Synthetics | Science History Institute

Synthetics

Ad for colored stockings 1955

Ex Libris Universum: Museum Tour

Media Coverage

Man pulling on a white tube of polymer

Bob Gore’s Cozy Revolution

Distillations Article

$Robert W. Gore demonstrating the expansion of ePTFE, ca. 1982.$

Science History Institute Mourns Loss of Bob Gore

Press Release

Constructing Life

Distillations Article

Women wearing orange yoga pants and yellow sneakers

The Yoga Pant Problem

Distillations Podcast

A white rhinoceros in Lake Nakuru, Kenya.

Can Biotech Save the Rhino?

Distillations Article

Behind the Beaker

Research

Women in Chemistry

Women in Chemistry

Learn

Modern Books and Journals

Collections

Portrait of Leo Hendrik Baekeland, early 20th century. Photograph by Underwood & Underwood Studios, New York, NY. Williams Haynes Portrait Collection, the Institute Collections.

Leo Hendrik Baekeland

Historical Profile

Stephanie Kwolek at a polarizing microscope.

Stephanie L. Kwolek

Historical Profile

Henry Aaron Hill, ca. 1976–1977.

Henry Aaron Hill

Historical Profile

Photographs

Collections

Making a homunculus from an 1899 edition of Goethe's Faust

Man Made: A History of Synthetic Life

Distillations Article

Foster Grant Sunglasses Ad

Plastic Town

Distillations Article

Baseball

Turf Wars

Distillations Article

Bakelite: The First Synthetic Plastic

Distillations Video

The 17-jewel movement of a 1967 Omega Moon watch.

Making Gemstones

Distillations Article

Set of 19th-century Hyatt billiard balls

Celluloid: The Eternal Substitute

Distillations Article

George Yokomizo

Behind the Barbed Wire of Manzanar: Guayule and the Search for Natural Rubber

Distillations Article

Burning Rubber

Distillations Podcast

1950s IBM computer

The Dream in the Machine

Distillations Article

Museo Territoriale Bassa Friulana

A Future Woven in Rayon

Distillations Article

Rhoplex advertisement painting over graffiti

Do-It-Yourself Paints

Distillations Article

Winter Sports

Distillations Podcast

Things We Wear

Distillations Podcast

Not Counting Chemistry: How We Misread the History of 20th-Century Science and Technology

Distillations Article