Spinning Nylon

This chapter explores the history of nylon, launched by DuPont in the late 1930s as the world’s first entirely synthetic fiber. Executives at DuPont, the world’s largest explosives manufacturer at the time, were eager to reinvent the company’s public image from being associated with war to that of providers of “Better Things for Better Living . . . Through Chemistry.” Using a range of archival materials, the chapter charts nylon’s changing uses and meanings from an industrial material spun from DuPont’s research and development labs to a political material associated with American independence, women’s bodies, and the US military. The chapter argues that nylon’s associations with women’s bodies are key to understanding changing attitudes toward synthetic materials, their political dimensions, and their proximity to the body.