Baekeland was trying to make a shellac substitute — he got the first synthetic plastic

In 1907, Leo Baekeland, a Belgian-born chemist in Yonkers, New York, was trying to create a synthetic substitute for shellac — a natural resin made from the secretion of lac insects, which was expensive and in limited supply. He had already invented Velox photographic paper, which he sold to George Eastman for $1 million, and used the proceeds to fund his home laboratory.

Baekeland first produced a soluble phenol-formaldehyde resin called Novolak, but it was not a commercial success. The reaction between phenol and formaldehyde had been known since 1872, but heating it at atmospheric pressure produced violent foaming and a porous, worthless material. Baekeland's breakthrough was the Bakelizer — an egg-shaped pressure vessel that heated the mixture at 150°C under pressure, suppressing the foaming and yielding a hard, infusible, insoluble solid.

He filed his patent on July 13, 1907, and announced the invention to the American Chemical Society in February 1909. Bakelite was marketed as 'the material of a thousand uses.' It was the first fully synthetic plastic — made from synthetic components, not modified natural materials. It was non-conductive, heat-resistant, and could be molded into any shape.

Bakelite became ubiquitous in the 20th century: electrical insulators, radio cabinets, telephone housings, jewelry, buttons, and kitchenware. Baekeland formed the General Bakelite Company in 1910, merged into the Bakelite Corporation in 1922, and sold to Union Carbide in 1939. A failed shellac substitute became the material that defined the plastic age.