Arnold E. Pitcher
DuPont Corporation
Inducted 1976
Arnold E. Pitcher (1884 – 1981) was a business leader in the formative years of the plastics industry. He helped the DuPont Corporation expand from a celluloid supplier in 1915 to become a major and diversified plastic materials producer and supplier until his retirement in 1949.
Pitcher joined the Arlington Company early as a plastics technical sales engineer. Arlington was a manufacturer of Pyroxylin™ in plastics. He served as Arlington’s district sales manager for the greater Chicago area from 1914 to 1920. DuPont acquired Arlington in 1915, and in 1920, Pitcher was appointed assistant director for sales in the Pyralin™ Division of DuPont’s Sales Department, then director of sales in 1922.
DuPont bought the Viscoloid Company in 1925, which became the DuPont Viscoloid Company, where Pitcher was made director of sheeting sales. He was appointed vice-president and then executive vice-president in 1929 and made president and a member of the Board of Directors in 1932. That same year, he was president of the Celastic Corporation, a subsidiary jointly owned by DuPont and the United Shoe Machinery Corp. When DuPont Viscoloid was dissolved in 1936, Pitcher was made general manager of DuPont’s Plastics Department.
Under Pitcher’s direction, DuPont developed and marketed new plastics, including Lucite™ acrylic resin, Butacite™ polyvinyl acetal resin, Teflon™ polytetrafluoroethylene, Zytel™ nylon, and polyethylene.
Pitcher was the first president of the Plastics Materials Manufacturers Association and was a member of the Plastics Pioneers Association, where he recorded his “Recollections of the Plastics Industry” in 1955.
Areas of Expertise:
Plastics management, Plastic materials