chemist Industrialist manufacturer
Dow was born on February 26, 1866 in Belleville, Canada, the eldest of the four children and only son of Joseph Henry and Sarah (Bunnell) Dow. He was of New England ancestry, a descendant of Henry Dow, who was in Watertown, Massachusetts, in 1637. Soon after his birth the family returned to New England and lived for a time at Birmingham (now part of Derby), Connecticut. Later they removed to Cleveland, Ohio, where the father became master mechanic at the Chisholm Shovel-Works.
In 1884 Herbert Dow entered the Case School of Applied Science and was graduated in 1888 with a bachelor of science degree. Dow’s thesis dealt in part with Ohio brines and his instructors persuaded him to present a paper on brine analysis before a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Cleveland that summer. This required a trip to collect samples of brine in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. He soon found that lithium occurred in the largest proportions in the brines of Ohio, but was not to be found in those of Michigan, and that bromine was more concentrated in the brines of Canton, Ohio, and Midland, Michigan. Thus began his interest in the values contained in brines, which became the foundation of his industry.
The autumn of 1888 found Dow serving as professor of chemistry and technology in the Homoeopathic Hospital College of Cleveland, Ohio. That year he worked out and patented a method for obtaining bromine by blowing air through slightly electrolyzed brine, and the next year he obtained financial support and organized a small company for work with Canton, Ohio, brines. This venture failed, but such improvements had been made in the process that the work continued at the Midland Chemical Company, formed in 1890 at Midland, Michigan. This new company succeeded primarily for two reasons. The Dow process achieved the removal of bromine from brine without the need of evaporating the brine to the point of salt separation, thus avoiding a by-product, common salt, which would flood the market. Secondly, only a small amount of fuel was required and this could be supplied at the lowest possible cost, utilizing the wastes of the surrounding lumber industry. A direct current generator was required for this Dow process, and although it was a most difficult piece of equipment to obtain at that time, one was installed in 1892 and may be regarded as the first commercially successful installation of an electrochemical plant in America.
Dow's next venture was a company to electrolyze brine for the production of chlorine. Experiments were begun at Navarre, Ohio, in 1895, but the enterprise moved to Midland in 1896 and was absorbed by the Dow Chemical Company of Midland, chartered in 1897. The new company manufactured bleaching powder as its principal product and in 1900 purchased the Midland Chemical Company. The growth of the Dow Chemical Company is marked by the development one after another of chemical compounds and salts that were produced as a result of Dow's determination to utilize all values to be found in the brines with which he worked. He tenaciously clung to that policy, and when once convinced of the soundness of an idea continued until he achieved success.
His great interest in horticulture was particularly enhanced when the company took up the manufacture of insecticides, a natural result of the quest for a greater outlet for chlorine. His interest in pharmaceuticals could be traced to his early medical college associations, and salicylates in particular claimed his special interest. The magnesium chloride from the brine found use in the form of an oxychloride for stucco, and by 1918 the electrolysis of magnesium chloride was under small-scale production to yield magnesium metal. An intensive study was then made of the alloys of magnesium. These alloys were given the name Dowmetal, and from this work followed the large-scale production of this light metal. The development of a process for magnesium sulfate or Epsom salts led to the development of a system of electrometric chemical control which was probably the first commercial application of the principles involved and played the guiding role in the automatic handling of ocean brine for a continuous supply of chemical products by the Dow methods.
Under Dow's direction the company introduced the first synthetic indigo process to the Western Hemisphere, followed by a full line of brominated indigoes. Synthetic phenol and aniline were also perfected, as was the use of diphenyl oxide in bifluid power plant operation. The extraction of iodine first from Louisiana brines, and later from the brine of California petroleum, was the first production of this important element in the United States.
Dow died on October 15, 1930, in Midland, Michigan.
Dow took out sixty-five patents covering a wide range of chemical processes, and his company became one of the leading manufacturers of chemicals in the United States. He was an early exponent of the philosophy, typical of the chemical industry, that a company should make more cheaply and better than anyone else the product in which it is interested, then pass the benefits of that advantage to the consumer.
Dow was a member of the American Chemical Society, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and many other technical societies. During the First World War he was a member of the advisory committee of the Council of National Defense.
He was a public-spirited citizen, serving on boards of public works and education in Midland for many years. He was a trustee of the Case School of Applied Science.
Dow married, on November 16, 1892, Grace A. Ball of Midland, Michigan. They had three sons: Willard, Osborn, who died young, and Alden, and four daughters: Helen, Ruth, Margaret, and Dorothy.
