Herbert Henry Dow was an American chemical engineer and industrialist, born in 1866 and died in 1930, who developed an electrolytic process for extracting bromine from brine that dramatically undercut the production costs of the German-controlled bromine cartel then dominating the world market. He founded the Dow Chemical Company in Midland, Michigan in 1896, and went on to develop processes for producing chlorine, caustic soda, magnesium and phenol, personally holding more than ninety patents over his lifetime; the company he built became a major supplier of chemical materials during the First World War.
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1. Herbert Henry Dow (Wikipedia)
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Herbert Henry Dow (February 26, 1866, October 15, 1930) was an American chemical industrialist who founded the American multinational conglomerate Dow Chemical. A graduate of the Case School of Applied Science in Cleveland, Ohio, he was a prolific inventor of chemical processes, compounds, and products, notably bromine extraction from brine water, and was a successful businessman.
Frequently Asked Questions
How did Herbert Dow beat the German bromine cartel?
He bought up the cartel's dumped bromine in the U.S. and resold it in Europe, until the cartel could not keep selling below cost.
In 1904 Dow defied the German cartel Deutsche Bromkonvention by exporting bromine to England at a cheaper price than the cartel's. The cartel retaliated by dumping bromine on the U.S. market at 15 cents a pound. Dow instructed his agents to buy up hundreds of thousands of pounds of the German bromine locally at the low price, repackaged it, and exported it to Europe, even selling it to German companies at 27 cents a pound. The cartel, unable to work out where the cheap imported bromine was coming from, suspected its own members of undercutting the price-fixing agreement, and finally realized it could not keep selling below cost.
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