Leo Hendrik Baekeland
1863-1944
Belgian-American Chemist
A1940 Time magazine article called Leo Hendrik Baekeland the "Father of Plastic," and with good reason. His invention of the first synthetic plastic, Bakelite, proved cheaper and more versatile than other substances, and has since been used in everything from pot handles to electronics.
Baekeland was born in Ghent, Belgium, on November 14, 1863, the son of working-class parents. As a teenager, Baekeland spent his days in high school, and his evenings at the Ghent Municipal Technical School, where he studied chemistry, physics, mathematics, and economics. He was awarded a scholarship to the University of Ghent, and in 1884 received his doctorate of science, graduating with honors.
From 1882-89, Baekeland taught chemistry at the University of Ghent. Between 1885 and 1887 he also taught chemistry and physics at the Government Higher Normal School of Science in Bruges, Belgium. In 1889, Baekeland and his wife, Celine, traveled to the United States and decided to stay permanently. His dual interest in photography and science led him to a position as a chemist at the photographic manufacturing company E. and A. T. Anthony and Company. In 1893, he left that position to found the Nepera Chemical Company in Yonkers, New York.
Leo Baekeland. (Corbis Corporation. Reproduced with permission.)In the late 1800s, photographs were developed using sunlight, which made it impossible for photographers to complete their work under cloudy skies. Baekeland perfected a new photographic paper, named Velox, which allowed photographs to be developed with the use of an artificial light. In 1899, George Eastman (1854-1932) of Eastman Kodak bought the rights to Velox for the enormous sum of one million dollars. Baekeland celebrated his new wealth by purchasing an estate in an upscale community north of Yonkers.
After the success of his first invention, Baekeland shifted his focus to creating a new, cheaper, synthetic form of shellac to replace that which was naturally secreted by the Laccifer lacca beetle. The latter form was becoming more and more expensive, and harder and harder to obtain. Baekeland and his assistant began experimenting in 1904, in search of a substance that would not only dissolve in solvents to create an effective insulator, but one that would also be malleable, or pliable, like rubber.
Three years later, while working with a mixture of phenol and formaldehyde, Baekeland noticed that the two chemicals, when combined, produced a shellac-like residue which could be used to coat surfaces like a varnish. When Baekeland put this mixture into his "Bakelizer," a heavy iron pot similar to a pressure cooker, out came a moldable, yet solid, substance. The synthetic plastic, which he called Bakelite, was unique in that it would not melt under extreme heat. That made it especially useful for things like automobile engine parts and handles for kitchen utensils. Baekeland received a patent for Bakelite in 1906, and founded the General Bakelite Corporation (later the Bakelite Company) four years later to manufacture and sell his invention. Baekeland served as president of the company until it merged with the Union Carbide Corporation in 1939.
Bakelite was known as "the material of a thousand uses," and became part of everything from beads to telephones, from jewelry to electronics. In 1945, a year after Baekeland's death, annual plastic production in the United States rose to more than four hundred thousand tons. Today, it is everywhere we look, in every aisle of the local grocery store, in virtually every item used in the home. Baekeland's invention came to represent an industrial, as well as a cultural, revolution, as epitomized in the classic line from the film The Graduate: "I just want to say one word to you. Just one word: plastics."
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