Match | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

Match

The evolution of today's safe, cheap matches took hundreds of years, and many disastrous products failed along the way. Although ancient people learned long ago to carry torches as a convenient source of fire, matches were unheard of until around 1000 a.d. Possibly, the Chinese people invented the first primitive match, since Marco Polo (1254-1324) reported seeing matches on his journeys to the Orient during the late 1200s. By the late 1500s, sulfur-tipped matches were being used in England, though they bore little resemblance to modern matches. In 1681 Robert Boyle coated a piece of coarse paper with phosphorus and produced a flame by drawing a sulfur-tipped wooden splint through a fold in the paper. During the 1700s and early 1800s, several small fire-making devices were invented, including the Ethereal Match, the Pocket Luminary, and the Instantaneous Light Box. Most of these were glass tubes or bottles containing flammable chemicals, which were sold with a packet of chemically treated splinters of wood. But it was not until 1827 that the first modern match was invented. British pharmacist John Walker (1781?-1859) tipped three-inch-long wood splints with a potassium compound and a metal-sulfur compound (antimony sulfide), held together with gum arabic. Walker sold his matches, called Congreves after Sir William Congreve (1772-1828), an artillerist and the inventor of the Congreve rocket. Congreves came with a piece of striking paper coated with ground glass. Unfortunately, when Walker's customers scratched the match across the paper, they were showered with sparks from a series of small explosions, accompanied by an unpleasant smell. One of Walker's competitors began selling similar kits called Lucifers, which carried a warning against inhaling the match's gases. "Persons whose lungs are delicate," the warning continued, "should by no means use Lucifers."

Soon, matches were invented that could be lit by striking on any rough surface--a fireplace brick, for example. These "strike-anywhere" matches are ignited by the heat of friction. Also known as kitchen matches, they are still sold today in an improved version. The first such match was made in 1830 by French scientist Charles Sauria, who coated the wooden tip of his matches with white or yellow phosphorus. Within a year or two, the manufacture of friction matches had been well-established in Europe. But Sauria was unaware that the white and yellow forms of phosphorus are extremely poisonous. Some of his customers learned to commit murder and suicide using match tips.

In America, phosphorus matches were first patented by Alonzo Dwight Phillips in 1836. Although Phillips made his matches by hand and sold them door-to-door from a wagon, match production quickly became a factory operation. As the industry grew, so did chemical poisoning. Match factory workers developed a condition called "phossy jaw" from breathing phosphorus fumes. The disease kills the roots of the teeth and deteriorates the jawbone, creating intense pain; it also causes anemia and loss of appetite. Some patients were horribly disfigured by jaw surgery and had to live on liquid food for the rest of their lives. In the 1840s, European scientists introduced the use of the red form of phosphorus, which is less reactive than the white form. Austrian chemist Anton Ritter von Schrotter and Swedish inventor Carl Lundstrom are noted for using red phosphorus on matches. Soon, French chemists had developed a nonpoisonous chemical for match tips (phosphorus sesquisulfide), which is still used on wooden matches. Although American manufacturers purchased the French patent in 1900, these matches did not work well in American climates.

Meanwhile, Alice Hamilton (1869-1970), a medical doctor and pioneer in the study of occupational disease, publicized the terrible effects of phossy jaw disease. In the early 1900s the United States government imposed such high taxes on matches that the survival of the industry was threatened. Finally, in 1911, William Armstrong Fairburn, a young naval architect, adapted the French chemical formula for phosphorus sesquisulfide to United States climates, ending the spread of chemical poisoning among American match factory workers. Beginning in 1913, Sweden dominated the world's match industry for many years, led by the entrepreneur Ivar Kreuger (1880-1932), known as the "Match King." Kreuger's empire encompassed not only factories, but also the forests of timber and mines of chemicals needed to produce matches. As the story goes, Kreuger invented the superstition that three people using a single match is unlucky--a notion that was reinforced in the trenches of World War I, where any flame not rapidly extinguished could attract enemy gunfire. Despite his evident success, Kreuger's business collapsed, and an investigation into his affairs suggested that his dealings were not entirely legitimate. After these turns of events, he killed himself. "Safety" matches, as opposed to the strike-anywhere variety, can be ignited only on a specially treated surface that contains red phosphorus and sand. The match tip has the other chemicals needed to ignite (including a potassium compound), but neither the match nor the striking surface alone can burst into flame. This type of match was invented in 1844 by Swedish chemist Gustave E. Pasch. By the 1850s, large quantities of safety matches were being produced by John Lundstrom, a Swedish manufacturer. Today's most familiar kind of matches--those that come in "books" of folded cardboard--were invented in 1892 by a Philadelphia patent lawyer, Joshua Pusey, who made them in packs of fifty. In these early matchbooks, however, the striking surface was inside the cover, dangerously close to the match heads.

By the end of World War I, American manufacturers were making safe, practical matchbooks with external striking strips, and these became quite popular. When America entered World War II, troops fighting in tropical climates needed waterproof matches. A substance resistant to water and heat was developed by Raymond Davis Cady in 1943. With this protection, wooden matches could be submerged in water for eight hours, yet still light. Match production today is highly automated, requiring much less labor than in the days of phossy jaw. Wooden matches are manufactured at a rate of more than a million per hour in a single, continuous process by a series of huge machines. Book matches are made by two machines--one that slices the paperboard into match-sized strips and dips the tips in chemicals, and a second machine that cuts the match strips into book size and staples them into the covers.