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Overview

Arthur Douglas Chambers (1872-1961) earned his Ph.D. in chemistry from Johns Hopkins University in 1896, then joined DuPont as a chemist in the dynamite plant at Ashburn, Missouri. He served as superintendent of that facility from 1906 to 1908, then as superintendent of DuPont's Louviers dynamite plant in Colorado from 1908 to 1915. He then moved to the company's Development Department in Wilmington, where he helped DuPont make a momentous decision to enter the dye business. After a World War I British naval blockade curtailed imports of German-made dyes to the United States, DuPont diversified into dye manufacture. However, little was known about dye chemistry outside Germany, where chemical companies had acquired sophisticated knowledge and a substantial competitive advantage.

In 1915 Chambers prepared a report recommending that DuPont undertake the research necessary to match German expertise. In April 1916 he was part of an advance team DuPont sent to the Levinstein dye plant outside Manchester, England, which had replicated some German techniques. The next year DuPont appointed Chambers to head the dye plant it was constructing at Deepwater, New Jersey. The dye venture at Deepwater proved to be technically much more difficult, and expensive, than expected. However, the research experience acquired at Deepwater's Jackson Lab later facilitated the company's manufacture of tetraethyl lead gasoline additive and Freon® refrigerants. Chambers retired from DuPont in 1941. In 1944 the company's Deepwater plant was named Chambers Works in his honor.

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