The creation of synthetic alizarin in 1868 by German chemists Carl Graebe and Carl Liebermann was a turning point in the field of chemistry.  As dyers were offered synthetic alizarin that was both brighter and cheaper than the natural dye, madder cultivation was abandoned in many parts of the globe and, by the 1870s, red became one of the leading colors in the Victorian palette.(1)  Alizarin's synthesis marked the beginning of an era where nature's colors could be reproduced in a laboratory.  As chemistry became an exact science able to duplicate the molecular structure of natural matter, the principles of textile coloration at play since antiquity were soon obsolete.

Academic chemists gained a major role in the emergence of a science-based dye and color industry.  In the 1860s German scientist Peter Griess developed a new class of dyes named azo dyes, (2) while his compatriot and fellow academician Friedrich August Kekulé uncovered the chemical structure of benzene in 1865, which Nieto-Galan advances "broadened the range of structural chemical changes that induced modifications in colour and dyeing activity."(3)  By 1876, through his knowledge of the relationship between the structures and the colors of azo dyes, German scientist Otto Witt was able to predict successfully the color of a new azo dye before it was synthesized, a landmark in color technology.  The same year, Adolf Baeyer began a collaboration with Heinrich Caro to produce synthetic indigo for the German company BASF.(4)  Although Baeyer's initial success in 1877 could not be industrialized, he uncovered the riddle of the dye's molecular structure in 1883 and his ground-breaking research won him a Nobel Prize in 1905.(5)  Dye discoveries relied increasingly on theoretical knowledge and laid the foundations of modern industrial research.(6)

With the manufacturing of synthetic alizarin, Germany became a leading force in the dye industry.  By 1878, sixty percent of dyes sold globally where produced in Germany.(7)  By 1897, BASF was able to produce synthetic indigo at prices that first rivaled those of the natural dye and soon became progressively cheaper.(8)  Repercussions affected indigo farmers in India as well as world economies as the British Empire was weakened by the lost its most lucrative Asian industry.(9)  In the first six months of 1900 alone, Germany manufactured one thousand tons of artificial indigo (10) and, by this time, British army uniforms were dyed using this new synthetic dyestuff.(11) Starting with the aniline boom of the 1860s, the German companies Bayer, Höchst and BASF came to dominate the European chemical market and soon developed medical applications to coal tar dyes and products.(12)  In the 1870s, Paul Ehrlich stained cells with synthetic dyes and noted their effects on certain tissues, leading to the development of chemotherapy.(13)  In 1897, Bayer developed the aspirin, a derivative of phenol.(14)  At the eve of WWI, Germany controlled eighty percent of the world's chemical market which strengthened the country's economy considerably.(15)

By 1918, a new rainbow of color as bright as the one observed by Newton in 1704 was made possible through the use of natural and synthetic dyes.  By the beginning of the twentieth century, most of the major classes of dyes currently used in production had been discovered.(16)  The new synthetic fibers, beginning with cellulose acetate, could not get away from the issue of dyes: although discovered in the nineteenth century, cellulose acetate was commercially delayed until the introduction of ionamine dyes in 1922 and anthraquinone dyes in 1923.(17)  Without the ability to retain color, a fiber did not stand a chance.

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(1) Philip Ball, Bright Earth: Art and the Invention of Color (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2001), 221.
(2) Agustí Nieto-Galan, Colouring Textiles: A History of Natural Dyestuffs in Industrial Europe (Dordrecht, Boston, London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001), 183. Ball mentions 1850s, 221.
(3) Nieto-Galan, 184.
(4) Ball, 224.
(5) Ibid.
(6) Ibid., 221.
(7) Ibid.
(8) Ibid., 224.
(9) Ibid., 223.
(10) Ibid.,224.
(11) Nieto-Galan, 192.
(12) Ball, 215.
(13) Ibid., 222.
(14) Ibid.
(15) Nieto-Galan, 198.
(16) Ball, 226.
(17) Ibid., 227.