From July 10, 1945, here’s an advertisement by General Electric promoting and introducing “PLASTICS”.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

The advertisement, divided into six sections – each with an emblematic illustration – describes the use of plastic in three contexts:\u00a0 Military: The M-51 fuse; The home: kitchen utensils; Industry and machinery: gears; The military once again: the triple-cluster aerial bazooka as used by USAAF P-47s and P-51s, and, binoculars.\u00a0 The ad then concludes with a section about the design and development of plastic.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Though the first genuinely synthetic polymer had existed for some time (Bakelite, created by Leo Bakeland in 1907), only by the 40s and 50s did mass production of plastic actually commence.
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The war was winding down, victory was obvious, and GE was thinking of the future.<\/span><\/p>\n

The full text is presented below…\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a>26,000,000 fuses.\u00a0<\/strong> At the tip of this trench mortar is the M-51 fuse \u2013 most difficult mass production job ever done in plastics.\u00a0 Sixty-seven different operations check its perfection.\u00a0 Design was completed and mold started by G.E. the day before Pearl Harbor.\u00a0 Why was General Electric picked for this job?<\/span><\/p>\n

You\u2019ll find the right answer in your own kitchen.\u00a0<\/strong> The handle on your coffee maker, the case on the kitchen clock, the light switch on the wall \u2013 chances are these are G-E plastics.\u00a0 For General Electric has molded more plastic products than anybody else.\u00a0 And some you\u2019d never guess.\u00a0 For example\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

Cloth that wears like steel.<\/strong>\u00a0 Steel against steel is noisy.\u00a0 Wears fast.\u00a0 Imagine, then, a gear made of cloth \u2013 packed in layers, impregnated with resin, pressed under heat.\u00a0 Oddly enough, G-E engineers who discovered this found that for certain uses such gears were not only quieter, but actually outwore steel.<\/span><\/p>\n

Would plastic bazookas blow up?<\/strong>\u00a0 The first hundred plastics tried failed.\u00a0 Then G.E. laminated a rare paper with a special resin.\u00a0 The plastic tube stood the shock of repeated firings, was non-inflammable.\u00a0 Now many planes carry these rocket launchers.\u00a0 G.E.\u2019s 1400 presses turn out everything from electronic equipment housings to submarine parts.<\/span><\/p>\n

Salt-water-proof binoculars are new.\u00a0<\/strong> And won\u2019t mildew in the tropics.\u00a0 General Electric worked these out with the U.S. Naval Observatory and specialists in optics.\u00a0 Plastics were combined with metal, and, to make shrinkage the same, a new metal alloy was developed.\u00a0 The lenses are universal focus, specially treated for night vision.<\/span><\/p>\n

How do plastics get born?\u00a0<\/strong> Designers say what shape, how heavy or light, soft or hard.\u00a0 Engineers design special machinery.\u00a0 Chemists then invent the plastic to fit the need.\u00a0 Finally, a factory can go to work.\u00a0 In war or peace, General Electric research and engineering count in plastics, too.\u00a0 General Electric Company, Schenectady, New York.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hear the G-E radio programs:\u00a0 The G-E All-girl Orchestra, Sunday 10 p.m. EWT, NBC – The World News, Monday through Friday 6:45 p.m. EWT, CBS \u2013 the G-E House Party, Monday through Friday, 4 p.m. EWT, CBS.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Reference<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Thompson, Richard C., Swan, Shanna H., Moore, Charles J., and vom Saal, Frederick S., Our Plastic Age<\/a>, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, B<\/em>, V 364, July 27, 2009.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From July 10, 1945, here’s an advertisement by General Electric promoting and introducing “PLASTICS”.\u00a0\u00a0 The advertisement, divided into six sections – each with an emblematic illustration – describes the use of plastic in three contexts:\u00a0 Military: The M-51 fuse; The home: kitchen utensils; Industry and machinery: gears; The military once again: the triple-cluster aerial bazooka … Continue reading The Age of Advertising: General Electric and Plastic – July 10, 1945<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7,2],"tags":[270,282],"class_list":["post-1724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advertising","category-sociology","category-technology","tag-general-electric","tag-plastic-industry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thepastpresented.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thepastpresented.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thepastpresented.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thepastpresented.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thepastpresented.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1724"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/thepastpresented.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2043,"href":"http:\/\/thepastpresented.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1724\/revisions\/2043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thepastpresented.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thepastpresented.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thepastpresented.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}