In the laboratory of the chemical company E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company (DuPont) since 1930. serious work has been done to nylon. 
In February 1935, a team of chemists led by Wallace Hume Caroses was finally able to obtain polymers from which, in molten form, the threads stretched. On the basis of this material worked out way to get nylon.
DuPont filed a patent for the invention in 1938, and already in 1939 in Delaware built the first nylon plant. His actively began to be used in commerce: fishing line, toothbrushes, threads for surgical operations and stockings. 
Then, in 1939, at the New York World's Fair, President company Charles Stein, introducing nylon products, said that stockings made of a material thinner than cobwebs and stronger than steel. Ladies, deciding first, that we are talking about stockings that do not tear, broke out applause. Three female volunteers were selected to test the stockings: they received a package and wore them for three weeks. The public expressed fears that girls would have to wash their stockings by hand every day, and in In the future, this is exactly what became part of the advertising campaign - nylon stockings can be washed every day! 
After the start of Japanese military operations against China in 1937 year, and most importantly, the sinking of an American gunboat by Japanese aircraft and three oil tankers on the Yangtze River, the United States deployed a huge campaign that called for a boycott of Japanese goods. official embargo did not happen, but with the help of the American government in 1937-1938 years, separate agreements were concluded between entrepreneurs of both countries to limit Japanese imports of certain types of goods. In including Japanese stockings. 
In 1939, America officially ended the trade agreement with Japan. In 1940-1941, a number of acts were adopted, which made trade impossible. between countries. The import of Japanese products to the American market has stopped. silk fibre.
US leaders assumed that such a decision would be painful for the Japanese, but the Americans will somehow trample on without another extra silk dress. But they did not take into account that not only blouses and dresses, but an item that is literally needed every day - stockings.
So, in response to the shortage, DuPont was thrown into the market nylon stockings. The novelty cost cosmic money at that time - from $1.15 to $1.35 per pair and only residents could buy them Wilmington, where the company's headquarters were located. 
On the first day from the start of sales in New York, 78,000 pairs were sold stocking, and this despite the fact that the sellers released no more than two pairs in one arms. In the first year, DuPont sold 64 million pairs of stockings, or how they became call - "nylons". The price dropped to 92 cents.
In 1942, DuPont announced that nylon would be used in military purposes - for parachutes, mosquito nets, body armor. Women were allocated only six pairs of stockings a year. By the way, at that time there were the so-called "liquid stockings" were invented - a means for toning the legs by Max Factor. 
Posters were distributed throughout American cities, where beauties called: "I need your stockings!" All over the country announced the collection of old stockings, from which powder bags, parachute slings were later made and not only. DuPont Proudly Proclaimed Nylon material "which won the war."
And as soon as the large-scale production of stockings was restored, then according to some reports, along with a Hershey chocolate bar, a pack cigarettes and chewing gum stockings were included in the rations of army soldiers USA.
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