System Mechanic - Clean, repair, protect, and speed up your PC!John Wesley Hyatt, Inventor
John Wesley Hyatt was born in the small hamlet of Starkey, on the west side of Seneca Lake in New York's Finger Lakes region in 1837. At the age of 16 he began work as a printer in Illinois and later in Albany in New York State. When billiard ball maker, Phelan & Collander offered a $10,000 reward for a suitable substitute for ivory, (the growing shortage of which was threatening their business), Hyatt spent several years in the search for such a material. It was called Celluloid.
Hyatt set up his own manufacturing company with his brothers, Charles and Isiah, which became the Albany Billiard Ball Company. Initially, composition balls were coated in a coloured layer of almost pure cellulose nitrate. In his experiments, Hyatt discovered the solvent action of camphor on cellulose nitrate under moderate heat and pressure, and this was the basis of his 1870 patent. In addition, he also developed the necessary machinery for working his new material. One of the first uses of the new plastics material was for making denture plates and Hyatt formed the Albany Dental Plate Company in 1870. In 1873 the company moved to larger premises in Newark, New Jersey. Hyatt also invented the Hyatt filter, a means of chemically purifying water while it is in motion; a widely used type of roller bearing; a sugarcane mill superior to any previously used; a sewing machine for making machine belting. He was awarded the Perkin Gold Medal in 1914. Hyatt was issued over two hundred patents, a remarkable total exceeded by few others including his fellow New Jersey inventor, Thomas Alva Edison. Hyatt received the Perkin medal in 1914. However, it is for his achievements as the first successful manufacturer of a plastic material that he is recognized today.
Hyatt died on May 10, 1920, died in Short Hills, New Jersey. His pioneering plastics business, the Celluloid Manufacturing Company, was acquired by the Celanese Corporation in 1927, later to become part of the Hoechst-Celanese Corporation. Hyatt, himself,
