Vinyl Raincoat
notes: label: Description
content: The embossed label on this man's plastic raincoat reads “M / Vinylite Plastic / Elasti-Glass / S. Buchsbaum & Co. / Chicago.” Samuel Buchsbaum was an Hungarian Jew who arrived in Chicago in the 1880s, set up shop as a jewelry manufacturer, and obtained several patents for decorative and technical devices. S. Buchsbaum & Co. began producing plastic items during World War II. Many of these were sold as Elasti-Glass, a term the firm trademarked in 1939, and that the Federal Trade Commission later found misleading as the material had no glass-like properties.
label: Description
content: Leonard Becker, “Vinyl Resin Composition and Articles of Manufacture Comprising Same,” U.S. Patent 2,310,889 (Feb. 9, 1943), assigned to S. Buchsbaum & Co.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Illinois, Chicago
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Chemistry
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Plastics Institute of America
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1981.0825.1
label: catalog number
content: 1981.0825.1
label: accession number
content: 1981.0825
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Raincoat
label: Object Name
content: Vinyl Raincoat
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 27 cm x 73 cm; 10 5/8 in x 28 3/4 in
label: Measurements
content: overall: 1 1/2 in x 14 1/2 in x 11 5/8 in; 3.81 cm x 36.83 cm x 29.5275 cm