American Chemical Industry in the Twenties

Abstract

IT was a hige task which Williams Haynes under-took when he conceived a history of American chemical industry from the year 1608 to the present time, to appear in six volumes. The first volume has yet to come. Volumes 2 and 3 appeared in 1946, and in 1948 the fourth volume has arrived—an extraordinary achievement. But Mr. Haynes has spent his life in contact with the chemical industry and with the chief figures who have flitted across, or still occupy, the American stage. A history of any era is interesting, and important if authentic, and it can be taken that this history, documented so efficiently, with so many references to statistics and ascertainable facts, is to be relied upon to give a true picture of events. Volume 4, subtitled “The Merger Era", is concerned with the period 1922–29, Part 1, in fact, being called ”The Booming Twenties’ when it could be said “Booming automobile, motion pictures, and radio industries create new chemical demands". ”The Keturn to Normalcy", as Haynes calls it, followed on the First World War and witnessed the beginning of the “Boom’ ; ”the reckless orgy of spending’ ended it with the “resounding crash of 1929".

American Chemical Industry

The Merger Era. By Williams Haynes. Vol. 4, 1923–1929. Pp. xli + 638 + 46 plates. (New York: D. Van Nostrand Co., Inc. ; London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1948. 15s. net.