Drackett
Encyclopedia
The Drackett Company was a leading company in the specialty chemicals business during the 20th century, responsible for such products as Windex
glass cleaner, Vanish
toilet bowl cleaner, Drāno
drain opener, Behold
furniture polish, Endust
dusting aid, Renuzit
air freshener, Mr. Muscle
oven cleaner, and Miracle White laundry products. They also produced the O-Cedar
line of brooms, mops, sponges and scrubbers.
upon his marriage
. He was fascinated by chemicals, though and eventually sold the drugstore, becoming a sales representative for drug supply houses, first in Nashville
, then in Cincinnati. At the age of 54, his sons grown, he and wife Sallie opened his own brokerage, providing chemicals such items as soda ash, caustic soda, chlorinated lime, and denatured alcohol to janitor-supply companies, laundries, and other industrial users throughout the midwest, south and west.
He did well; five years later, his sons Harry and Philip Jr. were working for the firm, and instead of selling bulk chemicals, they were packaging them. During the 1920s, P. W. Drackett and Sons was the nation's largest manufacturer of medicinal quality epsom salts
.
turns grease into soap
, a process known as saponification
, but in hard water, soap curdles, adding to the problem. One approach was to use concentrated nitric acid
, or sulfuric acid
. These attack both hair and soap curd, and generate heat as well, but they also attack metal pipes. Drackett used a mixture of dry lye crystals and aluminum pellets, producing much heat. When he used machined shards of aluminum instead of smooth aluminum beads, the sharp aluminum in churning mix physically would cut through most ordinary clogs, yet the aluminum was soft enough to not cut into metal pipes.
About 50 Drackett salesmen carried glass plumbing around so they could do dramatic demonstrations of Drāno's action in department stores and in home shows.
Drāno also contains salt which has been dyed. It does little to open drains, but is added for psychological appeal.
shortly thereafter would be a natural, except that in 1933, the USA was in a depression
. The original Windex product was costly to produce, as the 100% solvent formula required packaging in steel cans for safety.
As laundry soap was replaced with laundry detergent in the post-WWII years, the Windex's formula changed as well. The new Windex was mostly water, with small amounts of sodium dodecyl sulfate
(an ionic surfactant
) and solvent. The product was colored blue for consumer appeal, and packaged in glass bottles with an attached sprayer. Although this formula was cheaper to produce, the large amount of water requires users to polish the glass for a longer time as they dry the window, yelding better results.
The greatest difficulty in reformulating Windex was finding a proper dye. Many dyes were tried, but they would either fade in a few weeks, or else they would stain the window frames. After spending thousands of manhours developing the proper dye, the patent attorneys revealed exactly what dye was being used when they filed for a German patent - and Windex's competitors all had the trademark blue appearance within months.
Drackett emphasized packaging, and bought major positions in companies that made sprayers, aerosol valves, and a contract packer of aerosol products.
announced that soybeans were the new miracle crop. The seeds produced a healthful edible oil, a meal extremely high in protein
, a residue high in fiber
, were low in water, and they stored well. Soy made nationwide headlines at the Century of Progress
Chicago
World's Fair
in 1934, and by 1935, 60 pounds of soybeans went into the paint and molded plastic parts of every Ford car.http://www.thesoydailyclub.com/SFC/henryford74.asp
Other companies were quick to hop on the soy bandwagon, either to sell to Ford or to follow his lead with this exciting new technology. Archer-Daniels-Midland built facilities in 1933 and MacMillan changed his plans, founding Central Soya in 1934, instead of the Central Sugar company based on sugar beets he had planned only a year earlier.
Drackett raised soybeans on his farms, invested heavily in soybean crushing mills, and produced a variety of products ranging from dog treats to sponges made from a soybean plastic.
By 1940, Robert Allen Boyer
, head of Ford's industrial soy applications research, had developed a synthetic wool made from soybeans, and as Ford was importing 125,000 short tons of wool
annually from Australia
and Argentina
, and World War II
threatened that supply, Ford pressed forward with promotion of the fiber. Soon, the sidewall upholstery in Ford autos was a 25% soy wool 75% sheep's wool blend - but when Ford was unable to convince the armed forces to use soy wool for uniforms, he sold his fabrication process and machinery to Drackett in November, 1943. Boyer was part of the deal; he became director of research at Drackett.
Drackett couldn't make soy wool commercially feasible, either. In 1947, Boyer wrote an article for the Soybean Digest titled "A Modern Shirt from Ancient Soybean," summarizing this work.
Boyer wanted to develop food products made from soybeans. Drackett was
only interested in industrial products. In 1949, Drackett sold their soybean operations, and Boyer left the company.
and Clairol
, and Drackett's business of narrow margins on inexpensive products was not a good fit.
After years of trying to find someone who could buy the entire company, the company was sold to S. C. Johnson & Son
in 1992. As expected, the Federal Trade Commission
had anti-trust concerns and
ordered Johnson not only to divest itself of the Behold
and Endust
furniture care products and the Renuzit
air freshener products within 12 months, but to seek prior approval for a decade before acquiring another furniture care or air freshener company. They placed the furniture brands with Sara Lee and the air freshener with Dial, and were released early from the prior approval requirement. Johnson has since jettisoned some other lines, such as Twinkle metal polish and O'Cedar handle goods.
Drackett's Professional Products Division, established in 1968 to market to commercial and institutional users, was retained as a separate operating unit in Cincinnati. In 2002, Johnson bought DiverseyLever. Their professional brands division and Drackett's were folded together to form JohnsonDiversey Consumer Branded Professional Products.
Windex
Windex is a trademark for a glass and hard-surface cleaner manufactured since 1933. S. C. Johnson acquired Windex in 1993 and has been manufacturing it since that time. The product was recently reformulated with more environmentally desirable solvents....
glass cleaner, Vanish
Vanish (brand)
Vanish may refer to either of two different, unrelated brands, one by S.C. Johnson and one by Reckitt Benckiser.US Product=In the USA, Vanish is a brand of toilet bowl cleaner manufactured by S.C. Johnson....
toilet bowl cleaner, Drāno
Drano
Drano is a drain cleaner product manufactured by S. C. Johnson & Son.- Crystal Drano :According to the National Institutes of Health's Household Products Database, the crystal form is composed of sodium hydroxide , sodium nitrate, sodium chloride , and aluminum.The power crystals are simply colored...
drain opener, Behold
Behold
Behold is a brand of Furniture Polish produced by the Sara Lee Corporation. Behold furniture polish and Endust dusting aid were previously produced by Drackett. When Drackett was sold to S. C. Johnson & Son in 1992, these two products, Endust and Behold, were sold to Sara Lee. in 2010 the product...
furniture polish, Endust
Endust
Endust is a dusting aid produced by Sara Lee Corporation. A dusting aid is sprayed on a dustcloth or dustmop, rather than directly on the furniture....
dusting aid, Renuzit
Renuzit
Renuzit is a brand of air fresheners produced by the Dial Corporation. The Renuzit brand once included a solvent-based spot remover and cleaner as well.-How air fresheners work:Air fresheners are basically perfume dispensers...
air freshener, Mr. Muscle
Mr. Muscle
Mr. Muscle is a brand of hard surface cleaners. It has been manufactured by S. C. Johnson & Son, since their purchase of Drackett from Bristol-Myers in 1992. The original product was developed at Drackett in 1986....
oven cleaner, and Miracle White laundry products. They also produced the O-Cedar
O-Cedar
O-Cedar is a brand of mops, brooms, and household accessories. The brand was originated by Martin Marietta; Drackett bought O-Cedar in the early 1960s. In 1992, after Bristol-Myers Squibb sold Drackett to S. C. Johnson & Son, the O-Cedar name was acquired by Vining Industries, forming...
line of brooms, mops, sponges and scrubbers.
Company Beginnings
Philip Drackett, born to a Cleveland shipbuilding family in 1856, decided to cut his own swath, apprenticing to a pharmacist while in school, and opening his own Cleveland drugstorePharmacy
Pharmacy is the health profession that links the health sciences with the chemical sciences and it is charged with ensuring the safe and effective use of pharmaceutical drugs...
upon his marriage
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...
. He was fascinated by chemicals, though and eventually sold the drugstore, becoming a sales representative for drug supply houses, first in Nashville
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
, then in Cincinnati. At the age of 54, his sons grown, he and wife Sallie opened his own brokerage, providing chemicals such items as soda ash, caustic soda, chlorinated lime, and denatured alcohol to janitor-supply companies, laundries, and other industrial users throughout the midwest, south and west.
He did well; five years later, his sons Harry and Philip Jr. were working for the firm, and instead of selling bulk chemicals, they were packaging them. During the 1920s, P. W. Drackett and Sons was the nation's largest manufacturer of medicinal quality epsom salts
Magnesium sulfate
Magnesium sulfate is a chemical compound containing magnesium, sulfur and oxygen, with the formula MgSO4. It is often encountered as the heptahydrate epsomite , commonly called Epsom salt, from the town of Epsom in Surrey, England, where the salt was distilled from the springs that arise where the...
.
Once every week, Drāno in every drain
With an increasing number of homes incorporating indoor plumbing, Drackett saw a need for a good chemical drain opener. Clogs are largely caused by grease and hair going down the drain. LyeLye
Lye is a corrosive alkaline substance, commonly sodium hydroxide or historically potassium hydroxide . Previously, lye was among the many different alkalis leached from hardwood ashes...
turns grease into soap
Soap
In chemistry, soap is a salt of a fatty acid.IUPAC. "" Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 2nd ed. . Compiled by A. D. McNaught and A. Wilkinson. Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford . XML on-line corrected version: created by M. Nic, J. Jirat, B. Kosata; updates compiled by A. Jenkins. ISBN...
, a process known as saponification
Saponification
Saponification is a process that produces soap, usually from fats and lye. In technical terms, saponification involves base hydrolysis of triglycerides, which are esters of fatty acids, to form the sodium salt of a carboxylate. In addition to soap, such traditional saponification processes...
, but in hard water, soap curdles, adding to the problem. One approach was to use concentrated nitric acid
Nitric acid
Nitric acid , also known as aqua fortis and spirit of nitre, is a highly corrosive and toxic strong acid.Colorless when pure, older samples tend to acquire a yellow cast due to the accumulation of oxides of nitrogen. If the solution contains more than 86% nitric acid, it is referred to as fuming...
, or sulfuric acid
Sulfuric acid
Sulfuric acid is a strong mineral acid with the molecular formula . Its historical name is oil of vitriol. Pure sulfuric acid is a highly corrosive, colorless, viscous liquid. The salts of sulfuric acid are called sulfates...
. These attack both hair and soap curd, and generate heat as well, but they also attack metal pipes. Drackett used a mixture of dry lye crystals and aluminum pellets, producing much heat. When he used machined shards of aluminum instead of smooth aluminum beads, the sharp aluminum in churning mix physically would cut through most ordinary clogs, yet the aluminum was soft enough to not cut into metal pipes.
About 50 Drackett salesmen carried glass plumbing around so they could do dramatic demonstrations of Drāno's action in department stores and in home shows.
Drāno also contains salt which has been dyed. It does little to open drains, but is added for psychological appeal.
History of Drāno
Mrs. Drackett, who for years effectively served as the company's front office, is credited with naming the company's first major consumer-product breakthrough in 1923. An English purist, she insisted on using a macron - a small dash - above the a to ensure the correct pronunciation of Drāno and leave no doubt as to its intended purpose.Windex introduced
With increased numbers of cars, and greater use of glass in buildings, the introduction of WindexWindex
Windex is a trademark for a glass and hard-surface cleaner manufactured since 1933. S. C. Johnson acquired Windex in 1993 and has been manufacturing it since that time. The product was recently reformulated with more environmentally desirable solvents....
shortly thereafter would be a natural, except that in 1933, the USA was in a depression
Depression (economics)
In economics, a depression is a sustained, long-term downturn in economic activity in one or more economies. It is a more severe downturn than a recession, which is seen by some economists as part of the modern business cycle....
. The original Windex product was costly to produce, as the 100% solvent formula required packaging in steel cans for safety.
As laundry soap was replaced with laundry detergent in the post-WWII years, the Windex's formula changed as well. The new Windex was mostly water, with small amounts of sodium dodecyl sulfate
Sodium dodecyl sulfate
Sodium dodecyl sulfate , sodium laurilsulfate or sodium lauryl sulfate is an organic compound with the formula CH311OSO3Na). It is an anionic surfactant used in many cleaning and hygiene products...
(an ionic surfactant
Surfactant
Surfactants are compounds that lower the surface tension of a liquid, the interfacial tension between two liquids, or that between a liquid and a solid...
) and solvent. The product was colored blue for consumer appeal, and packaged in glass bottles with an attached sprayer. Although this formula was cheaper to produce, the large amount of water requires users to polish the glass for a longer time as they dry the window, yelding better results.
The greatest difficulty in reformulating Windex was finding a proper dye. Many dyes were tried, but they would either fade in a few weeks, or else they would stain the window frames. After spending thousands of manhours developing the proper dye, the patent attorneys revealed exactly what dye was being used when they filed for a German patent - and Windex's competitors all had the trademark blue appearance within months.
Drackett emphasized packaging, and bought major positions in companies that made sprayers, aerosol valves, and a contract packer of aerosol products.
Soybeans
In 1931, Henry FordHenry Ford
Henry Ford was an American industrialist, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, and sponsor of the development of the assembly line technique of mass production. His introduction of the Model T automobile revolutionized transportation and American industry...
announced that soybeans were the new miracle crop. The seeds produced a healthful edible oil, a meal extremely high in protein
Protein
Proteins are biochemical compounds consisting of one or more polypeptides typically folded into a globular or fibrous form, facilitating a biological function. A polypeptide is a single linear polymer chain of amino acids bonded together by peptide bonds between the carboxyl and amino groups of...
, a residue high in fiber
Fiber
Fiber is a class of materials that are continuous filaments or are in discrete elongated pieces, similar to lengths of thread.They are very important in the biology of both plants and animals, for holding tissues together....
, were low in water, and they stored well. Soy made nationwide headlines at the Century of Progress
Century of Progress
A Century of Progress International Exposition was the name of a World's Fair held in Chicago from 1933 to 1934 to celebrate the city's centennial. The theme of the fair was technological innovation...
Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
World's Fair
World's Fair
World's fair, World fair, Universal Exposition, and World Expo are various large public exhibitions held in different parts of the world. The first Expo was held in The Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London, United Kingdom, in 1851, under the title "Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All...
in 1934, and by 1935, 60 pounds of soybeans went into the paint and molded plastic parts of every Ford car.http://www.thesoydailyclub.com/SFC/henryford74.asp
Other companies were quick to hop on the soy bandwagon, either to sell to Ford or to follow his lead with this exciting new technology. Archer-Daniels-Midland built facilities in 1933 and MacMillan changed his plans, founding Central Soya in 1934, instead of the Central Sugar company based on sugar beets he had planned only a year earlier.
Drackett raised soybeans on his farms, invested heavily in soybean crushing mills, and produced a variety of products ranging from dog treats to sponges made from a soybean plastic.
By 1940, Robert Allen Boyer
Robert Boyer (chemist)
Robert Allen Boyer was a chemist employed by Henry Ford, he was extremely proficient at inventing ways to convert soybeans into paints and plastic parts used on Ford automobiles. -References:...
, head of Ford's industrial soy applications research, had developed a synthetic wool made from soybeans, and as Ford was importing 125,000 short tons of wool
Wool
Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and certain other animals, including cashmere from goats, mohair from goats, qiviut from muskoxen, vicuña, alpaca, camel from animals in the camel family, and angora from rabbits....
annually from Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
and Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
, and World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
threatened that supply, Ford pressed forward with promotion of the fiber. Soon, the sidewall upholstery in Ford autos was a 25% soy wool 75% sheep's wool blend - but when Ford was unable to convince the armed forces to use soy wool for uniforms, he sold his fabrication process and machinery to Drackett in November, 1943. Boyer was part of the deal; he became director of research at Drackett.
Drackett couldn't make soy wool commercially feasible, either. In 1947, Boyer wrote an article for the Soybean Digest titled "A Modern Shirt from Ancient Soybean," summarizing this work.
Boyer wanted to develop food products made from soybeans. Drackett was
only interested in industrial products. In 1949, Drackett sold their soybean operations, and Boyer left the company.
Bristol-Myers
In 1965, the Drackett family sold the business to Bristol-Myers. Bristol-Myers at that time included a variety of high-margin businesses such as PlaytexPlaytex
Playtex and PlayTex are a brand and trademark. It used to be associated with bras and women's undergarments. Currently there are two separate companies with the Playtex name....
and Clairol
Clairol
Clairol is a personal care products division of Procter & Gamble. The Clairol company was started in 1931 by Lawrence M. Gelb and wife, Joan, who named their enterprise after a hair-coloring preparation they found while traveling in France....
, and Drackett's business of narrow margins on inexpensive products was not a good fit.
After years of trying to find someone who could buy the entire company, the company was sold to S. C. Johnson & Son
S. C. Johnson & Son
S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc. , previously known as S. C. Johnson Wax , is a privately held, global manufacturer of household cleaning supplies and other consumer chemicals based in Racine, Wisconsin. It has operations in 72 countries and its brands are sold in over 110...
in 1992. As expected, the Federal Trade Commission
Federal Trade Commission
The Federal Trade Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, established in 1914 by the Federal Trade Commission Act...
had anti-trust concerns and
ordered Johnson not only to divest itself of the Behold
Behold
Behold is a brand of Furniture Polish produced by the Sara Lee Corporation. Behold furniture polish and Endust dusting aid were previously produced by Drackett. When Drackett was sold to S. C. Johnson & Son in 1992, these two products, Endust and Behold, were sold to Sara Lee. in 2010 the product...
and Endust
Endust
Endust is a dusting aid produced by Sara Lee Corporation. A dusting aid is sprayed on a dustcloth or dustmop, rather than directly on the furniture....
furniture care products and the Renuzit
Renuzit
Renuzit is a brand of air fresheners produced by the Dial Corporation. The Renuzit brand once included a solvent-based spot remover and cleaner as well.-How air fresheners work:Air fresheners are basically perfume dispensers...
air freshener products within 12 months, but to seek prior approval for a decade before acquiring another furniture care or air freshener company. They placed the furniture brands with Sara Lee and the air freshener with Dial, and were released early from the prior approval requirement. Johnson has since jettisoned some other lines, such as Twinkle metal polish and O'Cedar handle goods.
Drackett's Professional Products Division, established in 1968 to market to commercial and institutional users, was retained as a separate operating unit in Cincinnati. In 2002, Johnson bought DiverseyLever. Their professional brands division and Drackett's were folded together to form JohnsonDiversey Consumer Branded Professional Products.
Interesting facts
At Ohio State University, one of their dorm buildings is named in honor of Harry R. Drackett, since he attended the Ohio State University and served as president of the University Development Fund.Source
- "Philip W. Drackett: Earned profits, plaudits" By Barry M. Horstman, Cincinnati Post, May 21, 1999.