BASF Historical Milestones 1865 - 2005 CChronik-E_1865-1900_K2.inddhronik-E_1865-1900_K2.indd 2-32-3 001.09.20051.09.2005 14:24:0214:24:02 UhrUhr The Birth of the Chemical Industry and the Era of Dyes The first stage of German indus- Soda ash has helped Britain to These efforts are strengthened trialization begins in 1835 with build the world’s most productive by calls for improved medical the building of the first German textile industry and the best care by the Berlin physician railway. At around the same time, glass industry. Soda means soap Rudolf Virchow. Experimenting customs barriers between the can be manufactured more with coal tar in 1856 in an individual German states are cheaply. Soap, once a luxury, attempt to synthesize the anti- abolished, creating an internal becomes a basic commodity. malaria drug quinine from coal German market – a powerful Thanks to improved hygiene, the tar, the young English chemist incentive for the growth of new incidence of infectious diseases William Henry Perkin obtains industries such as engineering declines rapidly and average life the first synthetic coal tar dye, and iron smelting. expectancy doubles. Soda ash aniline purple, named mauveine. becomes a significant object of Within a short time, chemists At the same time, the German global trade. throughout Europe discover a textile industry, and in particular whole range of new synthetic the mechanized processing of But the textile industry needs dyes from aniline yellow through cotton, begins to grow rapidly. dyes too. Existing natural dyes Bismarck brown to Hofmann Traditional processing methods can no longer satisfy growing violet. Thanks to their beauty and such as exposing yarn or cotton demand. Justus von Liebig leads brilliance, the dyes fetch high to sunlight are too time consum- the chemical industry’s second prices. The discovery of coal tar ing and need to be replaced by growth spurt. In his Chemical dyes fuels the spread of a “gold faster and more efficient meth- Letters written in 1844, he makes rush” among industrialists, ods. This push for modernization the bold prediction that a way scientists and business people. provides the momentum for the will soon be discovered to make development of the fledgling brilliant dyestuffs or drugs from chemical industry. “Chlorine coal tar. Scientists are busy bleach” is the buzzword of the searching for a way to synthesize day. Huge amounts of inorganic the drug quinine. chemicals such as sulfuric acid, soda ash and chlorinated lime are needed for processing and bleaching. CChronik-E_1865-1900_K2.inddhronik-E_1865-1900_K2.indd 4-54-5 001.09.20051.09.2005 14:24:0414:24:04 UhrUhr Friedrich Engelhorn, owner of a Occupational safety and health However, the first coal tar dyes In collaboration with Berlin In 1872, construction begins on coal gas company in Mannheim, care establish a strong company are disappointing as they are professors Carl Graebe and Carl the large “Hemshof colony,” very quickly recognizes the tradition of social welfare. neither colorfast nor lightfast Liebermann, Heinrich Caro a development encompassing opportunities for coal tar, a by- The first company doctor is hired (i.e., they fade). The traditional successfully synthesizes the first more than 400 dwellings that pro- product of his company’s busi- in 1866. Twenty years later, the natural dyes madder (Turkey red) natural dye in 1869: Alizarin, a vides BASF workers with afford- ness. In 1861, he begins pro- medical department moves into and indigo continue to dominate red dye derived from the root of able housing. All the houses in the ducing fuchsin (magenta), a red a new infirmary on the site. the market, but can no longer the madder plant, mainly used colony are detached, surrounded dye, and aniline, the raw material satisfy growing demand from to dye cotton, becomes BASF’s by gardens and divided into four obtained from coal tar. But he In the second half of the 19th the textile industry. This calls first global success story. apartments each. has bigger ideas – a company century, Ludwigshafen is one of for intensive chemical research. Other new dyes such as eosin, The workers’ houses have one- that spans the entire production the fastest growing cities in In 1868, BASF appoints the true red and auramine follow. and-a-half stories: Each apart- process, from raw materials and Germany. The housing shortage chemist Heinrich Caro (1834 – ment has two parlors, a bedroom, auxiliaries through precursors becomes an urgent social 1910, chemist at BASF from kitchen, two basement rooms and intermediates to dyes. problem. The construction of 1868 to 1889) as its first head and a garden. The houses for In 1865, Engelhorn turns his company housing is mentioned of research. The first research supervisors and foremen have groundbreaking idea into reality. as early as 1865 in BASF’s activities take place in a labo- two-and-a-half stories, and each On April 6, he founds a stock application for an operating ratory in Mannheim. When the apartment has three parlors, two corporation in Mannheim under license. A year after the com- property is sold, research con- bedrooms, a kitchen, basement the name Badische Anilin- & pany is founded, four buildings tinues in a lab situated next to room and garden. In addition to Soda-Fabrik. After the planned are built on the edge of the site, the main gate of the Ludwigs- the Hemshof colony, housing for acquisition of a site in Mannheim in the extreme southwest. hafen site, the forerunner of white-collar employees is built falls through, the manufacturing These contain apartments and the main laboratory. next to the site in the following facilities are built on the opposite sleeping accommodation for years. side of the Rhine River in workers. Ludwigshafen, then part of the Samples of dyed kingdom of Bavaria. fabric created by Heinrich Caro: Modest beginnings: Alizarin and eosin. BASF in 1866 1865 1866 1867 1868 1869 1870 1871 1872 The founding fathers: Friedrich Engelhorn, Carl Clemm, August Clemm and banker Seligmann Ladenburg Eat-in kitchen in the Hemshof colony around 1914 The company’s first onsite medical clinic around 1914: The royal Bavarian medical superintendent Professor Koelsch hails it as a “remarkable facility with treatment, operating and X-ray rooms plus halls for therapeutic gymnastics and medical baths.” Social commitment: The first company Tracing the origins of housing estate in BASF: Royal Bavarian Hemshof around 1880 letter dated April 27, 1865. CChronik-E_1865-1900_K2.inddhronik-E_1865-1900_K2.indd 6-76-7 001.09.20051.09.2005 14:24:0714:24:07 UhrUhr The successful synthesis of BASF is also involved in the In 1876, Heinrich Caro succeeds In 1880, Adolf von Baeyer, a alizarin opens the world’s public debate on health and in synthesizing a pure blue chemist in Strasbourg, success- markets to BASF. However, the welfare benefits for workers dye for cotton – methylene blue. fully synthesizes indigo, the most company still lacks a proper in industry. To safeguard its A year later, BASF is awarded important natural dye at that time. sales organization. It therefore workers, it establishes a health Germany’s first patent for a coal BASF, together with the Hoechst merges with two well-known dye insurance fund in 1875 that tar dye for methylene blue. dyeworks, acquires the rights merchants in Stuttgart in 1873, pays sickness benefits solely However, methylene blue plays to exploit the indigo patent, thus Knosp and Siegle. BASF has out of company funds. an increasingly important role joining the race to produce in- already been channeling most of not just in the textile industry but digo on an industrial scale. its sales through these compa- in medicine too. Medical pio- For many years, the venture is nies as both have worldwide neer Robert Koch, for example, unsuccessful due to the inability trading networks with more than uses it to make the tubercle ba- to produce the raw material 5,000 customers. Moreover, they cillus visible in his research into cost-effectively on a large scale. operate their own “control” dye- tuberculosis. It is not until 10 years later that works, an applications-oriented Professor Karl Heumann of department with close contacts Zurich discovers an appropriate to customers. Production facili- synthesis method, which is ties and sales offices are set up adopted by BASF and Hoechst. abroad: in New York in 1873, in But the procedure does not yield Butirki near Moscow in 1877 and sufficient indigo. A second syn- in Neuville-sur-Saône, France, thesis discovered by Heumann in 1878. Siegle’s Stuttgart-based three years later appears to pigment production reverts to be more successful. BASF also Siegle in 1889. In 1970, BASF acquires the rights to this pro- acquires the entire Siegle group cedure, paving the way for the in order to expand its pigment production of indigo on an operations. industrial scale. Dye sample case Color sampler 1873 1874 1875 1876 1877 1878 1879 1880 From the Imperial Patent Office, founded in 1877: The first German dye patent protects the production process for methylene blue. BASF’s factory in Butirki near Moscow The first copy of the indigo formula in a letter written by Adolf von Baeyer to Heinrich Caro Price list cover on August 3, 1883 CChronik-E_1865-1900_K2.inddhronik-E_1865-1900_K2.indd 8-98-9 001.09.20051.09.2005 14:24:1814:24:18 UhrUhr A local telephone network is In connection with Bismarck’s In 1887, a small three-kilowatt To manufacture anthraquinone- set up in Ludwigshafen in 1882. social security system, BASF generator powering two arc sulfonic acid, the basic substance The first subscriber to be con- introduces the first company lights at the Rhine quay and in for alizarin dyes, BASF needs nected is the Badische Anilin- & health insurance plan in 1884.