One of the aspects of American history I want to get across in my movie is how innovative American business has been and how this has benefited both America and the world. One of the examples I might use is  the story of Herbert Dow. This is his story.

Herbert Dow was actually born in Belleville, Ontario, Canada (!) in 1866. Shortly after his birth his family returned to the US.

Dow’s father was an inventor and engineer and young Herbert starting following in his footsteps from a very young age. For example, he invented an incubator for chicken eggs before the age of 12. With his father he invented a small steam turbine which the American Navy used for many years in torpedo propulsion.

In university he began researching which chemicals could be found in brines ( water saturated with salt) in Ohio. He discovered that many American brines were rich in bromine which is a chemical used in medicine and the then fledgeling photographic industry. Inventing a process for extracting the bromine he formed a company – but was bankrupt within a year. He later formed a second firm called Midland Chemical Company which was successful. However his investors fired him when Dow started to research ways to extract other chemicals whereas they wanted to focus on bromine.

Dow next founded the Dow Process Company, which he used to perfect a production mechanism to extract chloride and caustic soda from sodium chloride. This proved to be a success allowing him to form the Dow Chemical Company as its successor. WIthin three years Dow was able to purchase his former company, Midland Chemical, and with his new process was producing bromine very cheaply at 36 cents per pound.

Here is where the story gets interesting though. Dow decided he wanted to sell his bromine in Europe too. However the European market was controlled by a government supported bromine cartel which sold bromine for 49 cents a pound. The cartel didn’t want Dow and his cheap bromine upsetting their market. The Germans made it clear that if Dow went ahead with his plans that they would flood the American market with cheap Bromine and ruin him. Dow defied the cartel by selling his bromine in England and the Germans made good on their threat.

The Germans started selling bromine in the US at the unheard of price of 15 cents a pound. Dow couldn’t compete at this price (which was well below the costs of producing it) so he used some Yankee ingenuity instead. First he had his purchasers buy up as much cheap bromine  as they could. He then shipped it BACK TO EUROPE where he sold it for 27 cents! The German cartel was perplexed. Not only could they not figure out why Dow wasn’t going out of business, but where was this huge demand for bromine coming from? What’s more who was flooding their market with cheap bromine? The Germans may not have been too bright in this instance, but they are persistent.  In order to really stick it to Dow they cut the price of bromine to 12 cents and then finally 10.5 cents. Dow was laughing all the way to the bank.

Eventually exhausted by their losses the German cartel had to throw in the towel. By meeting and defeating the German challenge and lowering the price of bromine for all, Herbert Dow is a shining example of American industry, innovation, and entrepreneurship.

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