German American Entrepreneurs and the Globalization of Chemical Knowledge, 1860–1930

This paper provides new insights into the histories of international technology transfer and multinational enterprise by analyzing the position and role of German-American entrepreneurs in chemical knowledge networks. It concentrates on three chemical innovators, namely Franz Roessler (1856-1926), Jacob Hasslacher (1852-1921) and Edward Mallinckrodt, Sr. (1845-1928), all of whom put knowledge and know-how created and/or acquired in Germany into practice in the United States. Mallinckrodt had been trained in academic and industrial chemistry in Wiesbaden and Hannover before co-founding G. Mallinckrodt & Co. (°1867, incorporated as Mallinckrodt Chemical Works in 1882) and the National Ammonia Co. (°1889), two multinational firms headquartered in St. Louis. Roessler & Hasslacher (°1885, incorporated as Roessler & Hasslacher Chemical Co. in 1889) introduced processes developed by Degussa AG and other European firms into the U.S. and Mexico. Degussa, which was founded on the initiative of two of Franz Roessler’s brothers, financially controlled R&H until World War I. Besides exploiting international sources of scientific and technological knowledge and information, Hasslacher, Roessler and Mallinckrodt also invested in the creation of local knowledge bases in the U.S. Among other things, they supported educational and research institutions in St. Louis and New York City, where the central offices of R&H were located, and participated in scientific societies. Mallinckrodt also established a fellowship at Harvard University, which required recipients to work at the Mallinckrodt company in the following year. To measure the connectedness of Mallinckrodt, Roessler and Hasslacher to local, regional and (inter)national sources of innovative chemical knowledge, patent co-invention and scientific co-authorship are used as state-of-the-art indicators of knowledge flows. At the same time, this paper highlights the importance of innovations that were published nor patent-protected. In this connection, it is argued that transnational networks of family and professional contacts greatly facilitated the transmission of confidential knowledge and know-how.