The term "topochemistry" was first introduced by Kohlschütter in 1919, referring to the chemical reactions driven by the molecular alignments within the crystal. The prefix "topo" came from the Greek word  "topos", which means "site". These reactions quickly draw people's attention because of their high conversion as well as solvent/catalyst-free nature. However, the early studies were usually serendipitous.
In the 1960s, Schmidts work on [2+2] photodimerization of cinnamic acids established the systematic approach to study the topochemical reactions. They proposed that only double bonds adopting coplanar and parallel orientation within a distance of 3.5-4.2 Å could react with each other in the crystal lattice. This empirical rule was later referred to as Schmidts criteria. 
[2+2] cycle addition and diacetylene polymerization are among the early examples of topochemical polymerization. As shown in the figure, the formation of 1,3-diphenyl substituted cyclobutane derivatives was first studied in detail by Hasegawa and his coworkers in 1967. A series of similar monomers had also been studied by them. In 1969, the 1,4-addition polymerization of diacetylene was confirmed by Wegner and his coworkers.  Restricted by the experimental condition, early researchers of topochemical polymerization usually characterized the reaction process and product with traditional chemical methods. The development of modern analysis technology such as single-crystal X-ray diffraction greatly facilitated the systematic study of topochemical polymerization and kept the popularity till these days.