MONSANTO COMPANY

formerly Monsanto Chemical Company (193364), or Monsanto Chemical Works (190133) major American chemical producer. Its products include herbicides, plastics, pharmaceuticals, and synthetic fibres. Corporate headquarters are in St. Louis, Mo., U.S. The company was founded in 1901 by John F. Queeny (18591933), a purchasing agent for a wholesale drug company, to manufacture the synthetic sweetener saccharin, then produced only in Germany. Queeny invested $1,500 of his own money and borrowed another $3,500 from a local Epsom salts manufacturer to start up the plant that he named Monsanto after his wife's maiden name. The firm was up to full-scale saccharin production in 1902, added caffeine and vanillin to its product line over the next few years, and in 1905 began turning a profit. Sales reached $1,000,000 in 1915. With the rest of the American chemical industry, Monsanto expanded during World War I and flourished under the protection of the high U.S. tariffs of the 1920s. It incorporated in 1933 as Monsanto Chemical Company. During World War II, its production of styrene was vital to the synthetic rubber effort. Meanwhile, in 1928, Queeny relinquished control of the company to his only son, Edgar M. Queeny (18971968), who supervised its expansion into an industrial giant before retiring in 1960. In 1985 Monsanto bought the giant pharmaceutical firm G.D. Searle & Company, makers of the sweetener NutraSweet. The company's current product line derives mainly from petroleum, natural gas, and phosphate ore and includes agricultural products (herbicides, insecticides, feed supplements), industrial chemicals, plastics and resins, pharmaceuticals, and fibres and textile intermediates, as well as Fisher valves, regulators, and controls. To reflect its diversification, the company dropped the word chemical from its corporate name in 1964.