James F. Boyce, Sr.

James F. Boyce (November 15, 1868 – June 2, 1935) was an American chemist who worked for the N.K. Fairbank Company of Chicago, a manufacturer of lard, cooking oils, soaps, and detergents. He helped create new washing products such as Gold Dust washing powder. Boyce pioneered techniques that are now used in the isolation and removal of consumable hydrogenated vegetable oils from plants (especially cottonseed). Later in life, he ran the Chicago Glass Novelty Company.

Family Boyce was born in Chicago, Illinois to Scot immigrant, Joseph, a Presbyterian railroad engineer, and Irish immigrant, Mary (née Barry) Boyce, who met and married in New York City before moving to Chicago.

Boyce's successful work as a commercial chemist allowed him to move to Hyde Park Township—at the time an exclusive suburb of Chicago. He married Mable Hannah Thompson (whose parents owned a summer estate, 'Kemah', located in Saugatuck, Michigan), They had nine children. Early in the twentieth century the family relocated to a working fruit farm near Saugatuck.

Early life and career About 1888 Boyce began working as a chemist for the industrialist, Nathaniel Kellogg Fairbank, whose company manufactured animal and plant fat-based products such as an eponymous brand of lard, Fairy Soap, and Sunny Monday Washday Soap, to name just a few. at the N.K. Fairbank Company of Chicago.

Gold Dust

Boyce had his first career success as the supervising chemist in the formulation of Gold Dust Washing Powder, were featured in print, written, and (eventually) radio ads. The twins, "Goldie" and "Dustie," made an easily recognizable trademark found in most U.S. homes during the first half of the twentieth century, even spawning a radio program, the Gold Dust Twins Radio Show, in 1929. From 1896, Gold Dust was distributed nationally in the U.S. and Canada by the Lever Brothers Company.

Cottolene

Boyce made his most notable discovery while working with cottonseed waste products. In an attempt to extract usable oils for the food industry in the 1890s,

Later life and legacy Boyce's nickel-catalyst hydrogenation procedure allowed its application (by the likes of French chemist and Nobel laureate, Paul Sabatier, and the manufacturing giant Procter & Gamble) in the commercial exploitation of vegetable oils and fats. This led to the creation of such products as today's "oleomargarine" and vegetable shortening.

Boyce retired from the N. K. Fairbank labs and took up growing fruit at Kemah, with hired hands doing most of the physical labor in the orchards. Around 1915 he assumed the position of president of the Chicago Glass Novelty Company, headquartered in Marion, Indiana. He held this post until his death.

Death Boyce died on June 2, 1935. He is buried in the Gibson Cemetery, in Laketown Township, Allegan County, outside Holland, Michigan.