E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company's Textile Fibers Department was the 1952 successor to the Rayon Department that was organized in 1936, during the period when the company was transforming itself from an explosives manufacturer and becoming a diversified chemical company. The Textile Fibers and Rayon Departments were always research-oriented. After nylon was developed by Wallace Hume Carothers, who was attached to the Chemical Department's Fundamental Research Program, the Rayon Department established its own Pioneering Research Laboratory, which developed Orlon and Dacron. After the Second World War, Rayon/Textile Fibers became the most important department within the DuPont Company, as it accounted for more than 60% of the company's revenues. It was renamed the Fibers Department in 1988.