Mauveine - History

History

In 1856, William Henry Perkin, age 18, given a challenge by his professor, August Wilhelm von Hofmann, sought to synthesize quinine, the anti-malaria drug. In one attempt, Perkin oxidized aniline using potassium dichromate, whose toluidine impurities reacted with the aniline and yielded a black solid—suggesting a "failed" organic synthesis. Cleaning the flask with alcohol, Perkin noticed purple portions of the solution.

Suitable as a dye of silk and other textiles, it was patented by Perkin, who the next year opened a dyeworks mass producing it at Greenford on the banks of the Grand Union Canal in London. It was originally called aniline purple or Tyrian purple, the name of an ancient natural dye derived from mollusks. By 1859, it attained the name mauve in England via the French name for the mallow flower, and chemists later called it mauveine. Mauve came into great vogue when in 1862 Queen Victoria appeared at the Royal Exhibition in a mauve silk gown—dyed with mauveine. By 1870, its great demand succumbed to newer synthetic colors in the synthetic dye industry launched by mauveine.

In the early 20th century, the U.S. National Association of Confectioners permitted mauveine as a food coloring with a variety of equivalent names: rosolan, violet paste, chrome violet, anilin violet, anilin purple, Perkin's violet, indisin, phenamin, purpurin, tyralin, Tyrian purple, and lydin. Mid-20th century, it was used widely in the spirit duplicator printing machines, popular via the trade name Ditto.

Laborers in the aniline dye industry were later found at increased risk of bladder cancer, specifically transitional cell carcinoma, yet by the 1950s, the synthetic dye industry helped transform medicine, including cancer treatment. (See "Aniline", section "History".)