Police struggled to hold the line. The papers christened the episode the 'nylon riots.'

In 1946, forty thousand women queued sixteen city blocks in pouring rain for a pair of stockings. The man who invented the fabric they were fighting over had been dead for nine years and had never seen a single pair. This is the saddest, strangest birth of a fabric you almost certainly own.

TL;DR. Nylon was invented in 1935 by a depressive Harvard chemist who killed himself before anyone outside DuPont had heard the word. After his death, his molecule became a national obsession — riots in the streets, four million pairs sold in four days — and is still woven through almost every modern wardrobe.

The Chemist Who Never Saw His Fabric

In 1928, DuPont did something almost no industrial laboratory of the era would have considered. They hired a brilliant, melancholy Harvard chemist named Wallace Hume Carothers and handed him a blank brief. No product. No deliverable. Just: go and invent something new.

By 1935, Carothers' team had pulled off the impossible. They had cooked up the world's first fully synthetic fibre, drawn out of a beaker. Stronger than silk. Cheaper. Fully man-made. They called it nylon.

And then, the part of this saga that haunts me most. Carothers had struggled with depression his whole life. In January 1937 his favourite sister died suddenly, and something in him broke. On April 28th, two days after his forty-first birthday, he checked into a Philadelphia hotel and drank a glass of lemon juice laced with potassium cyanide. He had carried the cyanide capsule on his keychain for years. Nylon was not publicly announced until October 1938. He never knew it existed as a product.

1939: The World's Fair and Four Million Pairs in Four Days

In 1939, DuPont unveiled nylon at the New York World's Fair. A 105-foot tower. Female guides circulating in nylon stockings. The crowds were so frantic the company had to move the demonstration to the main stage.

The first commercial pair of nylon stockings went on sale on May 15th, 1940. Four million pairs sold in four days. Stronger than silk. Smoother than rayon. Cheaper than either. American women had been waiting for them.

Then Pearl Harbour. Every gram of nylon was requisitioned by the military for parachutes, ropes, tyre cord, even mosquito netting. Stockings vanished overnight. Women painted seams up the back of their bare legs with eyeliner to fake them. The black market exploded.

The Riots

The war ended in 1945. DuPont promised stockings were coming. Production could not keep up. And in city after city, the queues tipped into actual chaos.

Pittsburgh, June 1946. The Pittsburgh Press reported around forty thousand women queued sixteen blocks deep in pouring rain for roughly thirteen thousand pairs of stockings outside Kaufmann's department store. Some had been there twenty-four hours. There was shoving. Fainting. Broken windows. Police could not hold the line. The papers christened the whole episode the 'nylon riots.'

Think about what that actually means. Women had spent six years rationing, working in factories, losing brothers and husbands, painting their legs brown — and the thing they were willing to brawl in the street for, the moment the war ended, was a synthetic fibre invented by a man who had killed himself before any of them had ever heard the word nylon.

How a Riot Becomes Wallpaper

The frenzy lasted years. Then, slowly, it normalised. By the 1950s nylon stockings were everywhere. By the 1960s tights replaced them. By the 1970s nylon was no longer a wonder material — it was a default. The product that had caused riots in 1946 had become wallpaper inside a generation.

That is the strange arc of almost every synthetic fibre. Astonishment, then ubiquity, then invisibility. We forget that the soft, stretchy, slightly slick fabric inside our sports bra was, ninety years ago, the most disruptive material chemistry had ever produced.

Why This Matters For What You Wear Today

Look down. That stretchy black tight you wear under everything is still mostly nylon. The shell of your puffer jacket. Your toothbrush bristles. The hidden mesh inside your sports bra. The lining of your swimsuit. Carothers' molecule is woven through your week and you almost never notice. The frenzy got priced in. The fabric became invisible.

Two things follow from knowing the saga. First, nylon is genuinely an extraordinary fibre — strong, light, elastic, durable — and there are places in a modern wardrobe where it is the right material. Second, brands now use the word polyamide on labels, which is just nylon under its chemical name. Same molecule. Different word. If you want to know how much of your wardrobe is descended from a Philadelphia hotel room in 1937, the composition label is the only honest record.

And remember DuPont, by the way. They are not done putting their chemistry on your body.