Abstract
Scientific knowledge may be international, but industrial and other applications of that knowledge are not. This is particularly true of chemistry and chemical industry. Thus, although particular chemical processes or production plants can be inaugurated in any nation, a variety of political, economic, geographic and historical circumstances tend to give the structure and development of the chemical industry a distinctly national character. Perhaps the most important of these circumstances are, simply, a nation’s size and geography, including its natural resources. These factors are constraints of great importance not only to national chemical industries, but also to the development of the local chemical communities upon which the industries depend.1 This generalization applies to Denmark’s chemical industry, which developed under constraints characteristic for a small country with no natural resources apart from its fertile soil. From this standpoint it is not surprising that the development of Danish chemical industry has been dominated by the biotechnical and agrochemical sectors.
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References
The importance of demographic and material conditions for the development of science is argued in Harold Dorn, The Geography of Science (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991). See also Norman J. G. Pounds, An Historical Geography of Europe 1800–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), which includes much information relevant to chemical industry.
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The lack of international significance is reflected in the standard histories of chemical industry. Thus no Danish companies or developments are mentioned in either L.F. Haber, The Chemical Industry, 1900–1930 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971) or F.S. Taylor, A History of Chemical Industry (New York: Arno Press, 1972). Fred Aftalion, A History of the International Chemical Industry (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991) briefly treats Denmark and Norway as appendices to Sweden and singles out Nordisk Insulin and Novo, the two pioneering companies in insulin production, as noteworthy Danish enterprises in the interwar period (on p. 313).
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From 1901 to 1924 and from 1926 to 1929 the governments were liberal and with strong bonds to agriculture. The first social democratic government was in office from 1924 to 1926, and from 1929 to 1940 the government was formed by a coalition between the social democratic party and a smaller liberal party (“the radicals”).
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There were, however, works which distilled coal tar from the gas works. Danske Gasvœrkers Tjærekompagni (today `Tarco’) was founded in 1919 and produced a variety of tar products, especially for roads. With the exception of a limited use of tar derivatives for pharmaceutical products during World War 11, there was no synthesis of organic compounds in connection with the Danish tar industry.
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Kragh, H. (1998). The Take-Off Phase of Danish Chemical Industry, ca. 1910–1940. In: Travis, A.S., Schröter, H.G., Homburg, E., Morris, P.J.T. (eds) Determinants in the Evolution of the European Chemical Industry, 1900–1939. Chemists and Chemistry, vol 16. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-1233-0_15
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