Thread by @torrHL

“How Plastic Liberated and Entombed Us -

An account of the wonder substance that has become our tarbaby.” commonreader.wustl.edu/c/how-plastic-…

“The revolution had begun with a billiard ball.

In 1868, ivory was scarce (too few elephants left to kill), so a desperate New England company offered a $10,000 prize for a suitable substitute.”

“The British had patented Celluloid, a hard, flexible, transparent material no one yet wanted (though it would later give us Hollywood).

A young New Yorker acquired the rights and used Celluloid to make billiard balls.”

“Then—why stop?—he made wipe-clean Celluloid collars, cuffs & shirtfronts for messy Gilded Age eaters; Celluloid dental plates for the old; Celluloid toys for the young; Celluloid imitations of luxe tortoise-shell, ivory, bone, coral, horn, and mother of pearl ornament for women”

“What elephants remained need not have their ivory tusks ripped from their bodies by poachers.

Hawksbill sea turtles need not give up their lives, unwittingly, to become tortoise-shell hair combs.”

“What followed Celluloid seemed even better:

Bakelite, a 1907 rubber substitute that turned rock hard, glowed with color, and held the curves of Art Deco.

Bakelite did contain a pinch of asbestos, but who was counting?”

“Cellophane popped up next, in 1912; acetate in 1927, vinyl in 1928, Plexiglas in 1930, acrylics in 1936, Melmac in 1937, Styrene in 1938, both polyester and nylon in 1940.

In 1941, Henry Ford unveiled a plastic car made from soybeans.”

“Gleefully, Ford whacked the plastic trunk on his personal automobile with an axe, showing off its indestructibility (and his own).

Plastic was the future.”

“World War II interrupted his dream by halting automobile production, but it also launched intense research into plastic’s extraordinary possibilities.

Postwar, instead of being squeezed from a soybean, the base would come from abundant, easy fossil fuels.”

“It looked like a solution to just about everything—and that should have warned us, though it never does.”

“What made plastic the quintessential American material?

Even when the goods were manufactured in China or Japan, the medium felt like ours.”

“Industrial manufacturing, PopArt, SpaceAge innovation, & our love of cheap novelty were all part of plastic’s ascendancy—but so was domestic frustration.

Think of all those pushy housewives holding Tupperware parties, sure their guests would rather burp a lid than another baby”

“In short, plastic lightened chores and scoffed at gravity.

Like the abominable Bumble, it bounced.

All of us, shaken by a world war, wanted to feel the same resilience.

We also wanted *stuff*, lots of it.”

“And plastic toys, action figures, souvenirs, and other consumer goods were pouring off the assembly lines.

We stuck pink flamingos on our lawns, stretched and prodded Silly Putty, flung Frisbees, swung hula hoops, and trapped our dreams in plastic snow globes.”

“It is hard not to smile when you see these tiny toys brought such great joy. But compared to balsa planes & rag dolls & metal cars, what sort of lifeworld do those plastic toys represent? Tacky throwaway possessions.

A childhood that looked indestructible—but could melt in sec”

“Life grew more playful, more confidently faux.

Art critic Robert Rosenblum found himself installing, in his pricey Manhattan loft, a built-in cabinet surfaced with plastic laminate—a faux marble pattern that would have been gauche at any other time.”

“But plastic was never as good as what it pretended to be.

Plastic forks broke; plastic fabrics stained and yellowed; plastic’s brightness was garish.”

“When celebrated for its own sake, the material could still be cool, but most plastic products were fakes, imitations of finer substances, at first trying too hard to pass and then not even trying, just laying themselves out there as our only option.”