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Wallace Carothers
Sign in to saveAlso known as Wallace Hume Carothers
American organic chemist (1896–1937)
OverviewAI-generated
Wallace Hume Carothers was an American chemist, inventor, and engineer. Born in Burlington in 1896, he worked at Harvard University and DuPont. He was educated at the University of Illinois system and studied under Roger Adams. His professional fields included chemistry, polymer science, and organic chemistry.
Carothers was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and is recognized in the National Inventors Hall of Fame collection. He died in Wilmington on April 29, 1937. His death was caused by poison, classified as suicide. He spoke English and held United States citizenship.
Synthesized by Vinony from 20 facts across 2 sources: Wikidata, Vinony collections. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.
Key facts
- Born
- ( 1896-04-27 ) April 27, 1896, Burlington, Iowa , U.S.
- Died
- April 29, 1937 (1937-04-29) (aged 41), Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , U.S.
- Education
- Tarkio College ( BS ) University of Illinois ( MA and PhD )
- Known for
- Invention of neoprene and nylon
- Fields
- Organic chemistry
- Doctoral advisor
- Roger Adams
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- human
- Given name
- Wallace
- Gender
- male
- Citizenship
- United States
- Place of birth
- Burlington
- Place of death
- Wilmington
- Occupation
- engineer
- Employer
- DuPont
- Languages spoken
- English language
- Doctoral advisor
- Roger Adams
- Student of
- Roger Adams
- Field of work
- organic chemistry
- Image
- Wallace Carothers, in the lab.jpg
Show 8 more facts
- date of birth
- 1896-04-27
- date of death
- 1937-04-29
- manner of death
- Suicide
- member of
- National Academy of Sciences
- Commons category
- Wallace H. Carothers
- cause of death
- poison
- on focus list of Wikimedia project
- Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/4
- name in native language
- Wallace Hume Carothers
Sources (7)
via Wikidata · CC0
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Encyclopedic overview
Wallace Hume Carothers (/kəˈrʌðərz/; April 27, 1896 – April 29, 1937) was an American chemist, inventor, and the leader of organic chemistry at DuPont, who was credited with the invention of nylon.
Carothers was a group leader at the DuPont Experimental Station laboratory, near Wilmington, Delaware, where most polymer research was done. Carothers was an organic chemist who, in addition to first developing nylon, also helped lay the groundwork for neoprene. After receiving his Ph.D., he taught at several universities before he was hired by DuPont to work on fundamental research.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Wallace Carothers” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.