Nylon Stockings Day

Before nylon reached American store shelves, a single pair of silk stockings could cost a full day's wages for a working woman, and every snag meant another trip to the hosiery counter. Nylon Stockings Day marks the anniversary of the product launch that upended that equation: on May 15, 1940, DuPont's synthetic fiber went on sale nationwide, and most stores sold out by noon.

The frenzy surrounding that first sale was only a preview. Within two years, nylon had captured 30% of the American hosiery market, and the fiber's wartime diversion to parachutes and tire cords triggered shortages so severe that tens of thousands of women rioted outside department stores for a chance to buy a single pair.

The fiber that would transform women's hosiery started in a DuPont laboratory nicknamed "Purity Hall." In 1928, the company recruited Wallace H. Carothers, a young organic chemistry lecturer from Harvard, to lead a team investigating polymerization. Carothers proposed building long-chain molecules from small organic compounds with known reactivity, hoping to prove that polymers were genuine macromolecules rather than loose colloidal mixtures.

His team's early polyester fibers showed remarkable elasticity but melted at temperatures too low for laundering. In 1934, Carothers shifted to polyamides, and by the following year his researchers had produced fiber 66, named for the six carbon atoms in each of its two starting materials. DuPont chose not to trademark the word "nylon," intending consumers to treat it as a generic material like glass or cotton.

From Laboratory to Sales Floor

DuPont targeted women's hosiery as nylon's debut market. American women purchased an average of eight pairs of stockings per year, sending over $70 million annually to Japanese silk producers. On October 27, 1938, DuPont introduced the new fiber to 4,000 women at the future site of the New York World's Fair, then ran a limited trial sale in Wilmington, Delaware, in October 1939, where 4,000 pairs sold out in three hours.

The national rollout arrived on May 15, 1940. Offered at $1.15 per pair, nylon stockings sold out at most stores by noon. In total, roughly four million pairs moved in four days. DuPont produced 2.6 million pounds of nylon that year, generating $9 million in sales, and the following year nylon yarn revenue reached $25 million.

Wartime Scarcity and Nylon Riots

The boom was short-lived. After the United States entered World War II, DuPont shifted virtually all nylon production to military use: parachutes, tire cords, glider tow ropes, and flak jackets. By 1942, the fiber that had gone almost entirely into stockings was now almost entirely off-limits to civilians, and a black market emerged where prices could spike to $20 per pair.

When nylon stockings returned to stores in September 1945, demand far outpaced supply. Newspapers across the country reported "nylon riots" as hundreds or thousands of women formed lines outside department stores. The most extreme incident occurred in Pittsburgh in June 1946, when 40,000 people lined up over a mile to compete for 13,000 pairs. The observance now known as Nylon Stockings Day falls on the anniversary of that original May 15, 1940 launch.