She got a job with the DuPont chemical company in nineteen forty-six. It was the beginning of a career with the company that lasted about forty years.

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH:

By the nineteen sixties, Dupont already had produced materials like nylon and Dacron. The company wanted to develop a new fiber. Stephanie Kwolek was part of a DuPont research group that asked to work on its development.

At the time, she was searching for a way to make a material strong enough to use on automobile tires. If tires could be improved, automobiles would need less fuel. Miz Kwolek needed a new way to make stiff, resistant fibers for the job.

BOB DOUGHTY:

Her experiments for the project were supposed to produce a clear substance similar to a thick syrup. Instead, what Stephanie Kwolek produced was unexpected. It was a liquid that looked cloudy or milky. She said she might have thrown it out. But she decided to let it sit for awhile.

Recently, she told VOA that she was warned the liquid could never complete a required process. The process calls for the chemical to be pushed through the small holes of a spinneret. She remembers that the man operating the device at first refused to accept her material. He probably suspected it had solid particles that would block the holes. However, after awhile he said he would try it. She says she thinks he was tired of being asked, or might have felt sorry for her.

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: