Reggie Blaszczyk, University of Pennsylvania
Society for Industrial Archeology, Oliver Evans Chapter
Time: 5:30pm Wine & Cheese, 6:30 Program
Location: Fairmount Water Works Interpretive Center
Questions: Call Mary Anne Eves at 610-566-2342
$5 per person suggested contribution.
Award-winning historian and author Regina Lee Blaszczyk explores the history of innovation at Philadelphia’s Rohm and Haas Company (now part of Dow Chemical) during its first 100 years with reference to one of its most important products: Plexiglas acrylic plastic. Developed in Germany during the 1920s, Plexiglas helped transform aviation during World War II and revolutionized the look of roadside advertising in postwar America. Suburbanization went hand in hand with new forms of roadside architecture and drive-by advertisements made from Plexiglas. Drawing on her expertise in the history of business and the history of design, Reggie shows how the Rohm and Haas tradition of collaboration with the customer helped expand the Plexiglas market from the 1930s through the 1960s.
Reggie Blaszczyk is The Fellow in the History of Consumption at the German Historical Institute in Washington, DC, and a Visiting Scholar in the Department of the History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author or editor of seven books, including Rohm and Haas: A Century of Innovation (Penn Press, 2009), which she wrote for the company’s 100th anniversary. Learn more about her work at www.imaginingconsumers.com