Imagine a day when chaos erupts, and a bullet meant to end a life is stopped in its tracks. That’s exactly what happened to Corporal Stephen Reinhardt, a police officer whose life was saved by an extraordinary discovery. This “miracle fiber,” known as Kevlar, has become an unseen guardian, protecting countless police officers and service members from harm. It’s a material that has literally stood between life and death more than 3,000 times, proving itself a silent hero in moments of crisis and offering hope in the face of danger.
Yet, the remarkable story of Kevlar began not in a moment of combat, but in a lab, with a tenacious chemist named Stephanie Kwolek. Against the odds and expectations of her time, Stephanie carved out a career in the male-dominated world of science at DuPont. Her journey to create a super-strong, lightweight fiber nearly ended before it began when her early experiments yielded a strange, murky liquid. Many would have tossed it, but Stephanie’s audacity and intuition led her to persist, ultimately uncovering the secret to a material that would revolutionize safety and become the Kevlar we know today. This is the inspiring story of an inventor who saw potential where others saw trash, and whose vision continues to save lives.
📖 Read the Episode Transcript
Speaker 1: And we returned to our American Stories. Up next, a story of how a miracle fiber had saved the lives of countless police officers and service members could have been thrown in the trash if not for the audacious woman who made it. Here to tell the story of Stephanie Kolek, the woman who invented Kevlar, is Kayla Ryder. Let’s get into the story.
00:00:45
Speaker 2: It was February 11th, 2013, typical day at Newcastle County Courthouse in Delaware. It was cold and raining, and Corporal Stephen Reinhardt of the Capitol Police was on duty, manning the courthouse metal detector. Then chaos erupted. A gunman opened fire, killing two women in cold blood. Reinhart immediately gave chase and was shot in the chest at close range by a handgun, but he didn’t know it. On that day, Reinhart became the latest of many police officers who have had their lives saved by a miracle fiber known as Kevlar. Kevlar, vess, and body armor have saved more than three thousand lives. But the most remarkable future of Kevlar. Maybe it’s history. Stephanie Qualick was born in nineteen twenty-three, a working-class family just outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her parents had emigrated from Poland, and her father, John, worked in one of the area’s many metal foundries. But it was actually John Qualick’s hobby that made a lifelong impression on Stephanie.
00:02:01
Speaker 3: I had a father who was very much interested in plants and trees. He and I spend a lot of time just roaming through the woods, looking for animals and snakes and leaves and wild plants. And I put all these things in a scrap. We grew vegetables and flowers and so forth, so it’s almost like living on a farm.
00:02:28
Speaker 2: She was hugged.
00:02:30
Speaker 3: I loved learning and loved learning new things. I found it very exciting. So this probably made me what I am today and what I was for many years.
00:02:47
Speaker 2: Stephanie’s father died when she was just ten years old, but her passion for science remained strong. She was an excellent student and earned a place in Carnegie Mellon University’s Women’s College and graduated in nineteen forty-six with a degree in chemistry and a warning from her professors. In the nineteen forties, most women did not earn college degrees, and even fewer pursued studies in the sciences, dominated by men. Qualack’s professors told her that these women were increasingly abandoning their aspirations for careers in the sciences and instead pursuing more traditional work. But Qualick was not deterred. She applied for work at several industrial companies, including chemical giant DuPont, and that’s where she caught the attention of pioneering DuPont scientist Doctor William Hale Charge. Charge was so impressed with Qualick that he hired her on the spot to work as a researcher at DuPont’s Buffalo, New York facility.
00:03:49
Speaker 3: When I entered the workforce in nineteen forty-six, not many women were being hired, but the fear that were. They were hired because there were so few men available. They were at war or just coming back war. So women were being made offers. But that didn’t mean, you know, that the problem was completely solved, because women had a very difficult time after they got jobs, and many women did not stay very long.
00:04:23
Speaker 2: While there may not have been many female researchers at DuPont at this time, Qualick was not intimidated.
00:04:30
Speaker 3: I was stubborn, and I decided that I was gonna stick it out and see what happened. And things improved eventually.
00:04:43
Speaker 2: Qualick had originally intended to work for DuPont for a few years and then head to medical school.
00:04:48
Speaker 3: The only problem was that I became so enamored of the work that I totally lost interest in medical school. I did, because the work course would I wanted to do. What I love about my work is that I have the opportunity to be creative every day. There’s something about me that wants the excitement of invention and creativity.
00:05:17
Speaker 2: Ironically, by staying at DuPont, Qualic probably saved more lives than she would have as a doctor. And by nineteen fifty, she was offered a research position at DuPont’s cutting-edge Pioneering Research Laboratory in Wilmington, Delaware. And it was during her time in Wilmington that Qualic made her greatest contribution to science and humanity. But believe it or not, the original formulation for Kevlar could have just as easily been thrown in the trash.
00:05:45
Speaker 3: It was nineteen sixty-five, and I was assigned to look for this super-strong, super-stiff, but lightweight fiber.
00:05:57
Speaker 2: Their goal was to discover a lightweight fiber that would be strong enough to replace his steel in radial tires.
00:06:03
Speaker 3: In the course of that work, I made a discovery. The results came back. It was very strong and very stiff, unlike anything we had made before. I hesitated about telling anyone because it was unusual and I didn’t want to be foolish.
00:06:22
Speaker 2: During one experiment, Qualix sought to convert a solid polymer into a liquid form, but she had a very strange result. She expected to get a clear mixture with the consistency of molasses, typical for this type of polymer work. Instead, she ended up with a murky, thin liquid. The solution looked like junk. Members of Quali’s team even suggested she throw it away and start over.
00:06:48
Speaker 3: The fellow who does the spinning looked at it and said, “The solution is too thin; it’s too watery. Furthermore, it has particles in it, and it’s going to plug up my equipment.”
00:07:02
Speaker 2: She didn’t listen.
00:07:04
Speaker 3: I sent it down a few more times, so I think eventually, after a few days, he had a gilly conscience or something, and he came, said he would spid that thing.
00:07:20
Speaker 2: What happened next was what Qualit called a case of serendipity. The molecules aligned in a crystal-like structure, and as Qualic and her team continued experimenting with the spinning process, they realized they were creating a very lightweight and very stiff fiber. In fact, by weight, it was stronger than steel.
00:07:40
Speaker 3: I knew that I had made a discovery. I didn’t shout “Eureka!” but I was very excited, as was the whole laboratory excited, and management was excited because we were looking for something new, something different, and this was it. That was the beginning of Kevlar.
00:08:04
Speaker 2: DuPont knew it had something big on its hands. The company patented the material that became known as Kevlar in nineteen sixty-six, and the whole Pioneering Lab was assigned to develop commercial uses for it. DuPont and its scientists still had many questions about Kevlar, and it would still be a few years before someone asked the most important question of all: Could Kevlar actually stop a bullet? It would take about a decade, but Qualic, DuPont, and the rest of the world would get that answer. On December twenty-third, nineteen seventy-five, Seattle police officer Raymond Johnson confronted an armed man holding up a convenience store. Johnson was shot four times, including once over the heart and once over the right lung. That could have been a death sentence for Johnson, but it wasn’t. Johnson walked away from the incident and lived another forty years. On that day in nineteen seventy-five, Johnson is believed I’ve been the first law enforcement officer in the United States to have his life saved by a Kevlar bulletproof vest. Kevlar was indeed effective in stopping bullets. For qualic, it was humbling.
00:09:21
Speaker 3: When I look back on my career, I’m inspired most by the fact that I was fortunate enough to do something that would be a benefit to mankind. It’s been an extremely satisfying discovery. I don’t think there’s anything like saving someone’s life to bring your satisfaction and happiness.
00:09:47
Speaker 2: Stephanie worked another twenty years at DuPont after Kevlar was patented and contributed to the development of products like Lycra and Spandex, and she worked hard to encourage the next generation of scientists, especially young women. When Qualic was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in nineteen ninety-four, she was only the fourth woman at that time to receive the honor. Qualic died in twenty fourteen at the age of ninety. Ellen Coleman, CEO of DuPont at the time, remembered Qualic as a creative and determined chemist and a true pioneer for women in science. Even today, Qualick’s work continues to inspire scientists, and it continues to save lives. You can take Corporal Stephen Reinhardt’s word for that.
00:10:38
Speaker 1: The story of Stephanie Quollick on Our American Stories.
Discover more real American voices.
