Colouring markets: The industrial transformation of the dyestuff business revisited

Abstract

Using British and German price and trade data, the development of European dye markets in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is analysed. Traditionally, the markets were divided into a commercially important segment of premium dyes and a low-cost segment for mass consumption. The rise of industrially produced dyes came later and was more long-drawn-out than commonly assumed. Initially premium dyes did not enter the mass market before the 1880s, and even then no cost advantage over main natural dyes was achieved. Instead, newly created path dependencies and superior business organisation seem to have been the key to their success.