Acylation of hydroxy aromatic compounds with 2-bromo-2-methylpropionamide followed by Smiles rearrangement of the resulting 2-aryloxypropionamide in a one-pot procedure produced the corresponding 2-hydroxy-2-methyl-N-arylpropionamides which can be converted to arylamines by hydrolysis. Particularly important applications of this new process were the conversions of estrone (6) and estradiol (14) to the corresponding 3- ...
