IN November 1940 Henry Ford invited reporters see a new car body with a boot of black phenolic plastic. Ford swung an axe at the boot delivering an almighty clout. The plastic panel just rebounded from the blow undamaged.
The reporter from Time was ecstatic, saying that with this 鈥淏uck Rogers material鈥� cars would escape undamaged from minor collisions. Ford announced that he would soon be 鈥渕ass producing plastic-bodied automobiles鈥�. The first plastic car rolled off the line nine months later. It was also the last.
Jeffrey Meikle鈥檚 American Plastic (Rutgers, $49.95, ISBN 0 8135 2234 X) is full of fascinating details, as he traces the history of the plastics industry, from the development of celluloid in 1869 as a substitute for ivory to that quintessential product 鈥� Tupperware. It isn鈥檛 the easiest of reads, but it is worth persevering.
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Plastics have become indispensable but, in the 1920s, it was still a fledgling industry. When the American trade journal, Plastics, was founded in 1925 the two partners, says Meikle, 鈥渄idn鈥檛 even know what plastics were鈥�.
In the Second World War, the production of nylon was diverted to the war effort. Stockings were available only on the black market. After the war, nylon riots broke out around America as women fought for their stockings, provoking headlines such as 鈥淲omen Risk Life and Limb in Bitter Battle for Nylons鈥�.
Bakelite radios were the plastic industry鈥檚 first great consumer product. But the styling, says Meikle, was not an attempt to capture the spirit of the age. The corners of the radios had to be smoothed off because sharp corners would break off. And a curve uses less material 鈥� cutting costs and increasing profit.