Instruments & Innovation

General view of the Machine Room in the Tabulating Department at the Dow Chemical Company facilities located in Midland, Michigan. Several employees and machines, including tabulator, sorter, and interpreter units, are…

General view of key punch operators transcribing written data into tabulating cards in the Tabulating Department at the Dow Chemical Company facilities located in Midland, Michigan. The operators are identified as…

General view of unidentified employees at work in the machine tabulating room at the Dow Chemical Company facilities located in Midland, Michigan. Per an article in the December 16, 1947 edition of The Brine Well, the…

Close-up view of IBM Corporation customer engineer Neil Grover servicing the electrical relays on an alphabetic tabulator in the Tabulating Department at the Dow Chemical Company facilities located in Midland, Michigan.…

Two views of the vertical retort and wood loading conveyor at the Cliffs Dow wood sawmill and distillation plant located in Marquette, Michigan. Seeking a source of raw material for its new plastic, ethylcellulose, the…

General view of a section of the wood storage at the Cliffs Dow sawmill and wood distillation plant located in Marquette, Michigan. The employee visible in the photograph is unidentified.

Seeking a source of raw…

General view of an unidentified employee standing on top of a pile of logs at the Cliffs Dow sawmill and wood distillation plant located in Marquette, Michigan. An Insley Excavator is visible on the right-hand side of…

General view of an unidentified employee standing on top of a pile of logs at the Cliffs Dow sawmill and wood distillation plant located in Marquette, Michigan. An Insley Excavator is visible on the left-hand side of…

Elevated view of the sawmill at the Cliffs Dow wood distillation plant located in Marquette, Michigan taken from the perspective of the vertical retort, with view of wood storage in background. Seeking a source of raw…

General view of three unidentified employees poling and transferring logs from a hot pond to the washer and sawmill conveyor at the Cliffs Dow wood distillation plant located in Marquette, Michigan. Invented around…

General view of the vertical retort and wood loading conveyor at the Cliffs Dow sawmill and wood distillation plant located in Marquette, Michigan. Providing a sense of scale, two unidentified employees are visible in…

General view of an unidentified employee loading logs into a machine in the sawmill at the Cliffs Dow wood distillation plant located in Marquette, Michigan. Seeking a source of raw material for its new plastic,…

General view of an unidentified employee feeding cants (logs with one or more squared sides) into a band saw in the sawmill at the Cliffs Dow wood distillation plant located in Marquette, Michigan. Seeking a source of…

General view of an unidentified employee filing a band saw in the sawmill at the Cliffs Dow wood distillation plant located in Marquette, Michigan. Seeking a source of raw material for its new plastic, ethylcellulose,…

General view of an unidentified employee filing circular saws in the sawmill at the Cliffs Dow wood distillation plant located in Marquette, Michigan. Seeking a source of raw material for its new plastic,…

General view of an unidentified employee inspecting a saran bubble as it is extruded from a machine during the production of saran film at the Dow Chemical Company plant in Midland, Michigan. During production, the film…

Elevated view of employees at work in the Dow Chemical Company's saran film manufacturing facilities in Midland, Michigan. During production, saran film was trimmed and wound into so-called inventory rolls, such as…

General view of saran bubbles being extruded from rolling machines during the production of saran film at the Dow Chemical Company plant in Midland, Michigan. During production, the film passed through a series of…

General view of an unidentified employee at work in the Dow Chemical Company's saran film manufacturing facilities in Midland, Michigan. Saran plastic is seen passing through some type of bath or wash by virtue of a…

General view of two unidentified employees at work in the Dow Chemical Company's saran film manufacturing facilities in Midland, Michigan. The employees are seen stretching a length of film between two rollers. During…

General view of employees at work in the Dow Chemical Company's saran film manufacturing facilities in Midland, Michigan. Initially developed for the U.S. Army to wrap arms and equipment for transport during World War…

General view of laboratory technicians analyzing assorted materials in a Dow Chemical Company laboratory. Per notations accompanying the photograph, Bill Herrick (left) is analyzing calcium chloride, which was used for…

General view of technician Leo Ruhnau using an apparatus to determine the percentage of hydrochloric acid in Dowell acids at a Dow Chemical Company laboratory.

General view of technicians Marguerite Tenhunen (left) and Dorothy Ferris (right) using assorted apparatus in a Dow Chemical Company laboratory to determine the quantity of zinc present in experimental alloys.

General view of Ray Kent checking a polymer operation at the Dow Chemical Company's Plastics Production Laboratory. Established in 1953 as an outgrowth of Dow's Physical Research Laboratory, the Plastics Production…