In the 19th century, significant linen and leather imitation products were invented using cellulose nitrate-coated fabrics, including celluloid detachable collars and Fabrikoid artificial leather, now preserved in the Hagley Museum and Library, USA. Using optical microscopy, µRaman, and µFourier Transformed Infrared spectroscopies, this study highlights the need for characterizing the heterogeneity of these materials at the microscale. While the detachable collars have well-preserved fabric coatings composed of cellulose nitrate, camphor, anatase (TiO2), and carbon-based particles, Fabrikoid’s pigmented cellulose nitrate-castor oil systems show problems. Our molecular data align with a 1922 report on Fabrikoid degradation, revealing free fatty acids and carboxylates formed due to oil oxidation. This is concerning as these materials were used until the 1960s, demonstrated by the analysis of objects from the National Museum of Costumes in Portugal. Future studies should address the compatibility of cellulose nitrate with fatty acids and the reactivity of additives in these systems.

In the 1870s, dentures were one of the first products made with celluloid, the first semi-synthetic plastic. Despite the significance of denture development in the history of celluloid and plastics, the chemical characterization of dentures in museum collections has never been attempted. It is urgent to assess the extent of celluloid heritage in denture collections due to the high degradation risk that this material imposes. In this work, 21 dentures from the National Museum of American History and from the Dr. Samuel D. Harris National Museum of Dentistry were characterized using a multi-analytical methodology using handheld Raman, X-Ray fluorescence, and micro-Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopies. All dentures were successfully characterized: 12 are made of celluloid, 4 of vulcanized rubber, 2 of phenol–formaldehyde, 2 of polyvinyl chloride—polyvinyl acetate copolymer (PVC-PVAc) and 1 of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA). The identification of the dentures’ base materials allowed a better understanding of their history and posed new questions about their conservation. Handheld Raman was demonstrated as an excellent in-situ tool for the study of polymeric materials.

The demystification of how 19th-century novelly designed materials became significant elements of modern technological, economic, and cultural life requires a complete understanding of the material dimensions of historical artifacts. The objects frequently described as the earliest manufactured plastic products-the billiard balls made by John Wesley Hyatt and his associates from the late 1860s-are examined closely for the first time and are found to be more complex and functionally more successful than has been described. Modern analytical techniques such as optical microscopy, scanning electron microscope-energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, X-ray fluorescence, micro-Fourier transformed infrared, and handheld/micro-Raman spectroscopies were used to reveal the complex composition of the Smithsonian Institution's "original" 1868 celluloid billiard ball. Comparisons with billiard and pool balls commercialized from the 1880s to the 1960s showed an unexpected consistency in material formulations. All specimens were made of an unprecedented composite material prepared with a mixture of cellulose nitrate, camphor, and ground bone; the source of the bone was identified as cattle by peptide mass fingerprint (ZooMS). Patent specifications and contemporary journal descriptions explained how and when these formulations emerged. Combining the technical analyses of compositions with a careful reading of the historical record and contemporary descriptions reveals the key elements of the first successful efforts to substitute materials to assist the survival of endangered animals.

Journal Article Useful Objects: Museums, Science, and Literature in Nineteenth-Century America Get access Useful Objects: Museums, Science, and Literature in Nineteenth-Century America. By Reed Gochberg. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021. 266 pp. $74.00.) Robert Friedel Robert Friedel University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 110, Issue 1, June 2023, Page 156, https://doi.org/10.1093/jahist/jaad157 Published: 01 June 2023

Reviewed by: Beyond Bakelite: Leo Baekeland and the Business of Science and Invention by Joris Mercelis Robert Friedel (bio) Beyond Bakelite: Leo Baekeland and the Business of Science and Invention By Joris Mercelis. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2020. Pp. 366. About forty-five years ago, when I was completing my doctoral dissertation on the history of the first plastics, the supervisor of my Smithsonian fellowship, the curator of chemistry, dropped by my desk with a small notebook in his hand and said, "You might want to take a look at this." I can still visualize the little item, and my excitement in handling it was palpable—it was the first in a series of laboratory notebooks that Leo Baekeland, Belgian-American chemist, began to keep in 1907 on new experiments with the products of reacting phenol with formaldehyde. The result of these experiments was a novel plastic, unlike anything ever made before, which Baekeland immediately called "Bakelite." Over the years, that little notebook was joined at the Smithsonian by many others, as well as diaries, correspondence, and a host of other materials, such that the "Leo H. Baekeland Papers" now amount to 15 cubic feet in fifty-nine boxes, covering the life and work of the inventor-entrepreneur in an intimate detail available for only a few other American inventors. This work by Joris Mercelis is the latest of a number of scholarly works fostered by the collection (one or two pre-dating the collection's Smithsonian residence). These works use the Baekeland papers to tackle a range of questions although, oddly enough, no authoritative biography has yet been published. Readers of this journal may be most familiar with Wiebe Bijker's 1995 study on the social construction of Bakelite, in which he makes extensive use of Flemish sources and the largely English-language Baekeland papers to support his theories of sociotechnical change. Mercelis uses Baekeland's career to explore the intersections of science, technology, business, and intellectual property. He thus covers some of the same ground as Bijker and other scholars, while delving far more deeply into Baekeland as a well-documented case study in changing perceptions of the status and relationships of academic science, chemical industry, and entrepreneurialism between about 1890 and 1930. The author emphasizes Baekeland's university background and the significance of his academic connections, not only in his early efforts, but also after he moved to the United States and emerged as a successful entrepreneur. A great strength of this work is Mercelis's comfort in talking about both European and American academic settings—primarily Belgian institutions and Columbia University, respectively. The interplay between Baekeland's early university-based work and his first commercial efforts turns out to be a bit complex, and the details bog down the discussion at points. One justification might be that these details point towards one of the key inflections of [End Page 254] Baekeland's life—his move to the United States shortly after his marriage in 1889. Throughout Beyond Bakelite, Mercelis is at great pains to explore the entanglements of academic norms and standards, commercial opportunities and demands, and shifting concepts of status and authority. Later portions of the book examine Baekeland's efforts to reconstruct academic linkages in America as well as his extended work on intellectual property issues and government advising. These explorations are very well informed by references to historical discussions on these topics and closely related subjects. Indeed, students of the history of technology would be well served using this work as entry to the literature on science-technology relations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. All of this comes at a price, however, since the book hews very closely to the texts from which it draws, so its narrative flow is somewhat sluggish. Some judicious editing could have reduced the number and length of quotations from sources. The analytical strengths of the work also get in the way of providing a very convincing portrait of Leo Baekeland. He was obviously driven by ambitions and anxieties about status, but other facets of his character are much more obscure, and the eccentricities of his later years are left out entirely. While this work...

Cellulose nitrate (CN) is an intrinsically unstable material that puts at risk the preservation of a great variety of objects in heritage collections, also posing threats to human health. For this reason, a detailed investigation of its degradation mechanisms is necessary to develop sustainable conservation strategies. To investigate novel probes of degradation, we implemented deep UV photoluminescence micro spectral-imaging, for the first time, to characterize a corpus of historical systems composed of cellulose nitrate. The analysis of cinematographic films and everyday objects dated from the 19th c. / early 20th c. (Perlov's collection), as well as of photo-aged CN and celluloid references allowed the identification of novel markers that correlate with different phases of CN degradation in artworks, providing insight into the role played by plasticizers, fillers, and other additives instability. By comparison with photoaged references of CN and celluloid (70% CN and 30% camphor), it was possible to correlate camphor concentration with a higher rate of degradation of the cinematographic films. Furthermore, the present study investigates, at the sub-microscale, materials heterogeneity that correlates to the artworks' history, associating the different emission profiles of zinc oxide to specific color formulations used in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Cellulose nitrate (CN) is an intrinsically unstable material that puts at risk the preservation of a great variety of objects in heritage collections, also posing threats to human health. For this reason, a detailed investigation of its degradation mechanisms is necessary to develop sustainable conservation strategies. To investigate novel probes of degradation, we implemented deep UV photoluminescence micro spectral-imaging, for the first time, to characterize a corpus of historical systems composed of cellulose nitrate. The analysis of cinematographic films and everyday objects dated from the nineteenth c./early twentieth c. (Perlov's collection), as well as of photo-aged CN and celluloid references allowed the identification of novel markers that correlate with different stages of CN degradation in artworks, providing insight into the role played by plasticizers, fillers, and other additives in stability. By comparison with photoaged references of CN and celluloid (70% CN and 30% camphor), it was possible to correlate camphor concentration with a higher rate of degradation of the cinematographic films. Furthermore, the present study investigates, at the sub-microscale, materials heterogeneity that correlates to the artworks' history, associating the different emission profiles of zinc oxide to specific color formulations used in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

What is the relationship between creativity and location? That modern history is checkered with stories of creative places is almost a truism. From Florence, Italy, around 1500 to Silicon Valley around 2000, the geography of artistic and technical invention has featured places that have become synonymous with creativity. Historians of science and technology have not ignored this (nor have historians of art, architecture, or literature). In the history of modern technology we have fine examples of location-based studies of innovation and the environments that promote it—works on Birmingham, England, in the eighteenth century, northern New Jersey and New York City in the nineteenth century, and the San Francisco Bay area in the late twentieth century are only the most obvious examples of scholarly attention. The localization of invention is also not unknown to the museum world, but the emphasis here has typically been on the truly local. Local history museums, and some state museums, have often made a point of featuring the technical creativity of a locale, often in a well-defined period. Far less common, however, are attempts to take this local concern and transform it into comparative, analytical studies, and this is where the significance of the Smithsonian Institution's new effort becomes apparent.

Bulliet’s interest in Middle Eastern modes of transport in history has resulted in a number of well-received studies, most notably his monograph, The Camel and the Wheel (New York, 1975). Forty years later he returns to the wheel, now with the aim of piecing together the nature of its first invention and introduction, as well as following its history over subsequent centuries. Bulliet is therefore on largely familiar ground, and he uses to good effect his experience in applying archaeological evidence—even of the most incomplete sort—to working out seemingly impossible puzzles.Bulliet’s technical, as well as archaeological and historical, erudition are on display throughout The Wheel. At the outset, he alerts readers to certain technical distinctions that any student of the wheel must observe. Most important is the differentiation between independently rotating wheels (wheels that revolve around a stationary axle), wheel sets (wheels that are attached to rotating axles in pairs), and casters (wheels that rotate independently on an axle, which in turn are free to pivot, typically at right angles to the axle). This differentiation is important to Bulliet because his history depends on distinguishing the stories of the three types from each other, allowing him to be much clearer about how the specific functions of wheels in particular applications must be understood to make sense of the evidence.Bulliet traces the most important area for the wheel’s early development to the areas north and slightly west of the Black Sea. He uses both archaeological and linguistic evidence to suggest that particular circumstances promoted the development of the first carts, especially for moving heavy loads within and from mines. Homes on wheels, war chariots, and other variations followed, and Bulliet examines the circumstances promoting (and often later demoting) each one of them. The symbolic significance of wheels, and their appearance in devotional and funerary items, as well as their depiction in early illustrated or carved representations, allows Bulliet the opportunity to examine (or, at least, infer) the changing status of wheels in addition to their functions.Using a similarly wide range of evidence, Bulliet takes his story all the way into the twenty-first century. Along the way, the rise and fall of war chariots, the feminization of wheeled transport, and the ascendency of carriages occupy entire chapters. Bulliet is careful to avoid making his discourse too culture-specific; he at least raises the questions that others have asked about the general lack, or diminished significance, of wheeled transport in many parts of the world—from the Americas to sub-Saharan Africa to the Far East. Bulliet effectively punctures the often-facile answer, that many of these cultures had little or no access to draft animals, with an extensive discussion of the persistence, in both wheeled and unwheeled cultures, of human-powered transport. Bulliet, however, tends to turn the question around, asking what special circumstances would make the advantages of wheels most compelling. In some cases, as in the early mining examples, this tactic works, whereas in others—for example, why chariots were popular in some areas and not in others—this approach is less convincing.Bulliet’s work is a fine contribution to the history of transport. Nonetheless, readers may be disappointed that a book entitled The Wheel pays almost no attention to wheels not connected specifically to transport. Bulliet makes a quick reference to potters’ wheels and a couple more to wheeled toys but mainly to dismiss them as irrelevant to his core concern. He has a point, but he might have given a little more attention to the psychological significance, on numerous levels, of wheels in human culture. The wheels of geared machines, of lathes and pulleys, and of mills—hand, animal, water, and wind—all shape human ideas about motion and the possibilities of motion, and they too had different fates in different cultures, shedding yet more light on both the differences and similarities in human encounters with roundness.

Reviewed by: Applied Minds: How Engineers Think by Guru Madhavan Robert Friedel (bio) Applied Minds: How Engineers Think. By Guru Madhavan. New York: W. W. Norton, 2015. Pp. 288. $26.95. “How engineers think” has been a subject of interest to historians of technology from the beginnings of the field, and the literature this subject has spawned is not small. Most typically the question has been tackled through case studies of engineers at work, major engineering projects, or technical products. It could be argued that these case studies are one of the most important means by which the history of technology has made a contribution to engineering education, sometimes directly but more often indirectly through introductory engineering courses, programs in engineering ethics, and courses in management, design, and other key elements of the engineering curriculum. Applied Minds might be viewed as a brief compilation of some of these case studies, augmented by the author’s interviews with some practicing engineers. As such, it may be considered a useful, accessible work, of value to engineering students and to practitioners interested in insights on their own profession. The author seeks to entertain his readers with engineering stories while at the same time getting them to consider some larger issues. There is a bit of formula for most chapters—a story of some sort of problem or project, followed by an account of an engineer’s path to solving it. So we encounter a range of challenges: preventing fraud at marathons, managing the traffic in a large city, devising means of dispensing cash at banks outside of business hours, developing alternatives to washing diapers, and so forth. In these and many other cases, we are invited to see how engineers came up with solutions. Ostensibly, as we do this we are led through various thought processes that characterize the work of (successful and inventive) engineers. This is largely entertaining and sometimes insightful. At the very least, it is useful to have a compilation of stories of successful engineering, drawing on a variety of challenges and disciplines. The stories [End Page 464] illustrate some important aspects of engineering thinking: “solutions under constraints,” “prototyping,” “standardizing with flexibility,” and so forth. Other general works on engineering have come up with similar lists, and this has some pedagogical value. At times, Guru Madhavan does depart from this formulaic approach. The most charming part of the book recounts his visits to the Indian holy city of Varanasi, where he explores connections between the religious devotion and practices around which the city revolves and some of the engineering challenges (most prominently restoring and maintaining the health of the Ganges River) that the city must confront and overcome. At other times, the author’s enthusiasm runs away with him a bit. This is most evident in his final chapter, devoted to an account of some of the work of the great Hollywood director Alfred Hitchcock. Madhavan describes him as “a British engineer” and attempts to couch Hitchcock’s creativity in engineering terms. A quick check of biographical sources reveals that Hitchcock spent a year of pre-college education at a technical school in London and subsequently worked as a draftsman—hardly what we would expect to call “a British engineer.” This hints at one of the problems of Madhavan’s approach—he never explains what he really means by an “engineer,” except to suggest that they are “integrators,” engaged in “systematic problem-solving” (both of these terms come from quotations, of which there are very, very many in this book). Otherwise, we are left to surmise that engineers are essentially people who call themselves engineers—except in cases such as Hitchcock’s, when they are people who have brushed up closely enough to engineers that we can call them that even when they do not. The analytical rigor that we are led to believe is part of engineering thinking is not part of this book. On a more positive note, many readers of this journal will enjoy the substantial “Sources and Resources” chapter, as it draws heavily on historical case studies and is a nice snapshot of the kinds of historical works that influence and inform those with questions about...

Beverage containers, particularly bottles, are central to both the image and the practice of consumer recycling. Prior to today's recycling practices, however, beverage bottles were generally reused, often dozens of times. This practice was arguably far more sustainable and environmentally responsible than modern recycling. How did the system of bottle deposit, return, and reuse give way to the current one-use bottle? This article finds the answer in a confluence of changing retail practices, promotions by materials and container manufacturers, and the construction of new ideas about so-called convenience among consumers. A combination of economic, technical, and social changes led to an extended contest about convenience and economy among various actors, a contest that was only settled after more than two decades of irresolution and uncertainty. This image contrasts sharply with that of those who see the triumph of nonreturnables as the product simply of new technologies or the choices of large corporations.

would have been helpful to understand if the South’s lower use of rail was a symptom of social backwardness or of privileged geography. Second, although Marrs does discuss briefly some of the difficulties southern railroads experienced raising private capital, he does not delve into this issue deeply enough. The Old South had developed a sophisticated merchant network with Europe, why did not Europeans finance railroads in the South, as they did in the North? Or was it that railroads were not expected to be profitable? Why? As these questions attest, the book is thought-provoking. Although it does not fully answer the question posed, the archival work is nicely knit together to provide a better understanding of the complex changes Old Southerners experienced with railroads during antebellum era. The chapter on the role of slavery in construction and operation of the railroads provides unexpected and eye-opening insights. And the book will trigger many valuable questions in the reader’s mind. Independently of whether the reader is a business historian, a cultural historian, an economic historian, or a historian of technology, it is certainly worth reading the book.

The movie directed by Cosima Dannoritzer, The Light Bulb Conspiracy , attempts to trace the history of planned obsolescence in the twentieth century and some of its implications. The movie succeeds in conveying the message that planned obsolescence (and associated techniques such as model changes and advertising) is a powerful force for profit and the source of significant environmental problems, from dangerous waste dumps (particularly in underdeveloped nations) to massive resource depletion. The film does not succeed so well in accounting for the origins of obsolescence, as it focuses on "conspiracies" among manufacturers to reduce quality and increase consumption. The primary example is the Phoebus cartel assembled by the world's light bulb manufacturers in the 1920s. The cartel sought, according to this account, to shorten bulb life to increase consumer demand. The history, however, is much more complex, and the movie does not take into account important (and useful) technical changes.