Plastics. Plastics are resinous substances molded, cast, or extruded into desired shapes. Until 1869, when John Wesley Hyatt invented celluloid by combining cellulose and camphor, the only plastics were such natural materials as shellac, hard rubber, and gutta percha, used for daguerreotype cases, buttons, and other small artifacts. Celluloid, a sheet material shaped with heat, replaced ivory or tortoiseshell in combs and accessories. Celluloid addressed such issues as the uncertain supply of raw materials, the need for precisely dimensioned manufacturing materials, and the demand for democratization of goods. From the first, its imitative qualities signified both technological ingenuity and second‐rate cheapness.
After finding a shellac substitute for electrical insulation in 1907, Leo Baekeland realized that his durable phenolic resin had many applications—from pipe stems to skillet handles—and commercialized it as “the material of a thousand uses.” While Bakelite became a household word during the 1920s and 1930s, other plastics appeared: colorful cast phenolic, pastel‐colored urea formaldehyde, cellulose acetate, vinyl, and transparent acrylic—all promoted as utopian materials derived from such abundant sources as coal, water, and air. Independent custom molders, who made marketable parts and products, experimented in the 1930s with injection molding of thermoplastics, which eventually almost replaced compression molding of thermoset resins. A journal (
Modern Plastics, 1925) and a trade association (The Society of the Plastics Industry, 1937) served the fledgling industry.
The DuPont corporation's introduction of nylon in 1938 marked a major transition. Rather than trying to commercialize a random laboratory gunk, Wallace Carothers and Julian Hill set out to synthesize a precise substitute for silk. Nylon's success as a fiber for stockings and as a molding resin signaled the dominance of large chemical companies. The industry came to maturity during
World War II, providing cockpit enclosures, mortar fuses, even bugles. Its wartime advertising promised a plastic miracle world, but homefront substitutes reinforced an image of cheapness. Many new plastics—among them polyethylene, polypropylene, and polyester—were commercialized after the war. Mirroring an expanding economy, a host of new products—Tupperware, hula hoops, fiberglass chairs, Formica laminate, bubble packaging, dry‐cleaning bags, Teflon‐coated pans—moved so quickly into everyday life that moviegoers laughed nervously in 1968 when a booster in
The Graduate told Dustin Hoffman, “Just one word. Plastics. There's a great future in plastics.”
Although vinyl go‐go boots and inflatable domes expressed the youth culture of the 1960s and 1970s, distrust of plastic developed into hostility. Journalists and writers expressed fears of toxicity, flammability, and overflowing landfills (themes used to great effect by the novelist Norman Mailer). “Plastic,” once a symbol of humanity's power to transcend natural limits, became instead a metaphor of
technology out of control and a pejorative adjective meaning fake or phony. Eventually, as engineering resins and composites revolutionized sports equipment and other consumer goods in the 1980s and 1990s, plastic regained its good name. At the same time, as cultural attention shifted from intractable natural materials to more malleable plastics, and finally to virtual environments electronically synthesized by computer, the concept of plasticity embodied a traditional American faith in an ability to remold the world.
See also
Chemical Industry;
Consumer Culture;
Mass Production.
Bibliography
J. Harry DuBois , Plastics History U.S.A., 1972.
Jeffrey L. Meikle , American Plastic: A Cultural History, 1995.
Jeffrey L. Meikle
