Sheer Genius

Nylon stockings have always had a special appeal: to women for their silky sheerness; to men for their sensuous sheen. Imagine a world without them, where even the loveliest leg got lost among the laddered lisle. That's how life was before a manic-depressive chemist from the American mid-west invented nylon. For ten years Wallace Carothers struggled to crack the chemistry of synthetics, and to get a grip on his hang-ups about women. In the lab, he eventually achieved success; outside it, his life was a failure. Or so he thought; little did he know he was to become the man who touched a million legs.