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Plastics: Mapping the Childhood of Modernity’s Worst Material

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dc.contributor.advisorAnderson, Katharine
dc.contributor.authorCope, Angela A.
dc.date.accessioned2022-09-14T20:17:41Z
dc.date.available2022-09-14T20:17:41Z
dc.date.copyright2022-01-21
dc.date.issued2022-08-08
dc.date.updated2022-09-14T20:17:39Z
dc.degree.disciplineScience & Technology Studies
dc.degree.levelDoctoral
dc.degree.namePhD - Doctor of Philosophy
dc.description.abstractThis dissertation, “Plastics: Mapping the Childhood of Modernity’s Worst Material,” traces plastic’s fall from grace, from its utopian interwar beginnings to the proliferative and detrital form it takes today. It seeks to answer the question of why certain plastics are regarded as disposable and finds the answer in part in children’s toys. Children’s toys are a vital manifestation to understand plastics as fit for disposal. Starting with a historical background in early plastics to set the stage for its later deterioration, it then takes three key thermoplastics – polystyrene, polyethylene, and polyvinyl chloride – and their key material interlocutors – pez dispensers, hula hoops, and pool toys – and demonstrates how the growth of the toy industry was intimately intertwined with changing ideals of consumption, obsolescence, and discard with respect to plastics. The pairing of polystyrene with foodstuffs is the subject of the second chapter, focusing on the intimate and intertwined relationship between toy and packaging. The role of the hula hoop in changing ideals of hygiene, and in the rise of the use of synthetic detergents, is the subject of the third chapter. Finally, the fourth chapter regards the role of polyvinyl chloride pool toys in teaching postwar children that plastic is a fundamentally ephemeral material, while indelibly associating it with childhood. This association meant that ultimately the material was infantilized, and one of the things that one discards when they “put away childish things.”
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10315/39703
dc.languageen
dc.rightsAuthor owns copyright, except where explicitly noted. Please contact the author directly with licensing requests.
dc.subjectHistory of science
dc.subjectPlastics
dc.subjectSustainability
dc.subject.keywordsPlastics
dc.subject.keywordsMaterial culture
dc.subject.keywordsDomestic material culture
dc.subject.keywordsDiscard studies
dc.subject.keywordsHistory of technology
dc.subject.keywords20th century history
dc.subject.keywordsPostwar history
dc.subject.keywordsSecond wave environmentalism
dc.subject.keywordsToys
dc.subject.keywordsInfantilization
dc.subject.keywordsPlastics manufacturing
dc.subject.keywordsPlastics history
dc.subject.keywordsPackaging
dc.subject.keywordsPackaging history
dc.subject.keywordsPlaythings
dc.subject.keywordsDisposability
dc.subject.keywordsPools
dc.subject.keywordsVinyl inflatables
dc.subject.keywordsPolyvinyl chloride
dc.subject.keywordsPolystyrene
dc.subject.keywordsPolyethylene
dc.subject.keywordsHDPE
dc.subject.keywordsLDPE
dc.subject.keywordsPVC
dc.subject.keywordsPS
dc.subject.keywordsKoroseal
dc.subject.keywordsStyron
dc.subject.keywordsVinylite
dc.subject.keywordsPolythene
dc.subject.keywordsReuse
dc.subject.keywordsRubber reserve
dc.subject.keywordsGR-S
dc.subject.keywordsBuna
dc.subject.keywordsZiegler
dc.subject.keywordsSurfing
dc.subject.keywordsAuthenticity
dc.subject.keywordsThe Graduate
dc.subject.keywordsPolyurethane
dc.subject.keywordsPremiums
dc.subject.keywordsPostwar
dc.subject.keywordsInterwar
dc.subject.keywordsDow Chemical
dc.subject.keywordsBF Goodrich
dc.subject.keywordsBakelite
dc.subject.keywordsBaekeland
dc.subject.keywordsBakelite Review
dc.subject.keywordsModern Plastics
dc.subject.keywordsRubbish Theory
dc.subject.keywordsAccumulation
dc.subject.keywordsPolymers
dc.subject.keywordsPlastic architecture
dc.subject.keywordsMonsanto House of the Future
dc.titlePlastics: Mapping the Childhood of Modernity’s Worst Material
dc.typeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation

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