Career
After receiving his Ph.D., Carothers stayed at the University of Illinois for two years as an instructor in organic chemistry.
In 1926 Carothers moved to Harvard University. Again he was an instructor in organic chemistry. James B. Conant, who became President of Harvard College in 1933, said of Carothers:
In his research, Dr. Carothers showed even at this time the high degree of originality which marked his later work. He was never content to follow the beaten path or to accept the usual interpretations of organic reactions. His first thinking about polymerization and the structure of substances of high molecular weight began while he was at Harvard.
In 1927, DuPont decided to fund fundamental, pure research: research not deliberately aimed at the development of a money-making product. Carothers traveled to Wilmington, Delaware, to discuss the possibility of being in charge of organic chemistry at the new DuPont laboratory for fundamental research.
Read more about this topic: Wallace Carothers
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