In the late 1800’s The Oakland Chemical Company manufactured and marketed hydrogen peroxide under the name “peroxide of hydrogen” and later, “hydrogen dioxide,” before finally settling on the name “Dioxogen” in 1901. They would go on to manufacture and market it under that name up through the late 1940’s and possibly into the early 1950’s.
The Dioxogyn story starts with a native New Yorker named James G. Timolat who was born in 1862. Throughout much of the 1880’s he was listed in the NYC directories at an address of 206 Greene Street in Manhattan with the occupation “dyes.” Recognizing that hydrogyn peroxide is a bleaching agent and a key component of hair dyes, it’s possible that Timolat’s familiarity with it dated back to these early days on Greene Street.
That being said, he was certainly familiar with it in 1890 when having established a Manhattan office on South Fifth Avenue (renamed West Broadway in 1897) he incorporated the Oakland Chemical Company to
manufacture and sell peroxide of hydrogen and other chemical compounds and products.
The incorporation notice was published in the May 29, 1890 edition of the “Brooklyn Daily Eagle.”
Timolat was named the company’s first president, a position he would hold until 1945 when he was succeeded by his son. James G. Timolat, Jr.
Around the same time he incorporated the business, Timolat also acquired property in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn that would serve as the company’s manufacturing facility. The “Real Estate Transfer,” documented in the May 18, 1890 edition of “The Brooklyn Citizen,” located the property on the east side of Oakland Street (just north of Dupont Street) revealing the reasoning behind the company name.
Later that year Timolat transferred the property to his Oakland Chemical Company. The transfer was also documented in “The Brooklyn Citizen” on September 20, 1890.
At its onset the Oakland Chemical Company was one of at least 14 companies manufacturing and marketing peroxide of hydrogen at the time. A list of those 14 manufacturers that included the Oakland Chemical Company (No. 8) appeared as part of a study that was summarized in several pharmaceutical journals in late 1894/early1895.
So, almost certainly in an effort to distinguish Oakland’s product from the pack, Timolat changed its name to “Oakland Hydrogen Dioxide.” The announced name change began appearing in the pharmaceutical and medical journals in late 1894. The following, found in the December, 1894 edition of “The New York Medical Times,” was typical.
Over the next several years advertisements like the following one, found in several editions of a weekly publication called “The Philadelphia Polyclinic,” touted Oakland Hydrogen Dioxide under the heading “Oxygen By Inhalation.”
for diseases of the throat, lungs, respiratory tract, impoverished blood, defective assimilation, dyspepsia, melancholy, etc.,
Selling it in concert with
THE OAKLAND INHALING BOTTLE, a simple and effective vehicle for administering oxygen obtained from OAKLAND HYDROGEN DIOXIDE.
Then just after the turn of the century there’s another name change, this time to Dioxogen, the name embossed on the subject bottle. The announcement appeared in several 1901 editions of the “Dominion Medical Journal.”
The announcement read:
The change in name has become imperative both to protect the physician from inferior solutions and to preserve the reputation of the product itself.
The therapeutic value of Hydrogen Dioxide depends solely on the purity of the solution. In its manufacturing details, no drug or chemical demands more exact attention and none suffers more from the carelessness or ignorance of its physical qualities.
Dioxogyn will continue in the future as in the past to answer all the requirements of a perfect antiseptic and disinfectant.
Their new label appeared in this January, 1903 advertisement found in “The Chicago Medical Reporter.”
This new name and label along with advertisements stressing purity and reliability like the one below, found in the April, 1905 edition of the Maryland Medical Journal, all contributed to the company’s success in creating demand for their version of a relatively common product that was dressed up as a new/better alternative.
Up to this point, whether called Oakland Peroxide of Hydrogen, Hydrogen Dioxide or Dioxogen, the product was manufactured at the company’s Oakland Street factory, a factory described like this in the November 25, 1898 edition of the “Brooklyn Daily Times.”
The factory is a three-story brick building, 100 feet front and 50 feet deep. Adjoining the factory is the warehouse, a wooden building of the same height.
Their factory survived a fire in 1898 and as late as 1901 was even expanding as evidenced by this item that appeared in the September 28, 1901 edition of the Brooklyn “Times Union.”
Not long after the 1901 expansion the company changed direction and relocated their manufacturing arm to Staten Island. The move had certainly occurred by 1907 when a December 28th item published in the “Brooklyn Daily Eagle” announced that the company was in the process of leasing out their former plant location in Brooklyn.
BIG FACTORY LEASE
Stokes & Knowles have leased through their factory department, the building at the corner of Oakland and Dupont Streets for the Oakland Chemical Company to the Consolidated Paper Company for a term of years. The latter will occupy the building at once.
This undated photograph of their Staten Island factory located in Rossville, Staten Island, near its border with Charleston, appeared years later as part of a “Now & Then” story found in the January 20, 2002 edition of the “Staten Island Advance.”
According to another story written years later, this one in the November 4, 1955 edition of the “Staten Island Advance,” at its peak, likely in the late teens or early 1920’s, the plant was one of the largest in Staten Island with respect to both buildings and acreage encompassing 25 buildings, over 44 acres and employing between 250 and 300 people.
While the factory moved to Staten Island, the company headquarters remained on South Fifth Avenue/West Broadway in Manhattan until 1908. Later, they operated out of 98 Front Street and 10 Astor place before purchasing a building at 59 Fourth Avenue in 1919 where their headquarters remained listed until the 1950’s.
By the time their factory was operational in Staten Island the company’s advertisements pretty much focused on Dioxogyne’s antiseptic properties both as a wound clenser and mouthwash as evidenced by these two advertisements that both ran in several May/June, 1908 editions of the Syracuse N. Y. “Post Standard.”
Dioxogen continued to be advertised quite heavily in newspapers up through 1930 still with the same label and still touting it as an antiseptic and mouthwash.
Dioxogen , in 4, 10 and 20 oz bottles was still appearing in drug store price lists advertised in newspapers as late as 1949.
In the early 1930’s the Oakland Chemical Company entered the cosmetics field when they introduced Dioxogen Cream. This April 11, 1935 advertisement in Elmira N.Y.’s “Star-Gazette”ran under the heading Blackheads Don’t Live Here Anymore” and bragged:
By means of a new discovery – – DIOXOGEN CREAM – you can now bring out the hidden charm of your complexion. You can prevent blackheads and other skin blemishes. You can bring quick refinement to large, coarse open pores. Lines, discolorations and wrinkles will not show. Excessively oily or dry skin will be normalized, and sallow or muddy skin given new life and natural color…
Dioxogen Cream was included in newspaper advertised drug store price lists as late as 1948.
When exactly the Dioxogen name disappeared from the market is not clear, but it was certainly gone by 1955 when their Staten Island factory was put up for sale, not once but twice. This November 4, 1955 story published in the “Staten Island Advance,” described the company’s final days.
The Oakland Chemical Company plant, a Rossville mainstay for half a century, is on the auction block again – only a month after being sold by its original owners.
The Rossville factory, shut down in September after operating at a snail’s pace for six months, continues idle, no longer producing the hydrogen peroxide it made for 50 years…
Business declined steadily in recent years. When production stopped last May, only about 25 employees remained and many of the factory’s many buildings had fallen into disrepair.
A SKELETON force continued at work, liquidating the business, until its sale to an off-Island investor in September. The entrepreneur, whose identity remains undisclosed, planned to launch a chemical business but changed his mind after a discussion with European associates…
As a result the plant is up for sale again, with a $100,000 price tag. The price is far below the property’s actual valuation, but the plant’s specialized nature makes it a difficult one to sell…
The story was supported by this advertisement that appeared in several issues of the “Staten Island Advance” around that time.
The previously referenced “Now & Then” story found in the January 20, 2002 edition of the “Staten Island Advance” indicates that by 2002 all evidence of their Rossville factory had disappeared..
As far as I can tell, in Brooklyn, Oakland Street was later widened and renamed Mcguinness Blvd, leaving no sign of their former factory location there.
The bottle I found was blown in a mold with a tooled lip and contained 4 ounces. “Dioxogen” and “The Oakland Chemical Comp’ y” are embossed near the base in small lettering.
Likely from the early 1900’s, the bottle’s shape and size exactly match the bottle pictured in this March 13, 1910 “New York Tribune” advertisement.
