Parkes, Hyatt and the Elephants

In the 1870s the demand for ivory, which was harvested from the trunks of a rapidly dwindling supply of hapless elephants, was high and increasing. Ivory was a favorite of the rich and famous, who used it for items such as jewelry, piano keys, billiard balls, etc., and there was a desperate need to find new materials for some of these applications. Alexander Parkes, a prolific English inventor, and John Wesley Hyatt, a great American 

Pyroxyline (moistened with naphtha) 100 parts Nitrobenzoie (or aniline or camphor) 10-50 parts Vegetable oil 150-200 parts 

Hyatt and his brother were awarded a patent for the preparation and molding of a plastic material that was based upon a mixture of cellulose nitrate, , . .. 

Readers interested in more details of the history of Celluloid are referred to the superb monograph by M. Kaufman, The First Century of Plastics, published by the Plastics Institute, London, 1963. 

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