A Bridge To The 18th Century

American Plastic

Plastic materials have become so numerous that you cannot go through a single day without touching something made of plastic. Toothbrushes, ballpoint pens, unbreakable dishes, cabinets and knobs for machines and appliances, light switches - all of these things and many more are made of plastic.

It seems hard to believe that before 1869, there was no such thing as plastic. The first plastic, celluloid, was invented in 1869 by John Wesley Hyatt, (Meikle 5). A $10,000 prize had been offered to anyone who invented a material that could replace ivory for making billiard balls. In his experiments, Hyatt dissolved nitrocellulose and camphor in alcohol. This produced a solid, white material that could be pressed into blocks. The celluloid blocks could then be cut and ground into billiard balls. Mr. Hyatt won the prize and patented his invention (10, 11). For more that 40 years afterward, Hyatt's celluloid was the only kind of plastic.

Manufacturers began making it into combs and brushes, buttons, piano keys, handles, and stiff collards and cuffs for men's shirts (24, 25). Celluloid also became the main material for making plates for false teeth. The celluloid plastic was lighter and had less taste than the hard rubber that had previously been used to hold false teeth. George Eastman, a manufacturer of photographic equipment, invented a way to make celluloid film. Photographers until then had been taking pictures on chemically treated glass plates.

The main problem with celluloid was that it caught fire easily. In 1909, Leo Hendrik Baekeland, a Belgian chemist living in New Jersey, invented a new kind of plastic called Bakelite. Bakelite was hard to burn and impossible to melt. Telephone sets were among the first products made from Bakelite (34-50).

Since the early 1900's, many different plastics have been developed, each having a special characteristic or advantage that makes it good for various purposes. Some plastics stood heat better, while some withstood shock better. Some could be spun into thread from making fabrics such as nylon. In 1938, Du Pont publicly announced