AV Geeks at Hunt Library with Matthew Booker

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] one good evening everybody welcome to av geeks not at the hunt library I'm Trevor Thornton this is our 11th semester of the series partnering n CSU faculty with Raleigh's 80 geeks to discuss vintage educational and classroom films skip else I'm ur founder of AV geek is an NC State alumnus he spent the last few decades collecting mostly 16-millimeter educational training industrial films produced in the last century and sharing these films with the world he currently houses over 27,000 such films at the a/v geeks archive here in Raleigh and shares them as stock footage for films and exhibits as research material and during public events such as this tonight's theme is plastics we're very excited to welcome our guest dr. Matthew Booker dr. Booker is an environmental and agricultural historian at North Carolina State University where he directs the science technology and society major his most recent book co-edit with Chad Ludington is food fights how history matters to contemporary food debates he enjoys collaborating with artists engineers and scientists on the history of sourdough bread biological diversity in our kitchens and ways to adapt to climate change and now I'll hand it off to skip to kick us off and that I should say that disembodied voice was a trevor thornton with the hunt library i couldn't figure out a way to get the zoom to fit him and he didn't want to be on camera anyway so Thank You Trevor for that intro alright so Matthew I'm very excited you had some great ideas of some things to show and almost all of them led to the same thing which is films about plastics and so you would basically you said very quickly how did you want to layout the [ __ ] that tonight's show you said the utopian of plastics and then and then the dystopia because the way that you chronologically it works and the way that you have suggested the film run and the way they follow one another I think tracks this the shift in American ideas about plastics from you know the magic possibilities the imagined futures of abundance in the coin copia of good stuff followed by a decline in the way we perceive this ubiquitous material which we can't seem to live without and we also can't seem to live with right right so this first film that we're gonna watch was made in 1945 it's called the kingdom of plastics and I can't think of a more utopian view of plastics than an actual kingdom so let's watch this [Music] well sure hey Rob I had to I'll bet I can guess what you're getting ready to do just do me one guess you're getting ready to play blind man's bluff you're gonna be the one that does the guessing okay okay there you are [Music] there we go are you real sure you can't see anything not to me all right now start kissing heavy heavy hangs over thy head go on yes does it long the animal kingdom the vegetable kingdom the mineral [Music] has to be one of them there is there only three kingdoms Animal Vegetable mineral let me see boy Arthur Stinson that is - a mineral well an 8-iron or tenor or anything like glass isn't it not eight anyway it is - a mineral Danny doesn't it belong to the mineral kingdom my daddy knows he's an engineer now let's see Animal Vegetable mineral I hadn't thought of that before maybe this little bit more belongs to a kingdom all of its own the fourth kingdom the kingdom of plastics plastics are not new materials they're as old as grandfathers handlebar moustache remember the high celluloid collars he used to wear well they were plastic the beauty of them being that they never had to be sent to the laundry but even though celluloid could be cleaned with a moist handkerchief granddad soon found out that it was a pain in the neck and dangerous many modern plastics however are fire resistant one of the numerous improvements science is made in plastic articles Plastics come from many different raw materials some of the materials are natural elements like water and air some are growing things like corn and potatoes others are minerals such as oil coal and limestone from these various raw materials chemists derive many different chemicals which when combined properly will form plastics now suppose you could look inside one of these chemicals you would find that like everything else it is made up of billions of tiny particles called molecules molecules are so small that even with the help of the most powerful microscope we cannot see them but let's suppose they looked like combinations of those building blocks with which every child is so familiar by joining blocks together in different combinations we have different kinds of molecules each combination forming a pattern which is characteristic of a different material water for example has one pattern salt another and so on when scientists start to make a plastic they select those chemicals that have the patterns they need and mix them now when two different molecules come together in the right way a very interesting thing happens some pieces are attracted to others more than to the ones to which they're attached so they separate join the ones that attract them and move off to follow their own devices those that are left get together to this may keep on until there are a whole lot of them linked together like a chain millions of these chains are formed in the chemical mixture and because the molecules are different from the ones with which the plastic chemists started a new material is born the new material actually looks like this it's called a resin and in each particle of it there are millions of those tiny new molecules in making a plastic article a resin is heated and molded in something like a waffle iron after pressing and heating in the mold the resin is allowed to cool of course if a waffle iron were used you'd get a plastic waffle if the waffle were made from a resin in which the molecules were linked together like a chain it could be softened again then put into another mold to make it into another shape and there you are a different shaped waffle from the same material but scientists discovered something else if they used a type of resin in which chains of molecules became linked with one another like this they got a different kind of plastic with more and more heat more and more links appeared between the chains these activist braces or tie rods making the chains rigid and inseparable you can't soften and remould anything made from this kind of resin once it is set it is set for good this is called a thermosetting plastic like your telephone receiver or an ashtray for example heat won't affect it frequently in making plastic articles a material called a filler is mixed with the resin this filler may be chopped rags walnut shells or one of many things the filler makes the molded product much stronger the desired qualities of the product of course determine the kind of resin that should be used from the resin in which the molecules are in separate chains a number of beautiful and useful things are made some bright with color some crystal clear and from the resin in which the chains of molecules are rigidly linked together come those articles which need greater strength and are likely to be subjected to heat pressed between sheets of paper cloth or wood this type of plastic makes the gears that turn the wheels in factories and in automobiles or such household articles as cigarette proof tabletops it was indeed lucky for us that the men of plastics had labored so long and well for suddenly we found ourselves at war faced with a critical metal shortage and unprecedented production demands armament manufacturers immediately turned to plastics for assistance and the kingdom of plastics responded with remarkable speed and ingenuity pressed in new molds plastics took on countless new shapes and sizes providing a wide variety of essential parts for every type of military equipment on a 75 millimeter gun there are a number of plastic part dozens are used in a modern tank several hundred to fly in some of our fighting eagles thousands of plastic pieces of equipment to sail and each ship of the line equipment ranging from mortar fuses to ship telephones from antenna housings to switch gear produced with greater speed and economy but bringing new strength and efficiency to almost every allied weapon but out of the flames of battle the promise of a new day plastics take their rightful place in a world at peace a world dedicated to a richer fuller life for all in transportation plastics play a role of ever increasing importance blending their unique qualities to body construction and more and more of the mechanical parts certainly there will be more lightweight accessories more handsome trim and interior refinements in tomorrow's cars trains and planes the future will bring plastic fabrics wondrously fine yet resistant to wear wrinkles and stains even the hazards of washing shoes more glamorous than Cinderella's but that's not all there will be furniture combining strength with lightness comfort with eye appeal homes throughout will be bright with color economically but beautifully appointed with many contributions of the kingdom of plastics designed for practical gracious living yes this is a dream of the future yet out of such dreams has come all that we call progress so in the years ahead dreams like this and many more will become realities [Music] all right we're back Wow Matthew what can you tell me about this film you know this is such a fabulous so much good stuff in here right as with all of your films give one thing that jumps out to me is the year 1945 it's a key moment actually in the in the story of plastics because as the film alludes to world war ii is transformative as it is in so many aspects of American life American culture American material culture World War two pushes the American plastics industry to innovate in all sorts of ways and to come up with new products and there's this kind of cornucopia element to this film right you get this Kingdom with plastics emerging some of its wartime stuff you wrap guns in plastic film instead of greasing them up grease gets hard at high altitudes plastics don't so you have all these new uses that plastics take on during the warriors and then the plastics industry really hopes to transform the home the American home is this film you know sort of thumps us in the head with it's going to make it beautiful and colorful and it's going to replace of course other materials that's the implicit piece here right we're going to replace cotton and we're going to replace silk and we're going to replace leather all sorts of things can go wood we can send those things away those old texts and bring in the kingdom of plastics there's one line that I absolutely love it's the last line in the film written read and this fabulous voice actually wrote it down here yes this is a dream of the future yet out of such dreams has come all that we call progress so in the years ahead dreams like this and many more will become realities that's it right that's a plastic utopianism of 1945 nice yeah I mean from a foam collector standpoint and someone who knows about the history of actual motion picture film there was a transition plastic was originally made the base was actually made from cellulose it was a nitrates emulous which was beautiful and clear but it was also incredibly flammable and then they transitioned over into acetate and now they're actually using polyester so there was this this transition that the plastic wasn't always petroleum it is actually some other things and you were telling me a little bit about the history of the different what plastic was made out of different times right I think you know it's so it's so interesting right that the the very medium we are using that your films themselves are are one of the car the kingdom of plastics oh yeah and as you point out it's the it's the evolution as well right it's that plastics evolve over time increasingly moving towards synthetic materials and towards petroleum-based materials fortunately there are plastics historians out there you know you cannot keep a good historian down and Jeffrey Michael who wrote American plastic a cultural history in 1995 was news --fill to me in doing some research and that's one of the points that he makes this evolution in in in celluloid and in the use of increasingly sophisticated and synthetic forms of plastic for the film industry which is to me one of the great industries of the 20th century right and it's closely connected to the story of plastic excellent I have to apologize to people who are watching this so zoom occasionally flickers and flashes and I've been trying to figure out a way to squelch it without losing us but let me go ahead and set up the next the next film it is actually a series of TV commercials and these are commercials that were meant to get the housewife to use plastic to cover food and much of the plastic the first two commercials or plastic that is meant to be used once and thrown away and then the other ones are Tupperware which you probably all know about so here are some TV commercials from season 70s with various plastic food covering things I got you eight heads and e-wrap handles easier cleans better I had a big lunch hon I think I'll skip dinner wraps tighter brought you something good to eat do live lobster keeps food fresher priced right to handi-wrap when you're wrapping for keeps for the juiciest roasts and poultry or yummy chops there are lots of good fortune I can see through [Music] starting now you'll roast the juiciest most flavorful meats in the sea through roasting wrap reveal with sureseal strips wrapping seeds will reveal and you can keep an eye on things from start to finish watch reveals unique sureseal strips rock in the flavorful juices all the while it's roasting the meat is continuously basting inside the wrap deliciously browning right through the wrap while your oven stays clean as a whistle and your roast gets done to mouth-watering perfection large small any size at all but what you I can see through reveal and take out something you love what you my can see through review and [Music] it's Tupperware's 10th birthday and you're getting the present this is it if you go to a Tupperware party between now and May 6th as one of the first 12 guests you'll receive a lovely costume pin by Ville up day or as a hostess a beautiful beloved the regular hostess gift call your Tupperware dealer or find Tupperware in the yellow pages under housewares or plastics or right Tupperware Orlando Florida so you can help celebrate our birthday by accepting a lovely gift this is Tupperware the airtight plastic containers that keep good Foods fresher longer here's how put in the food put on the patented Tupperware seal then press down the center of the seal and lift a little at one side hear that whispered that's Tupperware's airtight promise to keep foods flavor fresh Tupperware comes in all shapes all sizes you can freeze it stack it any which way it won't leave your spill Tupperware keeps aroma and flavor locked in and because you can see what's inside no more forgotten leftovers just good fresh plan overs the one way to buy Tupperware is a fun way at a Tupperware home party where you can see it demonstrated and order the Tupperware you need in fresh Sun sea and sky colors to find out about Tupperware parties look in the yellow pages under housewares or plastics or write to Tupperware Orlando Florida stay tuned because later on will show you a beautiful gift that can be yours if you go to or have a Tupperware party between now and May 6 now let's go to a little town in New Jersey where things are really popping yes there's a party going on at mrs. Betty Martin's house it's a tougher web party and it's really fun the girls get together and meet their old friends and make some new ones then there's a demonstration by one of the Tupperware dealers who lives in your community watch her show the way to use Tupperware's patented feat see you put the seal on tight then press down the center and lift the seal a bit at one side here that that's Tupperware's airtight promise to lock in flavor and lock out air so solids keep there and gelatin desserts keep there since Tupperware cats Spiller leak you can store it any which way in your freezer or refrigerator plan to have or attend the Tupperware party soon just look in the yellow pages under housewares or plastics for your nearest Tupperware distributor or right Tupperware Orlando Florida every hostess receives a valuable gift from Tupperware and between now and May 6th both hostess and guests can receive an extra-special gift we unwrap the package later on so stay tuned all right some plastic wrap some odd oven ramp and then Tupperware everybody loves Tupperware these these are fabulous these advertisements skip I was just saying over to you over the over our channel that they're they're totally unexcited not a tool for sewing in in the 1960s or 70s apparently but they do remind they remind me of something that my former student gave really pointed out to me in a paper he wrote about plastics here didn't see States some years ago he pointed out that the plastics industry after World War two wants to explode right it wants to expand its its its sales into this plot this huge potential consumer market those those housewives that we have been seeing these errands but the problem they have is that plastics are associated in the American mind with durability that plastics are bakelite in particular is the kind of dominant plastic that people know it's been around since 1909 you make you know radios out of it those radios that are all the size of a half a room and that's what plastic is for it's durable it doesn't break it doesn't rust it doesn't corrode you keep it forever so how do you get people to throw stuff away and the head of the standard packaging company Carl Chandler in 1958 in Time magazine describes what they have to do how they have to convince consumers to buy things like plastic wrap which are garbage from the moment they're made right they're designed to being used once um he says he said in Time magazine everything that we make is thrown away immediately this was like a good thing so how do you convince people to move from plastic as a better version of metal or wood to plastic is something that goes directly into the trash and that's a positive good it wasn't easy you actually have to make advertisements advertisements like this I thought that was one of the most interesting thing things about this you know there's a reason why these companies have to push people to buy products that now I think are ubiquitous I know it's you have to make an effort not to use plastic film right in American kitchens ring or plastic forks or plastic straws or plastic bags or plastic the default yeah right and especially now in the time of COBIT like plastic is having a moment right now it's just cluttering up you know it's it's it's doing its thing it's disposability is the point it's like it's that's the utopianism of this moment but move from durability to massive abundance of various products all of which are intended to be tossed I understand I thought that was interesting that people have to be convinced though and so they team up with House Beautiful magazine of the plastics industry really has to make an effort it's a cool story yeah there's some I was mentioning to you while we were watching the commercials that a lot of films I have in dealing with garbage like household garbage there is no like hefty trash bag there it's basically you wrap things up in newspaper or you you know you have a dustbin and then that goes in there's no trash bag that and that's the thing that that came into being in my lifetime like I remember us you know wrapping trash and then it's like oh there's this magical new thing that GLAAD has made that allows us to put things in a plastic bag that we purchased and throw immediately throw away right it's born to die and and the big Escape is it's really great you put that in the frame of a human lifetime of you or human lifetime because if you think to 19:45 if you're a person in middle age let's say if you were born early in the century or just before in the late 19th century you know you grew up in a moment when garbage was actually a positive it was a it was a it was a valued commodity depending on what the item was a lot of food scraps were being fed to animals even within cities cities were just kind of ending the organic city phase in which there was animals with pigs would be in the street eating that stuff horse manure which was the great motive technology of 19th century cities people paid paid to come get your your poop from your house from your sister from your your-your-your nightsoil as they called it we don't sell that to farmers right so all that stuff that just goes away like that's the great glory of the 20th century is invention of away right your plastic bag your poop where does it go it goes away and that is that's the only way we can possibly make it right this is just a heaven way nice nice it's all right so this this next film is was made in the 70s let me see what year was it it was 1973 there's no narration to it and and I like this because it is a filmmakers take on the versatility of plastic how plastics are used how plastics are plastic products are manufactured how it's used in art and then what is the end result and it has this amazing electronic soundtrack to it so this is plastics [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you [Music] all right Matthew so what do you think about that film what an amazing film you and I were just commenting on the the long list of industries that the filmmaker thanks at the end there which included Altadena dairies Capitol Records Dow Chemical orange Canon dump so you have this kind of wonderful series of I mean it's a again this is such a moment for us here in 1973 we see all of these assembly lines and the work force that's involved in producing plastics and ultimately that ending I think gets to the filmmakers maybe his subversive point right since this is an educational film for school kids that classic sir what's the classic line from from the cartoonist Walt Kelly for Earth Day in 1970 he said we have met the enemy and he is us you know here it is that the plastic dystopia that comes by the 1970s where plastics the the disposability of plastics which was their selling point in the 1950s is now the nightmare this dump filled with plastic materials which will never rot doesn't break down can't be reused and it's just covering the surface of the earth it's an extraordinary plastics dystopian ism they're right disillusionment so we have a couple of questions somebody asked if you have any do you do any work with plastics or 3d printing I do not although whenever I hear that I always think of the line mr. McGuire's line and a graduate from 1967 to Dustin Hoffman then come with me for a minute I want to talk to you just one word Ben plastics I've never asked anybody has ever done for plastics I think about my failure as an academically good it worked in plastics and somebody else asks are there any plastics that are made from materials that are beneficial or renewable or are we just doomed well you know one of the surprises for me actually this is an educational film experience for me because indeed into plastics I think I encountered my own ignorance this is the story of every academic of course but plastics began with materials that we would consider sustainable cellulose plant fibers and there are lots and lots and lots of plastics that are not synthetic or that are made from partially synthetic materials we even saw some examples actually in these films right here the filler might be made from paper or five natural fibers so yes and there is a vast world of chemical engineers including right here at NC State who work on on polymers on plastics which are not solely petroleum-based so my ignorance is I thought everything was made from petroleum not true actually um so somebody else asks are you know do we know of plastic formulas that harmlessly break down in the environment I don't but one of the nice things about being an NC State is someone at NC State says I'm gonna point you to the chemical engineers I'm just totally taking a cop out here it seems to me though that that that has got to be as it must have been now an important question for generations of engineers I mean engineering in some ways is the discipline of efficiency right that's its God is efficiency and what is a gospel of efficiency is what one historian refers to in the early 20th century conservation of the gospel of efficiency so that it's inefficient to be throwing away all this plastic and it I am certain that there are people working on plant materials as replacements for this stuff we've even seen some of them haven't we in our fast food products right I mean so this is interesting because this this came up in another stream that I did called the last time we were Green where I showed films that were made in the 70s about the environment and most of the films actually showed a visible or something you could smell something that the pollution was trash litter the pollution was smog and so the attempt to reduce litter was to make litter by Oh or photo degradable to where it would break down in the elements into tinier pieces likewise with smog the idea was to scrub out the particles that made smog and some of those harsh chemicals but carbon dioxide is still being released and methane is still being released you know these hidden things so it seems like we're in trouble now because of all of the tiny micro plastic particles that are collecting in fish and in other animals and then also the carbon dioxide is you know causing us climate change issues you know it's kind of interesting it is and it's a great example of how the solutions to one set of problems then become problems in future setting that again I mean I think the great story of the 20th century at least maybe the thing I'm obsessed with is this story of a way you know you want things to go away in 1975 that might mean that might mean make it make the smog invisible right not stop killing us with elements of the materials in that smog but make it so we can't see it or remove only the heavy particles that we know Lodge and lungs without dealing with the what turned out to be just as big a problem the problem of carbon dioxide from the missions a way is that imagined always this imagined future we can send we will get rid of this stuff it will go somewhere else where it's not a problem and you know in some ways the story of the 21st century and of environmentalism the discovery of toxins the discovery of carbon dioxide and its warming effect the greenhouse gases is that there is no away no downstream and plastics are such a great kind of metaphor for that excellent so one of the things that Matthew asked me to find initially that before we came up with this idea was he wanted to know if I had a promotional films for dumping garbage in the ocean and I basically I didn't but I also then kind of followed up with this idea that will you didn't really have to promote it because that's at what everybody was doing was just basically dumping trash in the ocean because it was easy cheap free yeah and this this and the you know I think I mentioned to you earlier that there's this wonderful book called the sea will wash away all evils and that the ocean is the ultimate sink right it's the place it's the perfect spot for whatever nasty you've got it used to be that you could dilute it that dilution was the solution of pollution the ocean is big enough to dent whatever then you can throw your nuclear waste in there or your your your leftovers after you sort out that the poop from from the liquid that New York was dumping solids from its sewage treatment plants until fairly recently I'm sure and before that it was dumping garbage including plastics from open scows into the ocean you just basically get over the horizon and then you're good yeah it is interesting that you can't find anything that a that actually sells the public on how good it is we dump in the ocean because you don't need idea yeah tragic well you may remember this since we seem to be a little older than you maybe but not too much but once upon a time there was a fantasy that we were gonna ship our toxins particularly the worst stuff like spent fuel rods uranium fuel rods from nuclear energy production we're gonna ship all that stuff into outer space yes or into the least into orbit right and there were a bunch of problems with that somewhat which may have occurred to you already in the last milliseconds right especially when you know about exploding rockets yes but then stuff falling out of orbit running into stuff in orbit luckily that doesn't seem to have cat have captured the minds of people like Elon Musk but that was a happenin idea in the 1970s the ultimate away yeah yes so we had you kind of go from what you're normally talking about to talk about plastics but tell me more about what you have been writing about what you're working on project wise well I've just finished this book with UNC pres with my dear Chadd letting tonneaus of food studies a good scholar a cultural historian here at NC State it's called food fights and it's a series of debates about things we argue about in food today and how history matters to each of those debates is a home-cooked meal the best possible thing ever or is it a form of oppression for those who have to do the cooking our GMO is a good thing or a bad thing is industrial agriculture truly American or an American those kinds of debates who should be responsible for food safety so that was a fun fun project and allowed me to work with lots of authors right now I'm working on a paper on with a friend who is a scholar of Japan and it's about how the Japanese Oster became American I have a thing for oysters we can talk about that another day skip maybe we can do oyster films alright I got I got a bunch of oyster films it's mostly not people eating them it's mostly people harvesting them I'm too bad it was keep trying man alright well thank you so much Matthew I'm gonna look and see if anybody else has questions for him let's see thanks so much for for hanging out and joining us and and talking about plastics Trevor are you there em hi thank you skip Thank You Matthew and thank you for everybody joining us tonight this is the third of these events that we've done virtually since the library has been closed and we've all been working from home and we have I think three more scheduled for May and June the next one is coming up on May 29th on this topic of sex education with Matthew Champaign professor of public history at NC State if you're interested in the sorts of films you've seen today you can check out a big XCOM the a/v geeks channel on youtube or on archive.org this is the time when I would normally say that we have over 280 geeks compilations available at the library for you to check out we still have them at the library but of course you check them out right now but when we do open again I hope you will remember and check them out so thank you again have a good evening and we'll see you in two weeks for some sex education Thanks all right thanks so much thanks a lot