Remember When: New Kensington native's work on new fiber for tires led to unintentional invention of Kevlar

While working for DuPont Chemical in the mid-1960s, the late Stephanie Kwolek was given an assignment that changed the world for first responders and others.

Her assignment was to develop a polymer that could be used to prolong the life of radial tires.

As is the case with many inventions, Kwolek’s research and experiments unintentionally developed a different product, Kevlar, the material used in bulletproof vests for law enforcement and, more recently, reporters and photographers in war zones.

Stephanie Louise Kwolek was born July 31, 1923, in New Kensington. Her father, John, was a foundry worker who died when she was 10.

John Kwolek passed along his love of science to his daughter. Her mother, Nellie, had a strong love of fabrics and sewing.

Stephanie Kwolek combined those two factors to earn a 1946 degree in chemistry at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Tech, now known as Carnegie Mellon University. She had intended to go on to medical school but, instead, took a job as a laboratory chemist in the rayon department at the DuPont Co. in Buffalo, N.Y.

DuPont had introduced nylon just before World War II. In the post-war years, the company resumed its dive into the highly competitive market of synthetic fibers.

Kwolek moved on to DuPont’s Pioneer Research Lab in Wilmington, Del., in 1950 to work with flame-resistant fibers.

In 1964, DuPont assigned Kwolek to produce a texture that would allow tires to wear away more gradually in the event of a gasoline shortage.

A year later, she prepared the first liquid crystal polymers that displayed unprecedented stiffness. It was marketed under the brand name Kevlar, a fiber that not only found use in tire cords, it also reinforced boat hulls. It’s most popular use is, of course, in lightweight bulletproof vests.

The material, in fact, was five times the strength of steel.

Kevlar now has more than 200 uses, among them protective suits for firefighters, ropes, cables and materials in the aircraft and aerospace fields.

Kwolek retired from DuPont in 1986 with the rank of research associate. Her work accumulated 16 U.S. patents for DuPont.

But the invention she is most proud of is Kevlar.

“I hope I’m saving lives,” she told the American Chemists Society in 2007. “There are very few people in their careers that have the opportunity to do something to benefit mankind.”

Stephanie Kwolek died June 18, 2014, in Wilmington.

A Pennsylvania historical marker was dedicated in her honor on Oct. 1, 2016, in New Kensington near her childhood home at Seventh Street and Freeport Road.