This book constructs a history of Newtown Creek’s industrial expansion during the period that began in the 1840s and continued through the early years of the 20th century. In that period, the production of reagent chemicals and refined materials near the center of modern-day New York City grew steadily, as practitioners, alert to European advances in chemical science, developed and applied increasingly sophisticated technologies. Innovations in methods of production, ready access to domestic and international markets, and sustained growth in volumes of production at Newtown Creek in the late 19th century had profound consequences for the practice of industrial chemistry in the United States and for the economic vitality of the City of New York. Industrial practice progressed from the recovery of animal tissues to the refining of crude petroleum and the production of high-purity copper and other metals from mineral ores. With attention to each company’s technical expertise and principal products, this book examines the interdependence of the chemicals- and materials-producing industries that thrived along Newtown Creek’s shores. The author recounts Newtown Creek’s industrial history alongside the stories of well-known New Yorkers – Peter Cooper, Charles Pratt, John D. and William Rockefeller – and other less celebrated or less notorious characters.
This book provides a valuable account of New York’s history in the manufacture of reagent chemicals and refined fuels and metals and will appeal to researchers, scholars and historians interested in the early years of industrial chemistry.
Author(s): Peter Spellane
Series: SpringerBriefs in Molecular Science
Publisher: Springer
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 117
City: Cham
Acknowledgments
Contents
About the Author
Abstract
1 Newtown Creek and New York City
References
2 Skin and Bones
References
3 Oil of Vitriol: Martin Kalbfleisch and the Manufacture of Reagent Chemicals at Newtown Creek
References
4 Superphosphate
References
5 Abraham Gesner and The New York Kerosene Oil Company
References
6 Benjamin Silliman, Jr. and The Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company
References
7 Charles Pratt, Henry Rogers, and Astral Oil
References
8 Acid and Copper: The 50-Year Partnership of John Brown Francis Herreshoff and William Nichols
8.1 Two Young Men Attend University, One in New England and One in New York
8.2 A Brief History of Sulfuric Acid
8.3 Sulfuric Acid and Copper Often Have a Common Mineral Source
8.4 Herreshoff’s Patent Portfolio: A Sustained Interest in Both Copper and Oxides of Sulfur
8.5 Epilog 1: The Perkin Award
8.6 Epilog 2: Mergers and Acquisitions: The General Chemical Company
References
9 The Standard Oil Company and New York City
9.1 1854: The Invention of “Kerosene” and the Mining of “Rock Oil”
9.2 Cleveland and the Rockefeller Brothers
9.3 The Rockefeller and Andrews Company Meets Flagler and Harkness
9.4 The Standard Oil Company
9.5 The South Improvement Company
9.6 The Standard Oil Company’s Presence Along Newtown Creek and the New York Harbor
9.7 The Charles Pratt Refinery
9.8 The Standard Oil Company of New York, An Increased Presence in New York City
9.9 From Whale Oil to Petroleum
References
10 Industry, Invention, and the Americans; Newtown Creek, Then and Now
10.1 Then
10.2 Now
References
Index
