Reference Materials
name: label: Collection Creator
content: Baekeland, L. H. (Leo Hendrik), 1863-1944
setName: label: See more items in
content: Leo H. Baekeland Papers
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1863-1968 and undated
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives Center, National Museum of American History
identifier: label: Identifier
content: NMAH.AC.0005, Series 1
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: This series is divided into three subseries: Subseries 1.1: Biographical, 1880-1965; Subseries 1.2: Bakelite Company, 1910-1961; and Subseries 1.3: Related Interests, 1863-1968 and undated. The materials are generally arranged in chronological order.

Subseries 1.1: Biographical, 1880-1965, contains materials about Baekeland were written both while he was alive and after his death.  Most of them were published in magazines, newspapers, and biographical dictionaries.  Included are also identification materials such as a passport, visas, and naturalization papers.  There is a photocopy of the 1968 biographical Master's thesis on Baekeland by Carl Kaufmann, and materials related to his research.  Kaufmann was married to Baekeland's daughter Nina's stepdaughter.  He gained access to many of Baekeland's papers before they were donated to the museum, and he located his diaries and notebooks through Baekeland's secretary Gertrude Gould.  Most of the materials are in English, but there are also biographies in French, Flemish, German, and Japanese.

Subseries 1.2: Baekeland Company, 1910-1961, includes some advertising material from Bakelite, histories of the Bakelite and the Bakelite Company, and histories of the European Bakelite companies, Bakelite Limited and Bakelite Gesellschaft.

Subseries 1.3: Related Interests, 1863-1968 and undated, contains mostly materials that Baekeland collected, with particular emphasis on plastics, chemistry, and photography. (The materials that date from after Baekeland's death were presumably gathered by his son George, and/or by biographer Carl Kaufmann while researching.) There are also newspaper clippings on various topics, legal materials, blueprint drawings of his Florida property "The Anchorage," and magazines in which Celine Baekeland published her artwork.  These materials support topics covered in the correspondence series.