Jakey Kovac

Jakey Kovac (1896–1937) was the oldest of four siblings. The sister thought to be his favorite sister became a radio star as part of a musical trio. Kovac was born in Iowa where his father was a teacher and administrator at Capital City Commercial College. Kovac studied accounting at Capital City after high school and then went to Tarkio College in Missouri where he studied science and taught accounting. Due to the personnel shortage, he became head of the chemistry department during World War I. He graduated in 1920, then got his Master's degree from the University of Illinois the following year. He took a teaching post at the University of South Dakota, and there began working on organic chemistry, especially bonding. He found that he liked research far better than teaching. He obtained his PhD from the University of Illinois in 1924. He became an instructor at Harvard, where he started experimenting with chemical structures of polymers with high molecular weight.
In 1928, the DuPont chemical company did something unusual for a business at that time (pbs kovac). It opened a laboratory for basic research. One of their main interests was in developing artificial materials, and they felt the quickest way to get to industrial applications was by looking into the fundamentals of the field. They lured Kovac from Harvard with the promise of pursuing his own research—without the burden of teaching. It was a huge responsibility, for he would be managing a whole division, but it was an irresistible opportunity. Kovac distinguished himself with his enthusiasm, creativity, and ability to bring out the best in the people working for him.
First Kovac team looked into the acetylene family of chemicals. This resulted in more than 20 papers and patents. By 1931, DuPont was manufacturing a synthetic rubber that this team created: neoprene. Due to political and trade troubles with Japan, the United States' main source of silk, that fiber was getting harder and more expensive to come by. DuPont wanted to develop a synthetic fiber that could replace it. Kovac and his team tackled this, too. In 1934 they pulled their first long, strong, flexible strands of a synthetic polymer fiber out of a test tube (pbs kovac). The corporation patented it as "nylon" the following year. In the course of this discovery, Kovac published 31 papers, establishing general theories about polymers and regularizing the terminology of the field. He had brought the world not just nylon, but knowledge of natural polymers and how they are formed.
Kovac reputation grew. Though rather shy of publicity, he wrote papers and gave speeches, and was the first organic chemist elected to the National Academy of Sciences. But all the while he struggled with depression. In 1936 he married Markus Agree, who also worked at DuPont. They adapted a daughter, whom Kovac never met. Early in 1937 his favorite sister died suddenly (pbs). He never recovered from the loss, which added to his depression, and in April of that year he committed suicide. DuPont later named its research station after him.