Posts Tagged ‘plastics’
“Toys are intriguing… they represent one way that society socializes its young”*…
And, as Greg Daugherty explains, that process was accelerated in the second half of the last century…
World War II gave rise to countless innovations that would change American life for decades to come—from the rugged Jeep, to mass-produced penicillin, to the terrifying atomic bomb. But, ironically enough, few U.S. industries were more profoundly affected by the war than the toy business.
Not only were toy and game designers and makers able to take advantage of the latest scientific advances, such as colorful and inexpensive plastics; they also benefited from two other post-war trends. The baby boom—more than 76 million kids born between 1946 and 1964—offered them record numbers of potential customers. And television, little more than a novelty before the war, soon made it possible to demonstrate the latest playthings to millions of kids at a time. Little wonder that toy sales grew from $84 million in 1940 to $900 million by 1953 and into the billions of dollars in by the early 1960s…
The ascendance of plastics and television forever changed an industry– and our culture: “How Toys Changed After World War II,” from @GregDaugherty1 in @HISTORY.
Mr. McGuire : I just want to say one word to you. Just one word.
Benjamin : Yes, sir.
Mr. McGuire : Are you listening?
Benjamin : Yes, I am.
Mr. McGuire : Plastics.
Benjamin : Exactly how do you mean?
Mr. McGuire : There’s a great future in plastics. Think about it. Will you think about it?
From The Graduate, written by Calder Willingham and Buck Henry (from the novel by Charles Webb); directed by Mike Nichols
* David Levinthal (a photographer whose work centers toys)
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As we play, we might note that today is the celebration of the 2022 inductees into the Toy Hall of Fame at the Strong National Museum of Play… two of the three honorees are plastic toys heavily advertised on television in the 60s, 70s, and 80s.
“Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?”*…
Sitting in a Starbucks in Plano, Texas in 1997, “Winter” (who has legally changed his name from Rafael Lozano) decided to visit every one of the coffee chain’s outlets, everywhere they’d popped up around the world. In 1997, that meant 1,400 stores. Seventeen years and more than $100,000 later, he’s patronized 11,733 Starbucks across six continents– a majority , but by no means all of the 17,000 in operation today. He documents his visits and charts the ones he’s still missing on his web site.
A freelance programmer, Winter spends his off-time in independent coffee houses:
I respect Starbucks for its business sense, customer service and amenities including clean bathrooms and WiFi. But unless I am checking a new store off my list, I would not go there for the coffee.
More on this hopped-up hobbyist at “Ultimate coffee fan spends 17 years visiting every Starbucks in the world.”
* Albert Camus (or not: while the phrase is attributed to Camus, uncited, in Barry Schwartz’s The Paradox of Choice, there’s no documentary evidence… still, it seems an apposite title for this post)
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As we try to remember which size “Venti” is, we might recall that it was on this date in 1865 that John Wesley Hyatt was awarded a patent on the first celluloid billiard ball. hyatt had developed the ball in response to a competition sponsored by billiard ball maker Phelan & Collander, who were offering a $10,000 reward for a suitable substitute for ivory, the growing shortage of which was threatening their business. Hyatt took the prize– and in the process, created and introduced to the world the first industrial plastic.
Because he could: steam-powered Sex Pistols…
Simon Jansen, the creator of asciimation and the inventor of (among other things) the world’s first Jet-powered Beer Cooler, has built a lovely steam-powered turntable. In the video above he demos his steam-punk player with “a punk LP. The Sex Pistols – God save the Queen (Victoria obviously).”
[TotH to Laughing Squid]
As we hear the words “come on baby, light my fire” in a fresh new way, we might recall that it was on this date in 1909 that Leo Baekeland received the first U.S. patents for a thermosetting artificial plastic which he called Bakelite (and which chemists called polyoxybenzylmethylenglycolanhydride)– the first pastic to hold its shape after heating– and gave birth to the modern plastics industry. Because of its heat-resistance and insulating capability, Bakelite was used in all sorts of electrical devices: insulators, telephones, radios… and phonographs.
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