Allied Corp.

Allied Corp. was a major American company with operations in the chemical, aerospace, automotive, oil and gas industries. It was initially formed in 1920 as the Allied Chemical and Dye Corporation as an amalgamation of five chemical companies. In 1958 it was renamed Allied Chemical Corporation when it diversified into oil and gas exploration. Allied Chemical then became Allied Corporation in 1981 upon the purchase of Bendix Corporation, an aerospace and automotive company. In 1985 Allied merged with the Signal Companies to become AlliedSignal. AlliedSignal would eventually acquire Honeywell in 1999 and then adopt its name.

History

During World War I, Imperial Germany controlled much of the world's chemical production. This resulted in critical shortages of certain dyes, drugs and especially ammonia, a vital compound used to make fertilizers and explosives.

Allied Chemical and Dye Corporation

In 1920, publisher Eugene Meyer and noted chemist William Ripley Nichols founded Allied Chemical and Dye Corporation in order to address this shortcoming in American industrial production. Allied was an amalgamation of five existing companies (with capitalization of $175,000,000), including the Standard Aniline Products Corporation and National Aniline and Chemical Works. All manufacturing was consolidated in Buffalo, and much attention was given to improving the processes hastily introduced during World War I. Allied's first venture into new markets was the construction of a synthetic ammonia plant near Hopewell, Virginia in 1928. This would soon become the world's largest producer of ammonia.