Last updated on October 15th, 2022 at 12:48 am
1879-2005: American Aniline Colors, Schoellkopf, Hartford & Hanna Co., Allied Chemical, Buffalo Color Company
Scroll down for various historical yarn and fabric dye color samples.
Jacob F. Schoellkopf (1819-1899), a German immigrant to the United States (1841), opened a leather shop in Buffalo, New York in 1844. He eventually started a tannery, managed numerous flour mills, built a brewery in Niagara Falls and was one of the original organizers of the Niagara Falls Power Company. In 1879, he started a coal tar dye manufacturing business, originally called the Schoellkopf Aniline and Chemical Company then in 1900 (after merging their various branch offices) called the Schoellkopf, Hartford & Hanna Company, with his son, Jacob F. Schoellkopf Jr. (born 1858, died 1942) on the Buffalo River. This company manufactured anilines, compounds used to in the production of dyes and organic chemicals. Over time, this company grew huge, opening offices in New York City (1880s), Philadelphia (1893), Chicago, Boston, Cincinnati, Kansas City and Milwaukee. By 1916, the company employed over 600 men and produced around 136 dye colors (acid, direct and chrome colors) plus some food colors.
Schoellkopf primarily produced dyes for cotton, silk, leather and paper. In 1917, Schoellkopf merged with Beckers Aniline and Chemical and Benzol Products Company forming the National Aniline and Chemical Company, then in 1921, National Aniline merged with four other companies to form the Allied Chemical & Dye Corporation, moving all manufacturing of the various companies to Buffalo, New York. Allied Chemical continued to grow and thrive until the 1960s, when the US government lifted/lowered tariffs and the 1970s when stringent – and very necessary – environmental protection regulations were enacted by Congress. The costs associated with cleaning up their highly hazardous and polluting processes, combined with need to update equipment that had all but become obsolete due to decades’ long failure to invest in updating equipment, led to the company selling off various segments of the business, ultimately selling off to Buffalo Color Company in 1977.
At its peak, Buffalo Color employed more than 3,000 people. Buffalo Color Company eventually could not compete with the cheap dyes being imported by China (suspected at below cost), maintain and upgrade equipment, clean up massive environmental damage, and closed all facilities in 2003 then closed in bankruptcy in 2005.
The Buffalo location became a Superfund environmental cleanup site, and most of the remaining Buffalo buildings were demolished in 2011. Abandoned America featured the Buffalo site in 2009; you can view more photos of the abandoned facilities at https://www.abandonedamerica.us/buffalo-color-corporation-something-very
Sources: Buffalo News, Exodus Engineering
1902: The American Colorist and Dye Topics Volume I
Published by Schoellkopf, Hartford & Hanna Co., Buffalo, NY, found on Google Books
1903: The American Colorist and Dye Topics Volume II
Published by Schoellkopf, Hartford & Hanna Co., Buffalo, NY, found on Google Books
1904: The American Colorist and Dye Topics Volume III
Published by Schoellkopf, Hartford & Hanna Co., Buffalo, NY, found on Google Books
1905: Acid Colors on Woolen Yarn trade book by Schoellkopf, Hartford & Hanna Co. American Aniline Colors
Original scan of this book can be found at Hathitrust – note that it’s not a particularly good scan of this book. Some of the pages were scanned in greyscale so don’t show the colors. I haven’t reproduced those pages below, just the pages that are in color. The pages scanned in color were scanned with too much lighting and appear oversaturated, but are good enough to get a general idea of the original colors.
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