The information on this page has been reproduced from the book New Jersey: Life, Industries and Resources of a Great State published in 1928 by the New Jersey State Chamber of Commerce. It is included on this site because of its historical interest to those who grew up in Kearny, New Jersey

Six plants are maintained in New Jersey. One at Arlington employs over 1,000 people and specializes in pyralin plastic products; one at Carney's Point has 1,000 workers engaged in the manufacture of gunpowder; the Parlin plant, employing nearly 1,000, is in the pyroxylin business; the Repauno dynamite plant has 800 workers, while the Pompton Lakes powder cap works and the Newark paint and color works each employs about 500.

The Repauno plant, which is the largest dynamite factory in the world, produced in 192.6 in a single month 7,000,000 pounds of dynamite, as much as was used by the whole world in the year that this plant was founded. A research problem successfully solved in 1925 was to perfect a dynamite that would not freeze at any climatic temperature. The Parlin and Arlington plants making pyroxylin utilize much of the same raw materials, plant equipment, manufacturing processes, and technical knowledge as are required in the production of smokeless powder. Pyroxylin is used in making Fabrikoid or imitation leather, as a protective film for metal objects and gas mantles, as a waterproof cement for leather belting, as a carrier for bronze powder, and in a solution of low viscosity as the automobile finish known as Duco.

From pyroxylin plaster (a mixture of camphor, alcohol, and nitrocellulose), are created imitations of amber, glass, stone, wood, rubber, horn, shells, pearl, ivory, and semiprecious stones.