Jacob I. Fass was born in Poland in 1903. He immigrated to the United States in 1920 at the age of 17 and eventually settled in Brooklyn, NY. During WWII he worked as a chemical engineer at NOPCO (National Oil Products Co.) in New Jersey, working on diverse projects providing materials for the military during the war. He eventually left NOPCO to begin his own company, Spruce Chemical Co.

Fass was heavily invested in his career as a chemical scientist, to the point that his desire to safeguard his work led to a degree of secrecy and even paranoia. The collection contains a number of “secret” notes that Fass kept while working at NOPCO from 1942 to 1944. The notes were written on small pieces of note paper and folded into 1-inch squares in order to smuggle them out of the laboratory facility. They contain detailed information on his experiments, formulas, and findings, as well as company politics and sometimes entire conversations between employees.

Fass was also interested in politics, and he corresponded with many family members and friends who were politically active in organizations such as the Communist Party of America. Fass himself was labeled a “Trotskyist” and may have been a member of the Young Communists.

He was deeply immersed in his hobbies, which included music, photography, and the study of philosophy. Many of his correspondents were other aficionados with whom he traded tips on equipment, technique, and the best sources for materials and supplies.