Leo "Doc" Baekeland: Father of Plastic (Titans of Fortune)

Ben Franklin's Autobiography had a profound influence on Leo Baekeland, the son of an illiterate Belgian shoemaker. At his mother's urging Baekeland became an outstanding student and received his doctorate degree in science. He pursued his dreams of a Franklin-like career and success in America, a nation he whole-heartedly adopted as his home. He attained wealth and independence by age 35 after selling his invention, a superior photographic paper, and his company, to George Eastman of Eastman Kodak. Unaffected by his newly-discovered affluence, Baekeland went back to the laboratory and invented the world's first completely synthetic material, a plastic he called Bakelite. Placing him on its cover, Time magazine reported: “From the time that a man brushes his teeth in the morning with a Bakelite-handled brush until the moment when he . . . falls back upon a Bakelite bed, all that he touches, sees, uses will be made of this material of a thousand purposes.” Doc Baekeland biographical profile is the story of an immigrant's success in America and the impact that success had on the nation and the globe. [1,343-word Titans of Fortune article]