Word: nylon
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...their present stocks will last about two months. After that, most women will have to wear cotton stockings or go barelegged. The Department of Agriculture announced that it has developed more than 150 new designs for cotton hose, including a cotton-web mesh for evening wear. The supply of nylon (which many women would rather wear than silk) is limited, will amount to only 40% of the market for full-fashioned hose when Du Pont's present plant expansion is completed next year...
More than 90% of the silk the U.S. imported was used in hosiery alone. Skeptical of substitutes, correctly assuming that there would not be enough nylon stockings to go around, women stormed stores. In Manhattan, department-store owners had to station guards in doorways and aisles. One executive, reporting on the mob at the gates, declared: "When you opened the doors at 9:30 they fell flat on their faces...
...income. Mill managers planned 1) to stretch silk operations with substitutes in welt and feet, and with a three-day week, 2) to pray for early arrival of fine rayon, and that women will buy rayon hose, 3) to urge Du Pont to relax its rule that nylon hose can contain no rayon or cotton. Half North Carolina's mills can knit nylon, but as yet only...
...Philadelphia, whose hosiery mills gross $25,000,000 a year, the American Federation of Hosiery Workers stopped wage negotiations with manufacturers, turned its attention instead to asking Washington to speed up production of nylon (now supplying 18% of U.S. hosiery needs), mercerized cotton, rayon, other silk substitutes...
...defense, silk is important in parachutes (which take 10 lb. each) and powder bags used to fire big guns. For parachutes, the U.S. could substitute synthetics such as nylon, but only silk (because it burns completely and leaves no residue) can be used for powder bags. Present U.S. stocks of silk are about 53,000 bales in warehouses. 35,000 bales held by mills, enough to satisfy civilian needs for nearly four months or defense needs (according to one Washington estimate) for about three years. To conserve this supply 0PM at week's end took control of all silk...