The Industrialization of Invention: A Case Study from the German Chemical Industry Author(s): Georg Meyer-Thurow Reviewed work(s):

Source: Isis, Vol. 73, No. 3 (Sep., 1982), pp. 363-381 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/231441 . Accessed: 10/01/2013 09:55
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The
A

of Industrialization Invention:

Case

Study
Chemical

From

the

German

Industry

By Georg Meyer-Thurow*
of the nineteenth century the relationship between science and industry changed in a decisive way. Invention was industrialized. Large company laboratories were set up. The consulting scientist and the scientific entrepreneur were replaced by the salaried industrial research worker. Applied science became a driving force for technical development and economic growth.' The German chemical industry has often served as the outstanding example of an early science-based enterprise. In particular, it has become commonplace to stress the importance of research for the rise to world supremacy of German dye manufacturers. But while this truism has been readily accepted, the manner in which science was turned into a productive force has not been subject to detailed investigation. "Because it turns out, ex post," Paul M. Hohenberg wrote in 1967, "that the gamble was a good one for the chemical industry in 19th-century Europe, identifying the sources of the industry's growth reduces largely to finding the factors affecting the decisions to take the gamble." The prevalence of this attitude has meant that apart from the work of John J. Beer, little is known about industrial research in the German chemical industry up to 1914.2 The first small dyestuffs firms were founded in several western European countries in the late 1850s and early 1860s. Although the number of workers employed and the amount of capital invested always remained small as compared with older ventures such as textiles, coal, or iron, the rise of the dye industry was remarkable in at least two ways. First, dye manufacturing was the prototype of a new type of industry based on science. Second, Germany dominated the manufacture of dye*Department of History and Philosophy, University of Bielefeld, Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). This article was first presented to a conference on "Obstacles and Innovations in the Applied Sciences" at the Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris in May 1979. I wish to thank Edwin Layton and Arnold Thackray for their suggestions. 'See John D. Bernal, Science and Industry in the 19th Century (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1953), p. 151. To Bernal I owe the phrase "industrialization of invention." More recently see David F. Noble, America by Design: Science, Technology, and The Rise of Corporate Capitalism (New York: Knopf, 1977). 2Paul M. Hohenberg, Chemicals in Western Europe: 1850-1914 (Chicago: Rand McNally & Co., 1967), quoting p. 83; John J. Beer, "Coal Tar Dye Manufacture and the Origins of the Modern Industrial Research Laboratory," Isis, 1958, 49:123-131; and John J. Beer, The Emergence of the German Dye Industry (Urbana: Univ. Illinois Press, 1959; Arno rpt. 1981), still the best work on this subject. The latest monograph to deal in some detail with the history of the German dyestuffs industry is Peter Borscheid, Naturwissenschaft, Staat und Industrie in Baden (1848-1914) (Stuttgart: Klett, 1976). ISIS, 1982, 73 (268)

IN THE LAST DECADES

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GEORG MEYER-THUROW

stuffs. This leap to hegemony, almost to world monopoly, constituted, as David Landes has pointed out, "Imperial Germany's greatest industrial achievement."3 But these traits were not apparent at the outset. For many years science and industry were only loosely connected in dyestuffs manufacturing. Industrial research, often considered the most typical characteristic of German dyestuffs companies, was an evolutionary development. It was as much a result of the growth of these companies as a precondition for their further development. The turning point lay somewhere in the 1880s. The present study examines the history of one company, the Bayer AG (founded in 1863 and incorporated in 1881 as Farbenfabriken vorm. Friedrich Bayer & Co.), during the years 1880-1914, when scientific research began to play a decisive role in the development of the dyestuffs industry. It concentrates on the main scientific laboratory at the Bayer Company and on the research staff working in this laboratory. After a short sketch of the early history of the dyestuffs industry in the 1860s and 1870s, the study deals with five aspects of industrial research at the Bayer Company from the 1880s to 1914 in some detail: the origins of the industrial research laboratory; the gradual expansion of research laboratories and the elaboration of an infrastructure for research; the organization of the research chemist's work; the transformations that the process of research underwent; and the effects of industrial research.4
THE DYESTUFFS INDUSTRY, CHEMISTS, AND CHEMISTRY IN THE 1860s AND 1870s

Up to the late 1870s the development of the dyestuffs business was divided into two distinct phases. First came the period of the aniline dyes, a handful of artificial colors of great beauty but little fastness, mainly used to dye silk. Then, after the synthesis of alizarin in 1868 by two German scientists, the production of alizarin dyes dominated the field. Their successful synthesis led to the replacement for the first time of a natural dye, here madder, Table 1. Estimated world production which was next to indigo in importance of dyestuffs and widely used for the dyeing of cotton. The real growth in production of dyeYear alue (in mions of marks) stuffs is hard to measure, especially for these early years, because rapidly falling prices characterized the industry. Even 1867 22.5 so, the total value of dyes produced 1872 30 seems to have risen rapidly (see Table Even 70 one has on the 1878 to rely 1).5 though estimates of contemporary chemists 92 1883 when trying to identify the proportional
3David S. Landes, The Unbound Prometheus (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1969), p. 276. 4For a fuller account of the history of the Bayer Company and its chemists see Georg MeyerThurow, "Industriechemiker und Chemische Industrie: Eine Fallstudie zur Symbiose von Wissenschaft und Industrie, 1857-1914," (Ph.D. diss., University of Bielefeld, FRG, 1982). 5Figures for Tables 1 and 2 are based on estimates made by contemporary academic chemists closely connected with the dyestuffs industry. For 1862-1872 see August W. Hofmann, "Introduction," Gruppe III: Chemische Industrie: Wiener Weltausstellung. Amtlicher Katalog der Ausstellung des Deutschen Reiches (Berlin: Von Decker, 1873), p. 108; the figures for 1872 do not include the value of the production of alizarin dyes which, according to the same source (p. 109), amounted to 12 million marks in 1873. For 1878 see M. Ch. Lauth, Exposition Universelle Internationale de 1878 d Paris. Group V, Classe 47: Rapport sur les produits chimiques et pharmaceutique (Paris: Lacroix, 1881), p. 115. For 1883 see Carl Engler, "Uber den heutigen Stand der Teerfarbenindustrie," Zeitschrift des Vereins Deutscher Ingenieure, 1884, 28:937-940, 953-958, on p. 957.

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THEINDUSTRIALIZATION OFINVENTION Table 2. Germany's estimated contributionto the dyestuffs industry (in millions of marks) Year
1878

365

World
70

Germany
44

of total Percentage
62.86

1883

92

60

65.22

contribution of different nations to the overall value of dyes produced, there is no doubt that the German manufacturers dominated the field from a very early date (see Table 2). A small group of corporations played a leading role in this development. While the total value of German dye production in 1883 was about 60 million marks, the production of four companies accounted for 60 percent of the total, with three firms far ahead of all the others: the Badische Anilin und SodaFabrik (BASF) at 14 million, Hdchst at 10 million, and Bayer at 9 million marks.6 At the outset, the dyestuffs industry was only loosely connected with scientific research. In the early years chemist-entrepreneurs (trained chemists who started their own or became part owners of dye firms) bridged the gap between theory and practice. They kept contact with academic research and were in control of production. Academic science profited from the intensified interest in organic chemistry. In turn, academic chemists produced important inventions which had a profound influence upon the dyestuffs industry. Academic chemists also contributed to the development of production techniques. But science was not fully institutionalized in industry, as the development of industrial research at the Bayer Company demonstrates. The laboratories Bayer established in the 1860s were small and poorly equipped. The number of chemists employed remained small, their mobility was high, and they were generally restricted to quality control in production. As late as 1877, when the Bayer Company employed seven chemists, four were occupied with routine analysis and two with color tests. Moreover, these chemists were hampered because production remained under the control of foremen who anxiously guarded their manufacturing secrets. It was not until 1878 that the Bayer Company began to place the manufacture of dyestuffs under the management of chemists.7
6Figures from "Die Lage der deutschen Teerfarbenindustrie," Frankfurter Zeitung, No. 219, 7 Aug. 1883. The difference in size between Bayer and BASF or Hochst was greater than the sales figures seem to suggest; Bayer was behind in respect to diversification and vertical integration and considerably smaller in respect to manpower and financial strength. The respective share capital in 1883 was (in millions of marks) BASF, 16.5; Hochst, 12; Bayer, 7.5. See Handbuch der Deutschen Aktiengesellschaften for 1914/1915, Vol. I, pp. 1490-1491, 1493, 1495. 7The seventh chemist was engaged to reorganize the aniline dye department and left after his job was done. See Hugo Hassencamp, "Die bei meinem Eintritt in die Firma F. Bayer & Co. (1877) vorgefundenen und in den darauffolgenden Jahren beobachteten Verhaltnisse: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Farbenfabriken," (1909), MS, Bayer archives, Leverkusen, FRG, 1/6. 1, Vol. 2. For the early history of the Bayer Company see Geschichte und Entwicklung der Farbenfabriken vorm. Friedrich Bayer & Co., Elberfeld, in den ersten 50 Jahren (Munich, 1918) (printed but not published); Hermann Pinnow, Werksgeschichte zur Erinnerung an die 75. Wiederkehr des Grundungstages der Farbenfabriken vorm. F. Bayer & Co. (Munich: Bruckmann, 1938); and Beer, Emergence, pp. 72-93. For the early cooperation of dyestuffs firms with academic chemists see Beer, Emergence, pp. 61-69; Borscheid, Naturwissenschaft, pp. 111-157; and Curt Schuster, Wissenschaft und Technik: Ihre Begegnung in der BASF wahrend der ersten Jahrzehnte der Unternehmensgeschichte (Ludwigshafen: BASF AG Abt. Offentlichkeitsarbeit/Unternehmensarchiv, 1976). For an American example of academic cooperation with industry in research see John W. Servos, "The Industrial Relation of Science: Chemistry at MIT, 1900-1939," Isis, 1980, 71:531-549.

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~15
1i4 13
12

GEORG MEYER-THUROW

UI Chemists hired duringyear

Chemists employed at end of year
;

11
10 9 8 7

6
5 4 3 2 0 1863 '64 '65 '66 '67 '68 '69 '70 '71 '72 '73 '74 '75 '76 '77 '78 '79 '80 '81 '82

Figure 1. Recruitment of chemists at Bayer, 1863-1882. Out of thirty-one chemists engaged during this period, only eighteen remained with Bayer at the end of 1882; three of these entered into partnership (two in 1872, one in 1877) and no longer appear in the tally of chemists employed after that point. Turnover rates were high: six chemists left during their first year of service, two during their second, and four during their third.

Systematic and continuous industrial research at Bayer had to wait several more years. Until the 1880s progress was due to chance discoveries, which relied in part on empirical trial-and-error, in part on the results of academic research. Only once (in 1864) did Friedrich Bayer and Friedrich Weskott, founders of F. Bayer & Co., engage a chemist to devote his time in the laboratory to the "invention of new colors." About half a year later they ended this first unsuccessful experiment in industrial research and did not dare repeat it for almost two decades.8 Producing industrially useful knowledge was not yet the main part of any chemist's job; what counted was technical experience, not scientific competence. For some time, therefore, Bayer's management preferred to recruit chemists from other companies, that is, from within the industry, rather than from the universities or Technische Hochschulen. So far as can be determined, six of the eight chemists hired during 1863-1871 and five of the six hired during 1874-1878 were recruited from other companies. No doubt this recruitment was one of the main routes of the transfer of knowledge between companies; it usually took place after the introduction of new products or new manufacturing processes. Figure 1 summarizes development at Bayer from 1863 to 1882. Peaks in the figure (based on a variety of sources in the Bayer archives) clearly reflect the effect on company recruiting policy of the wave of dyestuff inventions in 1863-1864, the start of the alizarin production in the early 1870s, and the introduction of new aniline and azo dyes in the late 1870s and early 1880s. Comparison of the number of chemists hired each year with the number employed also reflects the chemists' high mobility. Knowledge of organic chemistry as well as technical expertise certainly played a role in the development of the dyestuffs industry. But the phenomenal success of the German chemical manufacturers-and the success of a small number of firms, among them Bayer, which quickly grew into big corporations-was due more to entrepreneurial strategies and favorable political and sociocultural factors than to
8See Friedrich Bayer's business correspondence, Bayer archives 16/1.2, 16/1.3, quoting Bayer to Philip Passavant, 12 May 1864.

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THE INDUSTRIALIZATION OF INVENTION

367

research effort or scientific open-mindedness. The necessary preconditions for efficient industrial research were still missing: the chemical formulae and modes of action of successful dyes remained mysterious. For instance, though Kekule elucidated a structure for the benzene molecule in 1865, organic chemists were slow to realize that this would elucidate coal-tar chemistry. The constitution of most dyestuffs was still unknown, and the possibility that commercially important dyestuffs could be discovered by systematic research was not as yet envisioned. Research could not be guided or planned, its success was uncertain, and the financial risks of investing in "human capital" were incalculable. Moreover, the number of artificial colors was still very small, and manufacturers and managers were primarily absorbed in the problems posed by production, purchase, and sales. Finally, the high mobility of chemists whose self-conceptions oriented them towards teaching, private consulting, or an entrepreneurial career raised difficulties of integration and control which were hard to overcome. But all of this changed in the late 1870s and the early 1880s.
THE ORIGINS OF THE INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH LABORATORY

The factors that precipitated the institutionalization of science in industry fall into three categories. The importance of research for industrial progress was rapidly becoming apparent. A new interest in organic dye chemistry, beginning in the 1860s, led towards the end of the 1870s to a whole series of scientific and technical breakthroughs. Emil and Otto Fischer, then pupils of Adolf von Baeyer, professor of chemistry at the University of Munich, disclosed the structure of the first aniline dyes in a series of masterful experiments. Von Baeyer himself managed to synthesize for the first time the most important natural dye, indigo, after many years of investigation. The diazo reaction, a coupling reaction between diazonium compounds and amines or phenols, had been discovered by Peter Griess in the late 1850s and early 1860s. His reaction showed the way to countless possible dye products. But it was only in the second half of the 1870s that the pioneer work of one English and one French dyestuff firm raised the active interest of the dyestuffs industry in the azo colors, which in a very short time were to become the most numerous and most important class of dyestuff colors. The interest of organic chemists turned to the application of dyestuffs as well. The work of a German chemist engaged to an English dyestuff firm, Otto N. Witt (later professor of chemistry at the Technische Hochschule Berlin), provided the first steps toward a deeper understanding of the relationship between the constitution and the quality of dyes. And finally, in the early 1880s academic and industrial chemists realized that intermediates used for the production of dyestuffs could also be used for the manufacture of pharmaceutical products. Economic factors encouraged institutional change in response to this rapid advance of scientific work in the field of dyestuff chemistry. A small group of big corporations, among them Bayer, now dominated the market and therefore possessed enough financial power to risk investing in the uncertain future of research. In addition, the crisis in the dyestuffs trade from 1875 to 1878 and after 1882 made these companies receptive to change: research offered a strategy that might reduce dependence on the ups and downs of the business cycle. Furthermore, the depressed economy, especially in the mid-1880s, deeply affected chemists by

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GEORG MEYER-THUROW

reducingtheir chances of employmentand restrictingtheirmobility, thus promoting their involuntaryacceptanceof the role of white collar workers. Aside from scientific advances and ecomomic developments, the first German of researchfrom academeto industry. patentlaw encouragedthe transplantation effects. The publicaEnactedin 1877, this patentlaw had at least threeremarkable tion of patentapplicationsand grantedpatentsprovidedinformationto all companies on advances in the state of the art. Since the patent protection was confined were stimulated to find and patent all
140

130
120

34

to new chemical processes, chemists

competitors. Last but not least, the resuiting endless patent litigation constituted a sort of legal warfare that intensified and the academic scientists called upon

110

possible processes, thus blocking their 1

90
82

/
0
40

the connections between manufacturers to provide expert testimony. Thus cooperation between academic scientists and industry, characteristicof the early
history of the dyestuffs industry, contin52-

/ 29*
-

0 20

210-

ued to be important.Yet when industrial researchbeganon a largerscale, the relationships between industry and academe

^
1880 1885

,
1890

,
1895

1900

were decisively altered, as the history of the Bayer Company well demonstrates. The necessity of investing in the productionof knowledge, however, was only slowly accepted. Three important changes did occur early on in the internalstructure of the Bayer Company in response to the scientific, economic, and legal developments of the late 1870s and early 1880s. From 1882 on the numberof chemists employed, which startedto rise continuallyonly in 1878, increasedat an accelerated rate, as indicated by Figure 2.9 At the same time recruitmentof chemists shifted more and more from rival firms to the universities, concentrating almost exclusively on Ph.D.s. Finally, chemists replacedforemenas the directors of the processof production.Scientific controland improvement of manufacturing processes were institutionalized.As a by-product,productionpersonnelgradually beganto engage in the developmentof new productionmethodsand the discovery of new dyes. The company also reorganizedits relationshipwith academicresearchaccording to its growing need for innovations. The Bayer managementfollowed three different strategies. It formed connections with several outstandingacademic researchchemists and formalizedthese connectionsby means of contractssecuring scientific resultfor the company. It engaged newly every commerciallyimportant Ph.D. chemists for one graduate year and sent them to a universityor Technische Hochschule laboratory,where they worked on researchproblems related to the companyproductionprogram.In 1886 Bayer also began to supporta laboratory,
9Figures (the number of chemists employed at the end of the given year) are based on the Bayer chemists whom I could identify. Discrepancies with data used by Beer and others (cf., e.g., Emergence, pp. 83-84) may be due to my inability to identify every chemist engaged by Bayer; to differences of definition, including apothecaries, physiologists, etc.; or to differences in the time the chemists were counted.

Figure 2. Numberof chemists employedat Bayer, 1880-1900.

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THE INDUSTRIALIZATION OF INVENTION

369

although the firm did not own it, and it was separated from the manufacturing plant by more than a hundred miles. At first one and later two chemists spent some time there doing research for Bayer. These early attempts to make research serve the company's goals were less than a complete success and reflected a certain unwillingness to integrate research fully into company activities. The Bayer Company was not yet prepared to create its own research division, still preferring external laboratories. Instead of formulating a consistent long-term research program, the management handed a variety of short-term research topics to young chemists who never had been a part of the dyestuffs industry and were ignorant of the industry's possibilities and needs. Guidance and control of their investigations were left to academic teachers. For a short time research work done for Bayer continued in this transitional stage, suspended between academic institutions and industry. Only in the second half of the 1880s did industrial research clearly begin to become institutionalized. The Bayer Company made a decisive step when it emancipated industrial chemists both from external academic research and from auxiliary activities within the company. The key figure in this change was a young chemist named Carl Duisberg, whose work led to the foundation of one of the most impressive industrial research laboratories known at that time.'0 Duisberg had joined Bayer in 1884 after having done research for Bayer for one year at the University of Strassburg. He was appointed assistant chemist to the head of the then very small azo manufacturing plant. There he continued his research on azo direct dyes, a class of artificial organic colors introduced in 1884, which revolutionized dyeing practice because they could dye cotton directly, without prior treatment with a mordant. Duisberg's research proved to be extremely successful. A series of discoveries followed, including dyes that turned out to be of the utmost commercial importance. Without any planning, a group of research assistants began to gather around this young inventor. These assistants were destined to follow up the lines of research initiated by Duisberg and to make sure that an invention was fully exploited: laboratory findings had to be tested with regard to their technical qualities and turned into production processes, and patent protection had to be gained and upheld against any possible infringement. While Carl Duisberg became the personal nucleus of an inspired group of research-oriented young chemists, the group's cooperative effort decisively influenced the further development of Bayer. Duisberg's group performed many functions. Its members had to make rapid shifts among research, development, production, and sales. But their work meant an infusion of scientific modes of work, behavior, and thought into industry, and it demonstrated the value of a combined research effort. By about 1890 Bayer had recognized the distinctive role of the research chemist and made research a salaried, lifelong, specialized occupation. l Yet many difficulties remained. The laboratories were scattered all over the plant, located wherever there happened to be a free room. Their facilities were primitive and not always suitable for scientific research. And as the number of young research chemists increased, there was a growing need for mechanisms to organize and coordinate their work. These problems led to a momentous decision;
'?See also Beer, Emergence, pp. 80-88; Hans-Joachim Flechtner, Carl Duisberg: Vom Chemiker zum Wirtschaftsfuhrer (Dusseldorf: Econ, 1961). "Dr. Bernhard Heymann, who joined the Bayer Company in 1889 as a research chemist, was the first chemist to stay in research (until 1914).

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GEORG MEYER-THUROW

the Bayer Companyin 1889 decided to build a new main scientific laboratory,in which its full-time industrialresearchwas to be concentrated.Bayer opened the The arrangementof the laboratoryreflected the special needs of industrial the industryin subsequentyears. One research;it was widely imitatedthroughout large room was fitted up for twelve chemists with twelve box-like workingplaces, each of which resembleda separatelaboratory,althoughthe whole room retained its unified character.This arrangement made it possible for each chemist to concentrateon his line of researchwithout interruption and with a modicum of privacy, yet it permitted communication and consultation with fellow-chemists. Competitionwas stimulated, and the esprit de corps of a scientific community Most importantly,the box arrangement facilitatedthe generalsuperstrengthened. vision of the laboratory,allowing a strictcontrolof the activities of each chemist if containedall necessaryauxiliaryservices. In necessary. Moreover,the laboratory this respect Duisberg's laboratorysurpassedevery university laboratorythen in existence. These institutionalinnovations of the Bayer Companycapped the process of researchfromotherfunctionsof chemists in industry.By 1891 research separating in the main laboratory had separatedfrom the part-timeresearchwork done in the laboratoriesfor the technical control of the manufacturing processes, so that research found an acknowledged place beside productionand sales. The locus of invention had been transferredfrom external, mostly academic institutions to industry. But the institutionalizationof research in this laboratorywas but one of invention. aspect of the industrialization
CREATING AN INFRASTRUCTURE

new laboratory in August 1891.12

The main scientific laboratory became the centerof a developing researchorganization that continuously extended and improved until 1914. In the 1890s there were limitations. First, researchin this laboratory on only remainedconcentrated some significantsectors of dye chemistry;it neglected, for instance, the chemistry of pharmaceuticals and of alizarin, both of which alreadywere partof the production program.Second, the researchchemist's work still included some analysis, some development of products, and, most importantly,a lot of routine patent work. Third, for a long time the latent function of the main scientific laboratory was to qualify and socialize chemistsjoining Bayer. Wheneverthe rapidlyexpanding works needed a productionchemist, the managementpreferredto recruithim from the main laboratorystaff. This practiceled to a high rate of turnover,which the laboratory'sresearch. In an attemptto correctthese defects, sevinterrupted eral changes were made in the organizationalstructureof research. Three trends can be discerned:the expansion of researchthroughthe creationof new research laboratories,the furtherdivision of labor, and the elaborationof refined managerial techniques. Table 3 shows the expansionin the numberof researchlaboratories andresearch chemists at Bayer between 1897 and 1912. This table gives an approximate idea of the different fields of researchand their relative importance.'3
12For a detailed description of the laboratory see "The Appreciation of Science by German Manufacturers," Nature, 1893, 48:29-34. Cf. Beer, Emergence, pp. 84-85. '3These four years have been chosen because they are representative for those Bayer research

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Table 3. Number of chemists in research laboratories at the Bayer Company 1897 Mainscientificlaboratory aniline, azo (intermediates, and indigo) Pharmaceutical laboratory Bacteriological laboratory Inorganic laboratory Alizarinlaboratory and technical Photographic productslaboratory Artificialrubberlaboratory Total of researchchemists, includingheads of laboratories Totalof chemists of researchchemists Percentage 15 -8 15 99 15 24 138 17 34 171 20 1 4 4 4 7 8 3 11 57 262 22 1902 15 1906 16 6 1912 16 12

As the number of research laboratories increased, the research became more intensive, if one accepts the percentage of research chemists employed as a crude yardstick. While the main laboratory remained the largest laboratory until 1912, the organization of research became more and more decentralized as specialists in a given branch of chemistry were combined in separate laboratories. Diversification of the research program tended to lag slightly behind diversification of production. Not until 1912 did all production departments have a corresponding scientific laboratory. But the creation of an artificial rubber laboratory in 1909 reflects Bayer's deciding for the first time to invest heavily in research before undertaking production.14 These laboratories, however, constituted only the core of the research work done in industry. Apart from the "external differentiation" of research from production and the respective technical laboratories, an "internal differentiation" of research came about, which led to the creation of a complex research infrastructure. 15
laboratories existing before 1914, and only for these years do the sources (all in Bayer archives) of Bayer's chemists accordingto place of work. provideeasy calculationof the overall distribution vorm. F. Bayer & Co.," pp. 22 ff. (1/5.2); for 1902: For (May) 1897: "Statistikder Farbenfabriken "Bildalbenfur F. Bayer zum 25 jahrigenJubilaumals Teilhaberund Direktorder Farbenfabriken" des Gesamtgeschafts der (1902), 3 vols.; for 1906: "TabellarischeUbersichtuber die Organisation Farbenfabriken vorm. F. Bayer & Co., Elberfeld:Anlagen zur diesbezuglichenDenkschrift"(10/ vorm. F. Bayer Ubersichtenuberdie Organisation der Farbenfabriken 3.1); for 1912: "Tabellarische & Co." (10/3.2). Again, these figures may differ slightly from those given in other studies. '4See Flechtner,Duisberg, pp. 227-230. Scientists in Industry(Berkeley:Univ. California '5Forthe terminologysee William Kornhauser, Press, 1963).

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GEORGMEYER-THUROW

room Library room Library (late1880s) Scientific library (1897/98)

Uterary dept.

(1906)

noo^)

'Experimental

(1887)

dyehouse

Control lab lab (186)Control

Main scientific lab (1891)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~(1896) ~~~~~(1897)

Patent bureau (late 1880s) Patent dept.

bureau Patent
(late 1880s) Patent dept.

(1897)

Training lab

Tcncal

room

(1904)

(1891)

Figure 3. Research facilitiesat Bayer

Figure 3 shows the highly developed network of facilities grouped around the scientific laboratory to support the research chemist. The collection of information had become a necessary adjunct to the work of the research chemist. The library helped the researcher keep up with the most recent scientific advances by stocking a large collection of chemical literature and a constantly growing number of scientific periodicals (190 in 1901, 360 in 1907, and 550 in 1912). By 1906 the sheer mass of articles published became so difficult to survey that a literary department was installed, which circulated abstracts of all scientifically or technically relevant articles. The patent bureau documented all German and foreign patent applications and granted patents, allowing a close and early watch of any technical and commercial progress made in the chemical industry. The control laboratory undertook the task of analyzing the constitution of any dyestuff, patented or not, that came onto the market. Much of the success of industrial research depended on detecting the possible value of laboratory findings, on patenting research results, and on converting the discoveries of the laboratory into marketable products. The experimental dyehouse tested all dyestuff compounds delivered by the research laboratory and, if necessary, developed techniques for their application. The patent bureau had to ensure the legal protection for all inventions and to defend this protection against rival claims. The technical room was concerned with chemical engineering; it helped to transform laboratory findings into manufacturing processes. In the end Bayer's management, under heavy pressure from Duisberg, who in 1900 joined the Board of Directors, also slowly accepted the need to set the research chemist free to engage full-time in research. Even after the establishment of the main scientific laboratory at Bayer in 1891, routine tasks, mechanical labors, and indirect service functions had distracted the research chemist from his research problems. Step by step these tasks were taken off his shoulders. The control laboratory was established in 1896 to carry out the routine task of analyzing the constitution of any dyestuff marketed by rival firms. Prior to 1897 the chemists in the scientific laboratory carried out much patent work. In 1897 the patent bureau was reorganized as the patent department so as to relieve them of many of the onerous tasks associated with patent litigations. And in 1904 a training laboratory was established, which ended the high rate of personnel turnover characteristic of the main scientific laboratory so long as it was also used to qualify

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THEINDUSTRIALIZATION OFINVENTION Table 4. Personnel turnover at the main scientific laboratory Positions Entries Exits due to Transfer 1897-1904 1905-1912 15 16 28 10 23 8 Notice 4 -

373

Deathor Retirement

and socialize chemists joining Bayer. Table 4 shows that turnover subsequently diminished by two thirds.16 ORGANIZING RESEARCH The growing number of research laboratories and the intensified division of labor opened up new fields of activity and multiple career patterns for chemists. The differences between academic institutions and industrial research facilities were reduced, and this eased the transition from university to industry. But the personal contact between management and scientists diminished, confronting management with the problem of how to integrate the scientific expert within the organization and how to control the process of invention. From the mid-1880s onward the difficult task of directing, coordinating, and controlling research activities kept the management of Bayer occupied. Labor contract regulations served to keep research and its results strictly secret, and the management gradually developed elaborate techniques with which to control and direct research processes.17 Research became embedded in a highly developed and interwined complex of communication and supervision, incentives and controls. The Bayer Company employed four distinct managerial methods. First, financial incentives served a double purpose. The board of directors offered prizes and premiums for the solution of specific research problems defined by management. Bayer also gave every research chemist a royalty consisting of a fixed percentage of the net profits accruing to the company from patented inventions; this was thought to stimulate the individual chemist's research and direct him to fields of commercial and industrial interest. The amount of money earned from these royalties was considerable and often surpassed the researchers' regular annual salary. Table 5 gives the figures (in marks) for all chemists employed in the main laboratory throughout the period.18 Second, the management introduced regular conferences of chemists in 1888. These conferences brought together all Bayer chemists to exchange information on the latest scientific and technical advances, on new patents, and on broad trends in industrial chemistry. Initially held weekly, these conferences were reduced to
1912 (cit. n. 3); and the personnelfiles of the variouschemists. '7Theseregulationsprovidedthat chemists employed by Bayer keep all business secrets strictly secret and abstain from all communicationson methods of productionat Bayer both during their engagementand for a periodof up to threeyearsafter, and thatuponleaving the BayerCompanythey notjoin rival firms, also for up to threeyears. On the role of management in industrial enterprisessee
Alfred B. Chandler, The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business (Cam'6Figures from Beamten-Verzeichniss, p. 2 (Bayer archives); Tabellarische Ubersichten 1906 and

bridge, Mass./London:BelknapPress of HarvardUniv. Press, 1977). fromthe chemists' personnelfiles, Bayerarchives.The top line belongs to the headof the '8Figures department.

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Table 5. Financial incentives for Bayer research chemists (in marks)

Chemist 1902 Annual salary 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 7,500 5,400 4,800 4,800 4,000 3,600 3,000 Royalties 19,041 14,084 3,993 744 651 559 1906 Annual salary 9,500 6,000 6,250 6,000 4,600 5,500 4,300 Royalties 28,685 22,095 7,655 1,058 5,766 462 575 Annual salary 20,000 6,750 7,750 7,750 6,800 8,000 6,600 1912 Royalties 51,727 39,878 13,214 3,785 9,227 3,050 1,377

biweekly in 1891 and later were held monthly. Patterned after the university seminar, the meetings were supposed to counteract trends toward overspecialization, isolation, or an all-too-academic orientation. They compensated for the strictly limited flow of communication with the outside professional community by encouraging informal coordination of work and exchange of ideas. Finally, they helped develop an esprit de corps. A third method of controlling the chemist's research activities consisted of the periodic reports each chemist had to make on the progress and results of his work. When first introduced in 1887 the reports were required daily. This was changed to weekly in 1891. In 1906 the Bayer management asked the research chemists to supplement the weekly reports by a yearly report. The head of the appropriate department and the board of directors received these reports and thus were kept informed about the ongoing investigations. Apart from satisfying the need for information and control, these written reports also helped decide conflicting claims of priority between research chemists. Moreover, they could be used as legal evidence of priority against the patent claims of competitors. Finally, the role of the research administrator was created. His duty was to coordinate and direct industrial research and to stimulate, discipline, and control the research chemist. His most important functions were overseeing all scientific and technical publications and checking, promoting, and controlling subjects and methods of research, using a cooperative style of supervision; maintaining contact with the patent department to secure patent rights for all inventions made; undertaking all administrative tasks related to the library, the stores, and the technical room; handling the qualification and final selection of chemists joining Bayer; and finally, heading the regular conferences of chemists.19 At first Carl Duisberg, because of his many successes as inventor and patent attorney, supplemented by his organizational ability, became the head of the growing research staff at Bayer. In 1888, after only four years with the company, he received the title of Prokurist, which underlined his outstanding position as first chemist of the company.20 But the administration of research was not his only
"Wissenschaftliche Abtei'9SeeCarl Duisberg's workinginstructionsfor the researchdepartment vorm. F. Bayer & Co., Elberfeld," Bayer archives 103/17.E.3. lung der Farbenfabriken title Prokuristempoweredhim to transactbusiness in the name of the company. For most 20The chemists the title was only honorary.

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task. He was head of the patent bureau until 1897. He planned and organized the partial transfer of Bayer's manufacturing plant from Elberfeld to Leverkusen beginning in the early 1890s. And long before he was appointed a member of the board of directors in 1900, he had in fact become managing director of the works, sharing the responsibility for the scientific and technical aspects with Friedrich Bayer, the son of the company's founder. Only with the general reorganization of Bayer's management structures at the department level in early 1896 was research administration formally institutionalized. Following Duisberg's proposals, Bayer's board of directors appointed a section manager with sole responsibility for administering research within the main scientific laboratory: Bernhard Heymann, who held a doctorate from the University of Munich and came recommended to Duisberg by Adolf von Baeyer in 1889. After seven years in the main scientific laboratory engaging in successful research and handling patent litigations competently, Heymann was an obvious choice for the new post as head of the research department. But not everyone shared this view. For the trend towards bureaucratic control by management ran counter to the professional consciousness of the research chemists. The company's policy of promoting chemists into the managerial hierarchy no doubt served to lessen these tensions, but it did not eliminate them. On the contrary: while the elaborate system of conferences and work reports, to some a symptom of needless overorganization, usually met with only passive resistance from individual chemists, the appointment of Heymann almost produced a minor palace revolution. When informed about the forthcoming changes in late September 1895, a group of six research chemists submitted a petition to the board of directors dated 30 September 1895, demanding that this appointment be rescinded and that instead a renowned scientist be recruited from outside the company. But this protest met with no success. Just one day after their petition had been written, Duisberg, in the name of the board of directors, confronted these chemists with a simple alternative: submit or quit. Three chemists preferred to leave Bayer.21 This conflict between chemists and management was not simply a complaint about promotion procedures, heated up by the fact that Dr. Heymann was a Jew. It was the first and only collective protest by research chemists prior to 1914 and, as such, an obvious signal of rebellion against the introduction of hierarchical structures into the small and relatively homogeneous group of Bayer's research chemists. This protest can also be understood as a symptom of the research chemist's difficulties in adjusting to qualitative changes in the process of industrial research itself.

THE INDUSTRIALIZATION OF INVENTION

The German dyestuffs industry reacted to the challenges and promises which the scientific and technical developments of the late 1870s and early 1880s had offered by creating splendid opportunities for research and organizing the research process in ingenious ways. But dyestuffs corporations did not simply recognize
of the petitionin the personnelfile of Dr. aboutthis protestcomes fromthe fragments 2Information R., andfrom the selections of an almost identicalletterplaced in the personnelfiles of Drs. Ko., N., S., and St. They had sent the letter, dated 1 or 2 Oct. 1895, to the boardof directorsto justify their petition.

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and accept the importance of research for their own further expansion; their growing dependence on a continuous supply of inventions made them adapt science to their particular requirements. An irreversible industrialization of invention was the result. It involved two processes: industrial research became increasingly autonomous as it met industrial and commercial needs, and imitations, inventions, and innovations were increasingly reduced to routine. Table 6 below conveys an idea of how far Bayer relied on the German system of higher education to supply its research chemists.22 All the research chemists had a university Ph.D.; several had also studied at a Technische Hochschule, but the universities played the dominant role in their education. After passing their examination, the majority of these chemists had spent one or two years working as Assistenten, assisting the university or Hochschule professor in research or teaching. Only a small number of chemists were recruited from other chemical companies. Thus not only the Ph.D. but prolonged academic training in all branches of chemistry was regarded as more useful for research chemists than scientific and technical experience or knowledge of the dyestuffs industry. Reliance of industry on academia was not one-sided. After the mid-1880s industrial needs came to shape academic curricula, as dissatisfaction with chemical education in Germany led the German chemical industry to sponsor reform at universities and Hochschulen.23 The goals of the reform movement were to improve the quality of training in chemistry, standardize curricula, and acquaint chemistry students with the type of Table 6. Qualifications of the main laboratory staff Place of study University only 1897
1912

Universityand TechnischeHochschule 6
4 Final examinations

Technische Hochschuleonly
1

9
11

Ph.D. only 1897 1912 13 15

University

Ph.D. andTechnische
Hochschule diploma 2 1

Hochschule Technische
diploma only

Post-doctorate work at university or Hochschule Yes 1897 1912 12 9 No 3 6

Industrial work experience Yes 3 4 No 12 12

the personnelfiles of the chemistsinvolved, Bayerarchives. 22See des Chemikers im Kaiserreich," "Die Ausbildung 23Lothar Burchardt, ZeitschriftfurUnternehmensAssociation:Big forschung, 1978, 2:31-53. Cf. also JeffreyA. Johnson,"TheChemicalReichsanstalt Science in Imperial Germany,"(Ph.D. diss., Princeton University,1980), pp. 144-149.

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work that the industry required; it gained momentum from the growing importance of scientific research for, and the changing character of that research in, the chemical industry. After the late 1880s industrial research was more and more characterized by two interdependent factors: specialization and cooperation.24 Specialization meant that the investigations of the chemist working in the main scientific laboratory were restricted to a very narrow field of dye chemistry. A training course introduced in the early 1890s, which lasted at least one year, tested the chemist's abilities and inclinations and gradually directed him into a special branch of color chemistry. This concentration on a tiny sector of chemistry seems to have been widely accepted as necessary for successful research. Nevertheless, Bayer's management, especially Duisberg, was well aware of the dangers of overspecialization and isolation from the general advances of chemistry. The system of conferences was considered one preventive. In addition, the working instructions of the research department explicitly warned the chemists against training as "one-sided specialists," stressing that every research chemist not only had the right to turn to other fields of chemistry temporarily, but had the duty to follow up all new developments in chemistry.25 In practice, the research chemist remained committed primarily to his own special field of dye chemistry and to his principal task: inventions leading to innovations. And specialization did have the welcome-for management-secondary effect of reducing the chemist's mobility, by minimizing his value to other chemical firms, should he leave Bayer.26 The necessary complement to this carefully designed division of labor was cooperation. Apart from the informal consultation practiced in regular conferences, two types of interaction took place. A close and intensive personal cooperation existed between chemists in the main laboratory working on the same subfield of dye chemistry; they constituted a small work group that the head of the research department sometimes joined. An impersonal functional cooperation was required between the research chemist in the main scientific laboratory and the color chemist, pharmacist, physician, or other production employee who checked the research results for applicability and developed methods of application in the experimental dye-house, the physiological laboratory, and elsewhere. Table 7 below illustrates the ever-growing importance assumed by the screening of research results and the transformation of inventions into useful innovations, taking the dyestuffs sector as an example.27 Cooperative research in a bureaucratic structure involved problems. Chemists complained about having their ideas stolen, and conflicts arose over how to allot recognition among the different chemists working on a single project. Bayer had to shape its recruitment policy to the new needs; from the early 1890s the ability to cooperate became as important as scientific competence. With discoveries and inventions, not to speak of practical innovations, becoming the result of cooperative efforts by highly specialized experts, the entire
im Zeichender Spezialisierung undTeamarbeit," in NaturwisBorscheid,"Die Industrie 24Compare senschaft(cit. n. 2), pp. 173-207. 25SeeDuisberg,"Wissenschaftliche Abteilung"(cit. n. 18). 26Cf.Beer, Emergence,pp. 87-88; see also laborcontract in n. 16 above. regulations MaxKitschelt,"Die Entwicklungsgeschichte 27See derFarberei in Geschichte derFarbenAbteilung," & Bruning(Munich:Bruckmann, 1938), pp. 62, 65.

fabriken . . . Bayer (cit. n. 7), p. 328. For comparable figures for the Hochst Company see Hermann Pinnow, Zur Erinnerung an die 75. Wiederkehrdes Grundungstages der Farbwerke vorm. Meister Lucius

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Table 7. Screening of dyes at Bayer New dyestuff compoundsfrom laboratories 1896 1906 2,378 2,656 Dyes testedon a largerscale aftera first screening 36 60

Dyes marketed* 37 36

*Includes new mixtures of old dyes andolderdyes of competitors thathadlost theirpatentprotection.

process lost most of its individualized, art-like character. Empiricism, chance discoveries, or the heroic deeds of lone inventors gave way to the systematic production of knowledge, guided by what Otto Witt, then professor at the Technische Hochschule Berlin, in 1913 had called the "principle of purposive synthesis."28 The azo dyestuffs, the largest group of dyes and economically the most important one, illustrate these changes well. First, the countless possible products of the diazo reaction, presumably more than one hundred million, exceeded the research capacity of any one chemist. Individual research was superseded by the new "scientific mass work" (wissenschaftliche Massenarbeit). Second, because the mechanisms of the diazo reaction and the ways to make azo dye compounds were well known, inventive activity was turned into a routinized "construction bound to scientific rules" (an wissenschaftliche Regeln gebanntes Konstruieren).29 This was true only when the constitution of chemical substances and the relation between their constitution and their qualities were known. Even then, individual originality and creativity and chance discoveries continued to have their place in industrial research. However, terms like "mass work" and "construction" show that "industrialization of invention" is not an artificial construct imposed on the past after the fact: these terms grew out of the experience of contemporary research chemists, who were all too familiar with their routine, frequently fruitless research.30Moreover, the terms characterize changes that produced two further negative effects. First, in spite of the continuously growing prosperity of the company after the deep economic crisis of the mid-1880s, the chemist's share in the profits based on his inventions was reduced. Chemists who in the late 1870s and early 880s had received five percent of the net profits accruing to the company from their patented inventions were paid only three percent from the late 1880s onward. The commercially valuable invention had lost its exceptional importance for the growth of the company as the number of research chemists rose and a stream of new discoveries and inventions got underway. Second, the company became recognized as a sort of collective inventor. The emergence of the word Etablissementerfindung in the course of the heated public debate on the payment of salaried inventors in the early twentieth century reflects this perception. The company management provided the means, methods, and
undder chemischenTechzwischender chemischenForschung 280ttoN. Witt, "Wechselwirkungen nik," in Die Kulturder Gegenwart,Pt. 3, Div. 3, Vol. 2: Chemie(Leipzig:Teubner,1913), p. 521. der Theerfarof research,1883-1890), Uberdie Entwicklung Heinrich Caro(BASFdirector 29Quoting 12 July ben-lndustrie 1893), p. 141; and HeinrichCaroto W. von Oechelhauser, (Berlin:Friedlander, DeutscheMuseum,Munich;cf. Caro, Uber die Entwicklung, 1906, Carocorrespondence, p. 137. Table7 and n. 26. 30See

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organization for research and directed its course, and the company became the repository for a body of collective knowledge and experience from which researchers drew in making new discoveries. The research chemist had become a small part in the total organization. Doubtless managers and entrepreneurs of the chemical industry used this term in order to repudiate the claims of research chemists who asked for a more appropriate reward for their inventions.3' But all the same it affords a glimpse of the depersonalized character of the research of the time.
THE EFFECTS OF INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH

By the early twentieth century institutionalization of research was essentially complete at the Bayer Company. In the late 1870s and early 1880s scientific, economic, and legal developments had given the first impetus to a gradual and evolutionary change. The many successes of a young inventor, Carl Duisberg, accelerated this process and paved the way for the opening of the main scientific laboratory in 1891. Other research laboratories followed. Meanwhile a complex research infrastructure developed. Organizing research became the foremost managerial task, and the process of invention itself became industrialized, the routinized work of cooperating specialists following the imperatives of industrial needs in a bureaucratic and hierarchical setting. While admittedly tentative, the remarks that follow address the further effects of the new role of industrial research. The status and prestige of the research department within the Bayer Company remained ambiguous. Remarkably, when Bayer's management structures were reorganized at the top level in 1906, the head of the research department became a member of the board of directors (without giving up research and research administration!). But research chemists were scarcely represented among the company's directors and Prokuristen, as Table 8 shows.32 Except for the position of head of the research department, until 1914 research was a dead-end career, since the only outlet for promotions was in management. Similarly, although Bayer's board of directors showed its appreciation of chemists' work by conferring the honorary title of Prokurist on them, the board passed over the research chemists with only one exception. It is therefore no surprise that most scientists attracted to industry did not go into research. Between 1897 and 1912 Bayer's management transferred thirty chemists from the main scientific laboratory, primarily to production, but only two chemists went the other way. One left again for a production post after a few years. The other stayed, but even he had vehemently opposed his transfer from production to research. Neither the generous patent royalties nor the superb working conditions succeeded in counterbalancing this tendency. One reason for this low standing of research in industry may have been that its autonomy remained subordinated to industrial and commercial needs and that its range remained restricted. Truly basic research not directed towards industrially
3'See Carl Duisberg, "Die Angestelltenerfindung in der chemischen Industrie," in Abhandlungen, Vortrage und Reden aus den Jahren 1882-1933, 2 vols. (Berlin/Leipzig: Verlag Chemie), Vol. II (1933), pp. 738-748. For the role of the Etablissementerfindung in the German jurisdiction see E. C. Rassbach, Betrachtungen zur wirtschaftlichen Lage der technischen Privatangestellten in Deutschland (Karlsruhe: Braun, 1916), pp. 136-147. 32For a list of the company's board of directors and Prokuristen see the appendix to Pinnow, Werksgeschichte.

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Table 8. Chemists in management (1913)

Board of directors Total Chemists Researchchemists 17 10 1 Prokuristen 43 25 I

and commerciallyvaluable productswas left to private or state researchinstitutions. "We esteem highly every branchof pure science," Bayer's boardof directors explained its researchpolicies in 1910, "and we appreciateevery activity on any field of theoreticalchemistryor teaching, but from the chemists workingfor our company we have to demand industrially useful results of their work."33 Moreover,Bayer's management rarelyallowed researchchemiststo publishscientifically interestingresults, even when companysecretswere not involved. Consequently, the total numberof publicationsby researchchemists workingin Bayer's main scientific laboratorywas low; for the seven years from 1907 to 1914, it was exactly zero.34 Quite a few chemists, therefore, left Bayer for an academic 35 career. The dissatisfactionof individualchemists who resentedhaving theirfreedomto pursue interesting problems curtailed was not the only limitation of industrial research. The dyestuffs industryknew well that, at least until 1914, it still deat "free" researchinstitupended upon the explorationof new fields undertaken tions by men like Emil Fischer, Paul Ehrlich, and Fritz Haber,36 although academic research could no longer successfully compete with industrial research where routine applied science was concerned. That researchprogram,following entrepreneurial strategiesof diversification, was extremely effective at maintainand ing extending the company's superioritywhereverit had establisheditself in are some wellthe market. Azo direct dyes, alizarin dyes, and pharmaceuticals knownexamples. But when Bayer triedto breakinto marketsestablishedby other companies or to break new technical and scientific ground, industrialresearch provedto be less effective. Bayer endeavoredin vain to produceindigo. Research on perfumes and fertilizers came to nothing of importance. Neither the photographic division set up in 1902 nor the intensive researchdirected towards the productionof artificialrubberturnedout to be successful. The reasons for failure were manifold. Scientific and technical problemscould be insurmountable.The barrierserected by patents could withstandany researchattack. And last but not least, lack of experience in productionor lack of knowledge of the marketcould preventeconomic success, even if the researchchemist had done his job. Thus
of directors 33Board to Dr. J. (who left Bayerfor an academiccareer), 11 Apr. 1910, personnel files, Bayerarchives. is theresultof a searchof theauthor 34This indexof theDecennialIndexto Chemical Vol. 1Abstracts; to allowpublication see theletterof Dr. B., 30 Jan. 1902,andthe letterof Dr. 10, 1907-1916. Forrefusals Z., 23 Jan. 1913, personnel files, Bayerarchives. of the betterknownwas Otto Dimroth,professor 35One of chemistry at the universities of Greifswald 36Cf. Beer'sjudgement: "Theconstant of theGerman on academic science, dependence dye companies even aftertheirresearch laboratories had becomemammoth undertakings, gives testimonyto the limitationswhichsecrecyandlackof intellectual freedomimposedon industrial research" (Emergence, p. 72). Forindustry's of academic sciencesee Johnson,"TheChemical Reichsanstalt Association" (cit. n. support 2).
(1913-1918) and Wurzburg (1918-1937).

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industrial research was not a master key to entrepreneurial growth. Its positive aspect was its ability to concentrate on a restricted range of products and cover that field with an unmatched intensity, reacting to every impulse from the market, be it industrial or scientific. It is extremely difficult to measure exactly the contribution of industrial research to economic growth.37 The facts enumerated here illustrate developments loosely related to industrial research. The number of products which Bayer produced rose steadily, from about 200 in 1886 to more than 1000 dyes and about 40 pharmaceutical products in 1900, and to about 2000 dyes and about 150 pharmaceutical products and photographical preparations at the end of 1913. Similarly, the number of German patents taken out by Bayer (in class 22) rose from 36 in the period 1877-1886, to 99 in the period 1887-1890, to 512 in the period 18911900. This rise reflects the growing intensity of research in the late 1880s and the stabilization of the research effort due to the foundation of the main scientific laboratory in 1891. Bayer held more than 2500 German and foreign patents in 1900, a quantity that again was more than trebled before 1914, to over 8000. The significance in the jump in patents held in the mid-1880s is confirmed by the statistics on Bayer's dyestuffs innovations from 1870 to 1899. While the number of innovations was 12 for the period 1870 to 1884, it was 10 in 1885 alone and 151 for the period 1885 to 1899. The annual reports of German Chambers of Trade in the late 1880s and early 1890s offer further confirmation in the form of complaints from smaller dyestuffs firms directed against the large joint-stock companies, which, with their splendid laboratories, their research staff, and their patents, endangered the smaller firms' existence.38 One of the indirect effects of industrial research was to make it harder for a new firm to enter the field. No new dyestuffs firms were successfully founded between the mid-1880s and 1914; the corporations already dominating the dyestuff business in the early 1880s, before industrial research made headway, were still in the top rank in 1914. Their previous economic success obviously was a prerequisite for their successful industrial research, and their ingenious management strategies of expansion, integration, and diversification surely remained a necessary complement to the successful industrialization of invention. Industrial research was not, as many contemporary chemists (and some historians) had it, the "prime factor" in the development of the coal-tar color industry prior to 1914,39 but after 1880 it certainly played an important role in the development of firms like Bayer, which turned from a small dyestuffs company into a big chemical corporation. No doubt industrial research then contributed to Bayer's world-wide dominance on many a chemical market, and its accumulating stock of knowledge has helped Bayer survive as a giant chemical firm until today.
37As faras I couldfindout, figuresfor Bayer'sfinancial in "research" areavailable forone expenditures werecalculated at 827,128.29 marks(Bayer yearonly, 1909, whenthe costs of all scientificlaboratories archives15/11.1), about1%of Bayer'ssales fortheyear.A different from wouldbe to calculate approach the royaltiesannuallypaid to the research chemists. Unfortunately, the materialis incomplete,and the exactmethods of calculation areunclear,buta veryfirstassessment seemsto indicate thatfor 1902, 1906, and 1912about20%of Bayer'snet profitscan be tracedto inventions of chemistsin the mainscientific laboratory. 38See derHandelskammer Jahresberichte vonBarmen fur 1894 (Barmen,1895), pp. 32-33; Jahresberichtder Handels-und Gewerbekammer zu Leipzig1893 (Leipzig, 1894), p. 157;Handelskammer der freien StadtFrankfurt: Jahresbericht fur 1889 (Frankfurt, 1890), p. 271. RaphaelMeldola, "TinctorialChemistry,Ancient and Modern"(1910), in Walter M. 39Quoting Gardner, ed., TheBritishCoal-Tar Its Origin,Development, Industry: Williams& andDecline(London: Norgate,1915), p. 265.

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