Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction by the Editor
- I Becoming a Global Corporation – BASF from 1865 to 1900
- II The Power of Synthesis (1900–1925)
- III From the IG Farben Fusion to the Establishment of BASF AG (1925–1952)
- IV BASF Since Its Refounding in 1952
- Appendix Trade Volume and Profits of BASF since its Founding in 1865
- Bibliography
- Index of Archives
- Index of Corporations
- Index of Persons
- Index of Products and Processes
- Subject Index
- Plate section
I - Becoming a Global Corporation – BASF from 1865 to 1900
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction by the Editor
- I Becoming a Global Corporation – BASF from 1865 to 1900
- II The Power of Synthesis (1900–1925)
- III From the IG Farben Fusion to the Establishment of BASF AG (1925–1952)
- IV BASF Since Its Refounding in 1952
- Appendix Trade Volume and Profits of BASF since its Founding in 1865
- Bibliography
- Index of Archives
- Index of Corporations
- Index of Persons
- Index of Products and Processes
- Subject Index
- Plate section
Summary
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Badische Anilin & Soda-Fabrik (BASF) was “without question the largest chemical factory in the world,” at least in the field of organic chemical production. The firm's history – and especially its early history – mirrors to an unusual degree the development of an entire industrial sector, the coal-tar dye industry.
The coal-tar dye industry came into its own as the most important “new” industrial sector in Germany during the second half of the nineteenth history, prior to, but also alongside the electrical industry. Through the increasingly scientific basis of its production, it proved an important force for economic modernization in imperial Germany. Furthermore, within the space of just a few decades, the industry was able to secure a virtual international monopoly owing to its capabilities in production and sales of synthetic dyestuffs. In fact, on the eve of World War I, it manufactured more than 80 percent of world production and accounted for 90 percent of world trade in the field. What is more, the industry had also expanded into new areas of production. The largest firms had already incorporated into their planning and production programs promising new areas such as pharmaceuticals, photographic supplies, and the synthesis of rubber and ammonia.
When the German coal-tar dye industry first started out, its rapid rise to a commanding position in the world economy could not have been predicted.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- German Industry and Global EnterpriseBASF: The History of a Company, pp. 5 - 114Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003
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