Artificial Silk Race: Dressed in Dynamite

In the late 19th century, natural silk was a luxury reserved exclusively for the ultra-wealthy. When a French chemist named Hilaire de Chardonnet invented the very first "e;artificial silk,"e; he democratized high fashion. There was only one slight problem: his beautiful, shimmering new fabric was made from nitrocellulose-the exact same chemical compound used to manufacture military explosives. ...