Pure and Impure Paints: The Story of an ‘Ontological Shift’ of Materials in the Progressive Era

Time: 12:00 - 1:00 p.m.

Place: 6th Floor Conference Room, Chemical Heritage Foundation

Information: 215-873-8289 or bbl@chemheritage.org

Chemists played a major role in the enactment and enforcement of the Pure Food and Drugs Act (1906), federal legislation that prevented food and medicine adulteration and thus fostered consumer protection. This act stands as a landmark in the Progressive Era.

Just as American consumers demanded pure food, however, so too “pure” paints and varnishes were at first valued by master painters, retailers, and chemists, until chemists realized that, as far as these materials were concerned, purity is not necessarily a criterion for quality. Compared with the Pure Food and Drugs Act, the paint-labeling laws of the 1900s and the concomitant new regulation of paints have received far less attention by historians of chemistry. True enough, the health and safety stakes of paints were at that time far less important than those of food and drugs (the prevention of lead-paint poisoning and plumbism in the United States would not be seriously pursued before the 1960s). Yet the evolution of paint chemistry and technology during the Progressive Era seems a promising field for historians of chemistry and the social history of science in general, for these materials raise distinct issues compared with food and drugs.

This talk argues that paint chemistry underwent tremendous changes at the turn of the century and particularly as a result of the paint-labeling laws. I use the recently forged concept of “ontology of material” and try to show its relevance to understand the history of paint materials in the Progressive Era.

Augustin Cerveaux is a postdoctoral fellow at CHF. He received his Ph.D. in history of science from the University of Strasbourg (France) in 2009. His dissertation is entitled “‘From an art to a science’: Chimie colloïdale, pigments et recherche ‘fondamentale’ chez Du Pont de Nemours (1900–1945).” While his dissertation dealt with colloid chemistry and its industrial application during the interwar period, his research at CHF focuses on the history of paints and varnishes from the Progressive Era to the Great Depression. He is also a former Ullyot Fellow at CHF and a former visiting scholar at the Hagley Museum and Library in Wilmington, Delaware.