page_title: Chemtura
section_title: Founding and early years
hierarchical_section_title: Chemtura / History / Founding and early years
caption_attribution_description: English: Crompton Loom Works, National Register of Historic Places, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA. Caption: "Crompton Loom Works, Green Street, Worcester, Mass. George Crompton, proprietor." This is an image of a place or building that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places in the United States of America. Its reference number is 80000541
context_page_description: Chemtura Corporation was a global corporation headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with its other principal executive office in Middlebury, Connecticut. Merged into Lanxess in 2017, the company focused on specialty chemicals for various industrial sectors, and these were transportation, energy, and electronics. Chemtura operated manufacturing plants in 11 countries. Its primary markets were industrial manufacturing customers. The corporation employed approximately 2500 people for research, manufacturing, logistics, sales and administration. Operations were located in North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia. In addition, the company had significant joint ventures primarily in the United States. For the year ended December 31, 2015, the company's global core segment revenue was $1.61 billion. Chief executive officer was Craig A. Rogerson, who was also the president and chairman of the board of Chemtura Corporation. On April 21, 2017, Chemtura was acquired by the German chemical company Lanxess.
context_section_description: Chemtura Corporation was the successor to Crompton & Knowles Corporation, which was incorporated in Massachusetts in 1900 and engaged in the manufacture and sale of specialty chemicals beginning in 1954. Crompton & Knowles traces its roots to Crompton Loom Works incorporated in the 1840s.
  In the late 1800s,  Worcester, Massachusetts was a leading manufacturing center that attracted inventors and manufacturers. Both William Crompton and Lucius J. Knowles made the city their home and opened their respective loom companies there. Both were the top loom manufacturers in the world. However each company based the method of weaving on a different premise. The companies later merged (in 1879), becoming one entity known as "Crompton & Knowles Loom Works". Still supplying the world market, the new company now applied both theories of weaving.
  Meanwhile, in 1843 Charles Goodyear formed the Goodyear Metallic Rubber Shoe Company, Connecticut. A year later he patented the vulcanization of rubber. Goodyear's company then became one of nine companies that formed the founding of the United States Rubber Company in 1892 by Charles R. Flint also in Naugatuck, Connecticut. The rubber company manufactured a large array of products through two world wars, the Cold War, and became the Uniroyal company (Uniroyal Incorporated) in 1961.
  In 1986, Uniroyal Chemical Company was formed as a subsidiary of Avery Inc.  Then, in 1989, Uniroyal Chemical Company Investors Holding bought Uniroyal Chemical Company from Avery and became Uniroyal Chemical Corporation.  In 1996, Uniroyal Chemical Corporation went public and merged with Crompton & Knowles.  In 1999, Crompton & Knowles merged with Witco to form Crompton Corporation. In 2005, Crompton acquired Great Lakes Chemical Company, Inc., of West Lafayette, Indiana, to form Chemtura Corporation. Additionally, Great Lakes Chemical Corporation still existed as a subsidiary company of Chemtura. By January 2014 the company had manufactured and marketed a new brominated polymer flame retardant, replacing the traditional hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD) flame retardant.
caption: A 19th century print depicting the Crompton Loom Works
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