General Dyestuff Corporation collection

General Dyestuff Company (GDC) was formed in 1925 as part of I.G. Farben's attempt to regain Germany's pre WWI dominance in the field of dye and pigment production. It was a partnership between the Grasselli Chemical Company of Cincinnati, OH and Bayer Leverkusen, a member of the Farben combine, in Germany under which the Germans would provide the technical know-how while Grasselli offered them an opening into valuable U.S. markets. In 1942 the U.S. imposed government control on GDC and General Aniline, also largely controlled by I.G. Farben. Under the Farben system manufacturing was done by General Aniline while GDC, which had functioned as the exclusive selling agent for Farben products in the U.S. controlled customer relations and set production schedules. This unwieldy arrangement led the Justice Department to finally merge GDC and General Aniline in 1953. The new entity acquired the acronym GAF.

Roberta M. Tremain was a textile chemist employed in the Research Department. Her group would report each year on their research work recording their findings in notebooks illustrated with samples of the textiles or fibers that they studied.