Leo Baekeland

In 1978, he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

. Baekeland's great-grandson, Anthony Baekeland spent several years in a psychiatric hospital after murdering his mother, Barbara Daly Baekeland; ironically, he suffocated himself with a plastic bag in 1981.

. Baekeland is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York. He is also the uncle of Alexander Dallas Bache. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage in a sanatorium in Beacon, New York. Senator Claiborne Pell of Rhode Island.

He sold the General Bakelite Company to Union Carbide in 1939, at his son's prompting, retired, and eventually became a recluse, eating all of his meals from cans and becoming obsessed with developing an immense tropical garden on his Florida estate. Dallas and is the great-great-granduncle of U.S. As Baekeland got older, he became more eccentric, getting into fierce battles with his son (and presumptive heir) over salary and other issues. Treasury Secretary Alexander J. Baekeland appeared on the cover of TIME Magazine on September 22, 1924. Dallas was the son of U.S. Baekeland made Swinburne the chairman of the new Bakelite Limited, his British subsidiary. The city of Dallas, Texas and others are named in his honor.

Baekeland visited England in 1916 and met James Swinburne, who almost ten years earlier had coincidentally experimented with and created a material identical to Bakelite only to find that Baekeland had been awarded the patent the day before. Peter's Churchyard. Baekeland became a multimillionaire as a result of the explosion in the manufacture and use of Bakelite. He is interred in St. The official name of Bakelite was polyoxybenzylmethylenglycolanhydride. Dallas was appointed Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Britain by President Franklin Pierce from 1856 to 1861, when he returned to Philadelphia, and died there. By controlling the pressure and temperature applied to phenol and formaldehyde, he could produce his dreamed hard moldable plastic: bakelite. Polk and served from March 4, 1845 to March 3, 1849.

Then he turned to developing a binder for asbestos, which at that time was molded with rubber. He was elected Vice President of the United States on the Democratic ticket in 1844 with James K. He first produced a soluble phenol-formaldehyde shellac (called "Novolak" that never became a market success). He was appointed by President Martin Van Buren as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Russia from 1837 to 1839, when he was recalled at his own request. Baekeland began to investigate the reactions of phenol and formaldehyde. He was attorney general of Pennsylvania from 1833 to 1835. Chemists had begun to recognize that many of the natural resins and fibers were polymers. Dallas resumed the practice of law.

His first objective was to find a replacement for shellac (at that time made from the shells of lac beetles). He was chairman of the Committee on Naval Affairs. When asked why he entered the field of synthetic resins, Baekeland answered "to make money". Barnard and served from December 13, 1831 to March 3, 1833, when he declined to be a candidate for reelection. Soon it penetrated nearly all branches of industry. He was elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Isaac D. Radios, telephones and electrical insulators were made of Bakelite due to its properties of insulation and heat-resistance. Dallas was United States district attorney for the eastern district of Pennsylvania from 1829 to 1831.

Bakelite was the first plastic invented that held its shape after being heated. He was mayor of Philadelphia from October 21, 1828 to April 15, 1829. Bakelite took the industry by storm after 1907. He returned to Philadelphia and was appointed deputy attorney general in 1817. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry winning German Adolf von Baeyer had experimented with this material in 1872, but did not complete its development. He was solicitor of the Second Bank of the United States from 1816 to 1817. These can be mixed, heated, and then either molded or extruded. Dallas returned in 1814 and practiced law in New York City.

Bakelite was made from phenol (then known as carbolic acid) and formaldehyde. He was admitted to the bar in 1813, and served as private secretary to Albert Gallatin, Minister to Russia. The invention of Bakelite is considered the beginning of the Age of Plastics. Dallas was born in Philadelphia, and graduated from the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) in 1810. Baekeland sold his patent for Velox photographic paper to the president of Kodak, George Eastman, for $750,000. Polk. After completing his doctorate at the university of his native city, he emigrated to America in 1889, inspired by the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. Senator from Pennsylvania and the eleventh Vice President, serving under James K.

Born in Ghent, Belgium, Baekeland was the son of a cobbler and a maid. George Mifflin Dallas (July 10, 1792 – December 31, 1864) was a U.S. Leo Hendrik Baekeland (November 14, 1863 - February 23, 1944) was a Belgian-born American chemist who invented Velox photographic paper (1893) and Bakelite (1907), an inexpensive, nonflammable, versatile, and popular plastic.