Sylvia Stoesser

The flow of oil wells had been stimulated by the addition of acids as early as 1865, but acids tended to damage well casings and other equipment.

Her advisor was James Newton Pearce (1873–1936).

Sylvia Marie Stoesser (née Goergen, July 18, 1901 – March 17, 1991), was an American chemist.

She was the first woman to be employed as a chemist at Dow Chemical Company.

During her time at Dow, she made a number of major contributions, holding more than two dozen patents as a result of her research.

Stoesser developed a dry cleaning fluid that used perchloroethylene and was safer than the naphtha-based solvents then in use.

She was the first to explore the use of organic acid inhibitors to stimulate production in oil wells.

Organic inhibitors were much more effective than inorganics, and became the basis for a profitable subsidiary, Dowell Incorporated.

Stoesser improved the quality of ethylene, ethylbenzene, and styrene to create stable polymers including polystyrene and Styrofoam.

Her work on styrene led to major improvements in early plastics production and to the creation of synthetic substitutes for rubber during World War II.

Sylvia Marie Goergen was born on July 18, 1901,

to Teresa M. and George J. Goergen of Buffalo, New York.

She attended the University of Buffalo, where she received her B.S. magna cum laude in chemistry in 1923.

She then attended the State University of Iowa, completing her master's thesis, The potential of the silver in silver iodide electrode in 1925 and earning her Ph.D. in physical chemistry with the thesis The adsorption and catalytic properties of stannous acid in 1928.

In July 1928, Wesley Stoesser was hired to work in the Organic Lab at the Dow Chemical Company.

On August 16, 1929, in Rock Creek, Maryland, she married Wesley Carl Stoesser (July 6, 1901 – March 22, 1989), a fellow chemist who had also graduated from the University of Buffalo and the University of Iowa.

Prior to her marriage, she was hired to study sugar at the National Bureau of Standards.

She and Richard F. Jackson were given the task of finding a sweetener suitable for people with diabetes.

They were the first to prepare Difructose anhydride I.

In 1929, Stoesser was hired as well.

She was the first woman to become a scientist at Dow, and was hired directly by Herbert Henry Dow, rather than going through the usual interview and hiring process.

According to one account, Wesley confided to Grace A. Dow that Sylvia would only marry and move if she had a job in her field, and Grace interceded with her husband Henry.

According to the Stoessers' daughter, Judith Jaastad (later Siembieda ), only the two couples knew that the new hire was a woman before she walked into the Physical Research Laboratory to start work.

Stories also suggest that she was assigned to Dow's Physical Research Laboratory because at that time, it was near a library, the only building with washroom facilities for women.

At the time of her hiring in 1929, she was the only person with a Ph.D. in Dow's Physical Research Laboratory.

Contemporaries emphasize that she was willing to help anyone who asked, making her expertise available both within and across departments.

"She was the first female chemist in Dow Research anywhere, and certainly the first Ph.D. In our lab, she was The Scientist of the group. Everybody went to her to try out their ideas and get help. – Ray Boundy"

She was referred to as the "nasal chemist" because she could identify many of the ingredients in an unknown laboratory mixture by smelling it.

Approached in 1932, John Grebe of Dow insisted that any acid used to improve oil well production must include an inhibitor to mitigate corrosion.

One of several scientists tasked with developing effective inhibitors, Stoesser is credited as the "key inventor" of second-state inhibitors, achieving "the second great milestone in the history of acidizing" due to her work in 1932–1933.

Her work was "particularly important" because she shifted focus from inorganic to organic compounds, seeking something that would produce a protective film on metallic surfaces.

After her daughter's birth in 1940, Stoesser was no longer employed on the Dow staff as a research chemist.

However, she continued to consult for Dow.

While working for Dow, Stoesser registered at least twenty-six patents.

She helped to develop products including dry cleaning solvents, saran, polystyrene, Styrofoam, high-pressure lubricants, and organic inhibitors for use in oil wells.

One patent was held solely in her name.

The rest list fifteen different co-owners, reflecting her extensive involvement in projects at Dow.

One patent includes her husband as a co-owner.

Five of Stoesser's patents involved the use of acid inhibitors to increase crude oil production in oil wells, a type of well stimulation.

In 1952, she co-edited the first comprehensive work on Styrene, Its Polymers, Copolymers, and Derivatives.