Chemica EDWIN COX VIRGINIA-CAROLINA CHEMICAL CORP., RICHMOND, VA.
Fourteen per cent of the United States population resides in the South Atlantic States. This area produces 26qo of the nation’s sulfuric acid, and sulfuric acid production is recognized as an index of chemical production and industrial activity. This relationship does not hold true for the entire chemical industry of the region; however, chemical processes comprise the second largest segment of industry within the area and are above the national average. A total of 1224 chemical industries, grouped into 27 classifications, are charted as to their location and products. These industries include major production of sulfur and phosphatic products, nitrogen, alkalies and chlorine, fats and bils, pigments, and fireworks. Chromium, titanium, lithium, barium, indium, thallium, and cadmium are among the metallic salt products. The area is a principal source of supply for cellulose and pulp. It is the world center for production of man-made fibers. Dyes and textile adjuvants are leading products, and the area is a principal consumer of these textile chemicals. West Virginia is one of the organic chemical centers of the nation. The area also included some chemical industries of an unusual nature.
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SINGLE hisloiical incidence challenges the commonly accepted pre-eminence of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and John Winthrop for the establishment of the cheniical industry in what is now these United States. It is well known that in 1608 and 1609 t h e Virginia Colonists made “trials of pitch and tar” and brought over Polanders to staff the glasshouse at Jamestown; in 1611 Sir Thomas Dale brought with him not cavaliers, but artificers, tanners, and smiths. Brick kilns were built, and a dyehouse was erected. But t o one George Thorpe, fellow of Cambridge, member of the British Parliament and later nieniber of the Virginia House of Burgesses, and finally victim to the hlassacre of 1622, should great honor be given by the chemical industry. On December 19, 1620, he wrote that many newcomers to Virginia experience a more or less fatal shock “by not knowing” they would “drink water here.” This intemperate drinking of water was denounced by the colony as drawing after it “the fluxe or dropsy.” Thorpe continued that he had “found a way t o make so good a drink of Indian corn as I protest I have diverse times refused t o drink strong English beer and chosen to drink that” ( I S ) . On this virile foundation has been founded the industry, Thich the United States Department of Commerce defines as Industry Group 28. An arbitrary regrouping of classifications in this group plus a few others are made in Table I for convenience of presenta432
t>ion. Omitted from consideration are industries of Group 28 xhere little chemical change is effected-fertilizer mixing operations, perfumes and cosmetics, whiting, putty and wood fiIlw-and also omitted because of “absence” are hardwood distillation and linseed oil. Consolidations of groups are maclc, and many processing operations often grouped with the chemical industry are omitted-for example, paper, coke, metallic alloys, h e , and distilled spirits. Also regretfully omitted are data on mnriy small indust,ries (employing less than 25 persons) because of lack of accurate information and t,hc fact that the number of such operations would unduly expand these tables. h very few p a r a ago many of the large segments of the present industry Lvere also of less than 25 employees, and within coming years many enterprises now omitted will be the nuclei of major industrial factors. CHEMICAL INDUSTRY I N RELATIONSHIP TO INDUSTRIAL ACTIVITY Table I1 shows the population and area of the eight state
