Joseph X. Labovsky Collection of Nylon Photographs and Ephemera

Joseph X. Labovsky was born in Kiev, Ukraine on September 10, 1912 and emigrated to the United States in 1923. After graduating from Wilmington High School in 1930, Labovsky joined I.E. Du Pont de Nemours and Company as a laboratory assistant to Wallace Carothers at the Experimental Research Station in Wilmington, Delaware. From 1928 to 1937, Carothers’ research group notably spearheaded the development of artificial materials from certain polyamides and polyesters, including synthetic rubber (neoprene) and nylon. With support from Du Pont, Labovsky earned his B.S. in Industrial Chemical Engineering from the Pratt Institute in 1934 and continued to work with Carothers’ research group during the early years of Nylon research and production. Labovsky subsequently worked at Du Pont’s Nylon plants in Seaford, Delaware and Martinsville, Virginia and later assumed the position of Training and Industrial Relations Supervisor at the Chestnut Run Laboratory in 1954. Labovsky retired from Du Pont in 1975 and devoted much of his time to lecturing on Wallace Carothers and the history of Nylon. Joseph Labovsky died on March 24, 2013 in Wilmington, Delaware.