Abstract
At the end of the nineteenth century two modern industries, those connected with dyestuffs and the electrical equipment, developed strategies and structures for the ongoing creation of novel products and technologies. One of the most successful strategies connected with this was the establishment of organisational units within the companies, in particular the industrial research laboratories.1
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
There are other possibilities for the supply and transfer of new technology, for example the collaboration with university teachers or independent inventors, the purchase of licenses or patents, and even of entire firms with an expertise in advanced technology. The advantages of doing in-house research are discussed in R. Nelson, ‘The roles of firms in technical advance: A perspective from evolutionary theory’ in G. Dosi, R. Giannetti and P.A. Toninelli eds., Technology and Enterprise in a Historical Perspective (Oxford, 1992), pp. 164–184, on pp. 171–174. An overview of the relevant literature on the history of industrial research is given in M.A. Dennis, ‘Accounting for research: new histories of corporate laboratories and the social history of American science’, Social Studies of Science, 17 (1987), 479–518; and J.K. Smith Jr., ‘The scientific tradition in American industrial research’, Technology and Culture, 31 (1990), 121–131.
J.J. Beer, ‘Coal tar dye manufacture and the origins of the modern industrial research laboratory’, Isis, 49 (1958), 123–131; G. Meyer-Thurow, ‘The industrialization of invention: A case study from the German chemical industry’, Isis, 73 (1982), 363–381; E. Homburg, The emergence of research laboratories in the dyestuffs industry, 1870–1900’, British Journal for the History of Science, 25 (1992), 91–111; and U. Marsch, ‘Strategies for success: Research organization in German chemical companies and I.G. Farben until 1936’, History and Technology, 12 (1995), 23–77.
For the term technological paradigm see H. van den Belt and A. Rip, ‘The Nelson-WinterDosi model and synthetic dye chemistry’, in W.E. Bijker, T.P. Hughes and T.J. Pinch eds., The Social Construction of Technological Systems. New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology (Cambridge, Mass., 1987), pp. 135–158.
Homburg, op. cit. (2), p. 110.
As Ernst Homburg has indicated, but not fully established. Homburg, op. cit. (2), pp. 98–100.
This paper was written in December 1994 during my stay at the Edelstein Center for the History and Philosophy of Science, Technology and Medicine in Jerusalem. I thank Dr Anthony S. Travis and Dr Ernst Homburg for their help and criticism. I would also like to thank Prof. Raymond Stokes for his comments on an earlier draft of this paper. For access to the sources held at the company archives of BASF, Ludwigshafen, I am grateful to Dr Lothar Meinzer and Mrs Ruth Fromm. For more detailed information see the author’s dissertation project ‘Research in the Chemical Industry. The Development of Artificial Dyestuffs at BASF and Hoechst, 1860–1914’.
For the life and work of Heinrich Caro see A. S. Travis, ‘Heinrich Caro at Roberts, Dale and Co.’, Ambix, 38 (1991), 113–134 and A. Bernthsen, `Heinrich Caro’, Berichte der Deutschen Chemischen Gesellschaft (hereafter BDChG), 45 (1912), 1987–2042.
A.S. Travis, ‘Science and technology for an empire: A. W. Hofmann and Heinrich Caro in England’ in C. Memel and H. Scholz eds., Die Allianz von Wissenschaft und Industrie. August Wilhelm Hofmann (1818–1892). Zeit, Werk, Wirkung (Weinheim, 1992), pp. 119–132, on pp. 125–126.
These colours were phenylene brown (also called Manchester, Martius or Bismarck brown), naphthalene yellow (Martius yellow), and induline, the latter made from azobenzene, aniline and the hydrochloride salt of aniline. For this work Caro received a share of the profits, depending on the amount of sales. In return for a payment of 500 Gulden he agreed not to.
Contract between Caro and BASF, 14 October 1868. (German in the original. Translations are my own, unless otherwise indicated.) Sondersammlungen (Special Collection) Deutsches Museum, Munich (hereafter SSDM), `Erinnerungen an Heinrich Caro’, vol. 2. Quoted in: E. Wiedenmann, `Die Konstruktion der richtigen Formel. Strukturaufklärung und Synthese des Indigblau, dargestellt an Hand des Briefwechsels Baeyer - Caro’. 2 vols. [Munich, Ph.D. Diss., TU Munich, 1978], vol. 2, pp. 292–93. The words ‘theoretical’ and ‘practical’ in the contract indicate, as Ernst Homburg has shown, that Caro was obliged to do both research work and analytical or routine operations. See, for full citation and valuable discussion, Homburg, op. cit. (2), p. 98.
The position was offered to Carl Glaser, who later in the year joined BASF. Siegle merged with BASF in 1873. Carl Graebe to August Kekulé, 19 May 1969, Kekulé-Sammlung Darmstadt. Transcribed in E. Vaupel, ‘Carl Graebe (1841–1927) - Leben, Werk und Wirken im Spiegel seines brieflichen Nachlasses’, 2 vols. [Munich, Ph.D. Diss. University of Munich, 1987], vol. 2, p. 412.
Palatine orange was the product of the reaction of nitric acid on benzidine. See Carl Glaser, ‘Erlebnisse und Erinnerungen nach meinem Eintritt in die Badische Anilin-und Soda-Fabrik im Jahre 1869’, unpublished manuscript, 1921. CA BASF, pp. 35–36. See also G. Schultz and P. Julius, Tabellarische Übersicht der künstlichen organischen Farbstoffe (Berlin, 1888), no. 11, pp. 4–5.
H. Caro, ‘Über die Entwickelung der Theerfarben-Industrie’, BDChG, 25 (1892) III, 9551105, esp. pp. 972–973, note 3.
A.S. Travis, The Rainbow Makers. The Origins of the Synthetic Dyestuffs Industry in Western Europe (Bethlehem, Pa., 1993), pp. 174–186; Vaupel, op. cit. (11), pp. 147–181; W.J. Hornix, `From process to plant: Innovation in the early artificial dye industry’, British Journal for the History of Science, 25 (1992), 65–90, esp. pp. 77–86.
Supplement to the contracts of Dr. Carl Clemm, Caro, August Clemm and Jul.lius] Giese, approved in the session of the supervisory hoard of BASF, 4 July 1869. CA BASF C 627I. See also the protocol of the session of the supervisory hoard of BASF, 4 July 1869. CA BASF C 11.
Vaupel, op. cit. (11), pp. 204–217, 233–246.
C. Schuster, Vom Farbenhandel zur Farbenindustrie. Die erste Fusion der BASF (Ludwigshafen, 1973), pp. 52–70.
Letter of the management of BASF (Engelhorn, A. Clemm) to their agent, Pickhardt & Kuttroff in New York, 26 April 1876. CA BASF 1 1101/7/4.
Contract between the supervisory board of BASF and Heinrich Caro, supplement (signed There are two possibilities as to which contract is referred to: Either the contract of 21 May 1874 and the supplement of 12 October 1874, which is the most likely because of the introductory remarks in the text: or the contract of 6 February 1878, which the term ‘for the specification’ might indicate.
There is no indication that he received this position at the end of 1877, as Ernst Homburg has suggested. Homburg, op. cit. (2), p. 99. Compare with C. Schuster, Wis.censchaftund Technik. lhre Begegnung in der BASF während der ersten Jahrzehnte der Unternehmensgeschichte (Ludwigshafen, 1976), pp. 85–87 (with a facsimile of a section of a letter from Peter Griess to Caro).
This included Caro. The numbers are based mainly on the ‘Salair-Conto’ (payroll) of the chemists and clerks of the BASF factory in Ludwigshafen, held in CA BASF C 652/1. There are two other manuscripts with data on the chemists of BASF, ’Verzeichnis der Chemiker der BASF seit dem Jahre 1868’, by Dr Mentha, and ’Chemiker der BASF’, CA BASF C 623. These lists are written later than the Salair-Conto and in cases of inconsistences between them 1 have preferred the latter.
Victor Meyer to Caro, Zurich, 13 March 1875. SSDM 1466.
See summary of the session of the London Chemical Society held on 4 June 1875 in BDChG, 8 (1875), p. 780.
D.A. Rosenstiehl, ‘L’Alizarin nitrée’, Annales de chimie et de physique (5. Ser.), 12 (1877), 519–529. For a biography of this Alsatian chemist see the contribution of Anne-Claire Déré in this volume.
Pli Cacheté deposited with the Société industrielle de Mulhouse, 22 March 1876. Copy, dated 15 August 1918, held in CA BASF D 02.3/5, item no. 10. English patent No. 1229 (H. Caro), 22 March 1876, US patent No. 186032, 1877 (J.H. Johnson for H. Caro).
The three assistants were August Burghard, Robert Holdmann and Ernst Mylius. See research reports No. 1 h, i, m, o, q. CA BASF D 02.3/5.
Letter from Rosenstiehl to Caro, Mulhouse, 2 May 1877. SSDM, without signature, in N 93–007.
For the role of analytical chemists in the British alkali industry see the contribution of James Donnelly in this volume.
Caro had contacts with almost all academic chemists in this period, and, with many of them, close friendships. Schuster, op. cit. (23).
Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Adolf Baeyer (1835–1917) studied physics and mathematics in Berlin, and chemistry under Bunsen and Kekulé in Heidelberg and Ghent. In 1860 he began to lecture in chemistry at the Gewerbe-Institut in Charlottenburg, one of the predecessors of the Technische Hochschule Berlin-Charlottenburg. In 1872 he became professor of chemistry at the then German university of Strasbourg; in 1875 he succeeded Liebig in Munich. In 1885 he was ennobled and in 1905 he was awarded the Nobel-Prize in chemistry. In Munich he was the founder of the world’s biggest research school in organic chemistry. His research topics were almost all in synthetic organic chemistry, especially uric acid, phthaleins, nitroso derivatives, indigo, the constitution of benzene, peroxides, and terpenes. See J.S. Fruton, Contrasts in Scientific Style. Research Groups in the Chemical and Biochemical Sciences (Philadelphia, 1990), pp. 118–162; R.A. Gienapp, ‘Adolf von Baeyer’ in C.C. Gillispie ed., Dictionary of Scientific Biography (New York, 1970), vol. 1, pp. 389–391; K. Schmorl, Adolf von Baeyer (Stuttgart, 1952); and R. Willstätter, Aus meinem Leben (Weinheim, 1949), pp. 103–146.
Travis, op. cit. (14), pp. 213–214.
See A.E. Schreier and M. Wex, Chronik der Hoechst Aktiengesellschaft, 1863–1988 (Frankfurt am Main, 1990), p. 26.
Copy of a letter from management of BASF to Baeyer, 7 May 1880. CA BASF C 10, correspondence between Caro and the management of BASF.
Management of BASF to Caro, 7 May 1880. CA BASF C 10, correspondence management-Caro.
The bulk of the letters between Baeyer and Caro, stored in the Caro-Nachlass at the Deutsches Museum, Munich, are personal correspondence between the two men, dealing with scientific matters and not with official company business. The official reports probably no longer exist.
Cinnamic acid was prepared by heating dichloride of benzylene with dry acetate of sodium. This was a practical modification of the Perkin reaction of benzoic aldehyde, acetic anhydride and acetate of sodium. English patent no. 3330, 1880 (Johnson for H. Caro). See:Caro to Roscoe, 11 May 1881. Roscoe Collection, Royal Society of Chemistry, London. I am indebted to Tony Travis for bringing this letter to my attention. See Travis, op. cit. (14), p. 222.
Baeyer to Caro, 30 June 1880. SSDM 1703. In Wiedenmann, op. cit. (10), vol. 2, pp. 179180.
Baeyer to Caro, 11 November 1880. SSDM 1724. In Wiedenmann, op. cit. (10), vol. 2, p. 201.
Caro to Roscoe, 11 May 1881. Roscoe Collection, Royal Society of Chemistry, London. See Travis, op. cit. (14), p. 222.
H. Brunck, ‘Die Entwickelungsgeschichte der Indigo-Fabrication’, BDChG, 33 (1900) III, lxxi-lxxxvi, esp. p. lxxii. Emphasis in the original.
Organization statute of BASF, 31 December 1883, § 12. CA BASF C 10.
This was Henri Schaeppi. Letter of Caro to the management of BASF, 24 November 1885. SSDM 8096, fol. 182–185.
See R. Spagl, ‘Heinrich August Bernthsen’, Nationale deutsche Biographie (Berlin, 1954), vol. 2, p. 143; R.A. Gienapp, `Bernthsen, Heinrich August’ in Gillispie, op. cit. (35), vol. 2, p. 59; K. Holdermann, ’August Bernthsen zum Gedächtnis’, Zeitschrift fir angewandte Chemie, 45 (1932), 141–143; P. Julius, ’Zu August Bernthsens 70. Geburtstag’, Zeitschrift flit-angewandte Chemie, 38 (1925), 737–739; A. Bernthsen, 50 Jahre Tätigkeit in chemischer Wissenschaft und Industrie. Einige Lebenserinnerungen (Heidelberg, 1925).
Bernthsen to the management of BASF, 14 July 1887. CA BASF WI Bernthsen. 53 Bernthsen, op. cit. (51), p. 37.
An example is the case of the naphthol yellow patent. See Caro to Otto N. Witt, 20 February 1886. SSDM 8096, fol. 203–206.
Caro to management of BASF, 29 March 1886. CA BASF C 10, correspondence between the management and H. Caro. For a full discussion of the relations of BASF and Levinstein, specifically concerning the patent litigations and agreements, see the contribution of Anthony S. Travis, this volume.
According to the German patent law, the first person to register the patent was the holder. See the arguments of Heinrich Caro, published in a memorandum of BASF, dated 17 April 1879 in Die chemische Industrie,2 (1879), 146–150, on p. 148.
On the tension between private and public knowledge in the British alkali industry compare the contribution of James Donnelly, this volume.
Bernthsen to Kekulé, 3 January 1890. Kekulé-Sammlung Darmstadt.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1998 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Reinhardt, C. (1998). An Instrument of Corporate Strategy. In: Homburg, E., Travis, A.S., Schröter, H.G. (eds) The Chemical Industry in Europe, 1850–1914. Chemists and Chemistry, vol 17. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3253-6_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3253-6_14
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-4971-1
Online ISBN: 978-94-017-3253-6
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive