When petroleum was not worth a dollar
In this very special issue of ICIS Chemical Business, The history of chemicals, we tried our best to cover this in 52 pages. One of our greatest challenges was choosing which topics to cover among the thousands in the great history of chemistry. Please let us know if you think we missed anything.
A very special thanks to Neil Gussman of the Chemical Heritage Foundation for helping us brainstorm on ideas.
Leafing through one of our old Oil, Paint and Drug Reporter issues from 1883, I came across this poetic gem from the Petroleum Notes section:
"This extract from the song ‘Sweet Evalina’ might, with much appropriateness, be sung by petroleum, if petroleum could sing:
"Long years have gone by, and I’m still not worth a dollar."
How times have changed indeed!
Note: $1 in 1883 is worth about $23 today.