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| Three distinct types of plastics represented by one 1950s Maxim handbag: Acrylic (possibly Lucite) clutch with rhinestones, clear vinyl coin purse and molded thermoplastic comb. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
While we believe that DuPont Lucite acrylic was more than likely the first type of acrylic used in handbags and purse hardware produced by US bag manufacturers, other acrylic brands were utilized because of price, accessibility, etc.—standard reasons for any company in any industry to acquire raw materials from alternate resources.
Nonetheless, it was apparent during our analysis of 1930s-1970s newspaper advertisements that "Lucite" became generic fairly early on. Some, like the ad directly below, are an obvious misuse of the word "Lucite," but others are harder to distinguish.
This 1954 advertisement uses the words "lucite plastic," even though the sketches show that the bags are made of clear vinyl and not DuPont Lucite acrylic.
We’ll share more about the generic use of Lucite, but the explanations we offer here likely will not affect what you see when you go online or to a vintage store to purchase a handbag. That is, sellers will continue to use “Lucite” (in upper- and lower-case) as a marketing term for their wares, and buyers will use it as a keyword when searching handbags. We do not wish to thwart anyone’s ability to successfully sell these items, nor would we discourage a collector’s desire to own a vintage plastic handbag. We offer the following information for educational purposes and to share some personal stories from the people who’ve graciously given insight into their families’ histories.
Please keep in mind that we had so much information to examine that we couldn't possibly share it all here. What you see is but a fraction of our research.
Plastics Definitions
We contacted a number of plastics scholars (many from academia, but also those who run informational websites) for basic ways a layperson can best determine a type of plastic. We received several referrals to additional experts to whom we also reached out, but no one has responded to our questions. While there are some recommended techniques online (such as the use of a household cleaner, hot water test, etc.), we were hoping an expert could tell us how to discern a type of plastic by sight and feel. We will post an update if we get an answer. However, the online consensus is that these tests are not always accurate, and you can get a false positive or negative due to dyes used in, and wax or polish used on, some plastics.
The following are definitions of plastics and additional facts that relate to these products. We at The Vintage Purse Museum are not plastics experts, so these definitions are relatively simple. There are more complex definitions online should you wish to have an in-depth explanation of chemical compositions.
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| Pair of 1950s molded plastic clutches with inset rhinestone detail. These are often mistakenly thought to be Lucite. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
Plastic: This is a general term for synthetic or semi-synthetic materials that use polymers, of which there are many types. Some commonly used synthetic polymers are polystyrene, rubber, resin and nylon. The Vintage Purse Museum often defaults to the word “plastic” when talking about handbags. Unless we have documentation or know with certainty the composition of an item, it’s difficult to tell exactly what type of plastic a purse or its hardware is made of.
Acrylic: The dictionary definition of acrylic is "a plastic, fabric, fiber or paint made from acrylic acid.” Acrylic acid is an organic compound used in the manufacture of plastics and paint. Lucite is a trade name for the DuPont company’s hard plastic acrylic and also a trade name for its paint.
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| Two plastic handbags in similar amber tones, one contemporary by Stella Page and one from the 1950s by Roum California. |
Celluloid: Invented in 1855 by metallurgist Alexander Parkes (1813-1890), celluloid is a flammable plastic made from camphor and nitrocellulose. It’s probably best known for its use in motion picture film, but was also used to make handbags, handbag frames, jewelry, toys, guitar picks and more. It is said that to test for celluloid (which The Vintage Purse Museum has not attempted), place it under hot water for a few seconds, then smell it. If it it has the odor of camphor it is likely celluloid.
Cellulose Acetate: Developed in 1865 by French chemist Paul Shutzenberger (1829-1897), then refined by American chemist George W. Miles in 1904, cellulose acetate differs from celluloid in that it doesn't contain camphor, the material that makes celluloid flammable. Acetate is a salt used in conjunction with other materials to make cosmetics, cleaning products and textiles. Cellulose is a bio-substance made from plants or wood pulp. Cellulose acetate is a bio-plastic often used in fabrics to make them wrinkle-free. In handbag manufacture, as well as items of similar composition, such as eyeglasses, this product is often called "cellulosic thermoplastic," which means it can be molded using heat.
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| Small-size lightweight metal filigree 1950s bag with molded thermoplastic top, handle and clear "bubble" window over plastic flower decoration. These mini purses for girls were meant to match "mother's handbag." The tops, handles and window are often mistakenly thought to be Lucite. |
Vinyl: This is a plastic made from ethylene and chlorine. It often mimics the look and feel of genuine leather. When acrylic and similar box-style bags began going out of fashion by the late 1950s, many handbag manufacturers began making bags out of vinyl or clear vinyl-covered fabric. Some would continue to use acrylic in handbag hardware, including frames, handles and closures. (Note: Patent leather, which some vinyls resemble, is genuine leather that is coated with a thin layer of lacquer, plastic or synthetic resin.)
There are many more types of plastics, but as we already mentioned, we're trying to keep this simple, as well as focus mainly on the types of plastics used in handbags and handbag hardware.
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| Example of a white vinyl bag with clear vinyl atop a needlepoint and beaded decoration, and a frame, clasp and handle of "pearl" acrylic. This type of bag became popular after acrylic box bags went out of fashion in the late 1950s, with some companies continuing to utilize acrylics this way. This style seems to have only lasted a few years, possibly because the frame and handle contributed to the heft of the bag. By Claire Fashions, from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
Plastics History, Uses and Trade Names
Plastics have been around a long time and were considered a revolutionary product, with plastics manufacturers creating trade names for their versions of the types of plastic they produced.
Besides Lucite, one of the names that is often misused in handbag identification is Bakelite. This is a trade name for a thermosetting phenol formaldehyde resin invented in 1907 in New York by Belgian chemist Leo Baekeland (1863-1944). Some of its uses were in radios, toys and jewelry. Bakelite was rarely used in handbags or handbag hardware. We found a few 1930s newspaper advertisements for Bakelite handbags and bag frames. Note that the one below says these purses look like "glazed patent leather." This description gives us pause as Bakelite is a resin rather than a pliable fabric. Unfortunately, the sketch in the ad is for a different syle of bag.
Because of what we know about the misuse of the trade name "Lucite" in marketing, we can’t be sure the bags in the ad above were made of actual Bakelite or if the people who created the ads simply took advantage of its recent popularity.
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| Trio of 1950s Whiting & Davis "Alumesh" bags with plastic frames, clasps and handles. This hardware is often misidentified as Bakelite or Lucite. In some 1950s advertisements, it is called "bone," which is also incorrect, but was a marketing term in the same vein as the "natural" words "pearl," "shell," "tortoise," etc. |
One type of handbag that is commonly said to use Bakelite is from the 1930s, with plastic handles shaped like animals atop bags that are generally made of leather. As we do not have one of these in our collection, we defer to our friends who are experts in this type of novelty bag. However, the much broader use of the trade name “Bakelite” to describe vintage plastic purses and plastic handbag hardware started when collectors in the late 1990s began using this as a catch-all term, much like “Lucite.” While Lucite was a trade name for a raw material that comprised thousands of handbags, we can safely say that no box-style bag nor handbag hardware made or sold during the 1950s was made of Bakelite.
In 1940, the Bakelite company (at that time a division of Union Carbide and Carbon Corp.) created a product with the trade name “Krene,” which was a vinyl-like material used in a number of different items such as aprons, tablecloths, inflatable pools and—yes—handbags. However, it was not Bakelite as the product is generally known, which is a hard plastic form.
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| 1930s worn leather handbag with molded plastic frame and clasp. This type of hardware is often mistakenly thought to be Bakelite because of its coloring, which resembles Bakelite jewelry in the color known as "creamed corn." From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
Another brand name for a specific type of hard plastic handbag during the 1930s was Rodolac, which we believe was made by a company called Wilco. We found Rodolac bags marketed in ads alongside celluloid bags, which were noted for their durability and washability. Plastic handbags of all types in the 1930s-1950s were heavily advertised as washable, likely a good selling point for Depression and post-Depression consumers who could not afford to buy a handbag for every season or every occasion. (Update May 31, 2024: We found an ad that indicates Rodolac was another name for DuPont Pyralin. However, we could not find evidence that Wilco was a branch of DuPont.)
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| 1930s molded Rodolac or similar material "washable" handbag. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
In the 1940s, the plastic “plaque” (also called “tiles," “squares,” "discs" or "buttons") handbag was invented by Florence Kuhlman and manufactured under the Plasticflex label by the Robert Appel company of Ithaca, New York for over a decade. Different plastics inventors and handbag makers imitated this style, which is why you’ll see a variety of manufacturer labels in designs similar to Plasticflex. These plaques are a molded thermoplastic.
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| Plasticflex bag from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
The Great Depression of 1929-1939 and the US’s subsequent 1941 entry into World War II led to materials shortages. While leather handbags were not rationed to consumers (although leather shoes were), handbag makers themselves were under ration orders. These manufacturers could still use leather, but only pieces. In February 2022, The Vintage Purse Museum interviewed the sons of the founders of the Lumured handbag company and were intrigued by their relatives’ innovation that went into this type of piecework during the war. Co-founder Ludwig Kaphan (the “lu” in Lumured) made an alligator bag using scraps shaped into squares, then melded with acetone. The Vintage Purse Museum is fortunate to have an example of one of these early Lumured bags in our collection.
Lumured, like other companies, eventually turned to plastics for their handbags. The chemical acetone remained an integral part of their process.
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| Colorful plastic coil handbags from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
Plastic coil handbags (usually referred to today as “phone” or “telephone” cord purses), were invented by Ludwig Kaphan and made on machines created by his engineer brother Ed Kaphan (the “ed” in Lumured). This coil fabric was sent to a company called Plastic Fashions to be fabricated into handbags. However, Lumured is best known for its patented plastic-bead fabric, which had considerable longevity and a huge level of production over many years. The plastic beads on the bags that adhered to the fabric are a type of thermoplastic, but often mistakenly called “Lucite” by vintage buyers and sellers. This same misidentification also occurs with descriptions of plastic handles on Lumured bags and those of other midcentury purses made by countless handbag manufacturers.
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| Pair of Lumured plastic-bead handbags from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
Here’s what Ed’s son Frank Kaphan told us in an email when we contacted him for help with this article: “Lucite and Bakelite are two completely different materials with their own particular properties that make them appropriate for other uses. Acetate is a thermoplastic that softens when heated so any scrap material can be chopped up and re-used, usually in low amounts mixed in with new material. It's readily softened/dissolved with acetone which was indispensable to the processes created by Lumured, and feels warm to the touch which is why it's used for eyeglass frames, and also softens at manageable temperatures so the frames can be easily adjusted in the field. Lucite and Bakelite are primarily purchased in finished form; sheets, rods, tubes, etc., and then cut, bent, glued, etc. to produce finished products. Thermoplastics like acetate can be extruded, injection molded, etc. into any configuration desired by the end user."
Molded plastics continued to be used in handbags over decades (and still are), but in the 1950s, acrylics such as Lucite were featured in the hand-cut designs of famous bag makers such as Wilardy, Llewellyn, Patricia of Miami, Florida Handbags, Charles S. Kahn and many others, which is where it gets complicated in terms of handbag identification today.
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| 1950s gray plastic handbag with thick clear acrylic decorative top, possibly Lucite or perhaps Plexiglas, by Rialto. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
Based on discussions with relatives of various midcentury acrylic handbag manufacturers, we know that at least some of the makers who are commonly thought of as using DuPont Lucite were actually using Plexiglas, a Rohm & Haas product. The acrylic known as Plexiglas got its start when a chemist named Otto Rohm (1876-1939) and a businessman named Otto Haas (1872-1960) formed the company Rohm & Haas in 1907. That’s where Rohm invented, then later patented, Plexiglas in 1933.
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| Two pages and the front and back of a mail-in card from an original 1940s Plexiglas catalog from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
1956 Plexiglas handbag ad, something we rarely see in the newspaper archives. These bags are usually referred to as "Lucite," "plastic" or by their color, such as "shell" or "pearl."
A similar material with the trade name Perspex was invented and patented by British chemists John Crawford and Rowland Hill around 1934. This is why you occasionally see acrylic handbags referred to as “Perspex,” usually in the UK.
It should be noted that dates of invention of these plastics on any given website will vary. Also, trademark dates aren't necessarily when a product was first in use. Some plastics predated others or were made practically simultaneously in laboratories in different countries. Each of these individuals was brilliant and their products remain extremely important to the history of plastic. Lucite, however, is the name most frequently uttered when it comes to purse identification.
Lucite, a high-quality thermoplastic synthetic resin (or methyl methacrylate resin), is a 1937 trademark of ICI Acrylics, Inc. and E.I. DuPont de Nemours and Company (founded 1802, merged with Dow Chemical Co. in 2017 to become DowDuPont then went back to the name DuPont in 2019). The Vintage Purse Museum found references to Lucite “toilet ware” or “boudoir accessories”—hairbrushes, combs, hand mirrors, etc.—as early as 1928. Sometimes these items were called “Lucite ivory” in the old ads. Prior to Lucite being used to create DuPont’s accessories, the company was using another plastic they'd dubbed “Pyralin.” We found newspaper advertisements for Pyralin as early as 1896. Lucite most certainly was not ivory—but the plastic was colored to resemble ivory.
This very much reflects how, decades later, the colors of 1950s plastic handbags were known as “pearl,” “shell,” “tortoise,” "mink" or “amber” in their marketing brochures and ads. There’s an implied elegance identifying something as a “natural” substance, even though plastics are laboratory invented and factory made.
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| Two pages of an original 1940s DuPont plastics catalog from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
While the creators of Plexiglas and Perspex are widely known, the inventor of Lucite isn't common knowledge. The Vintage Purse Museum discovered a 1954 newspaper article that gives credit for the invention of Lucite to Dr. Glen Kuettel (1907-1994), originally from Neeneh, Wisconsin, and his team at E.I. DuPont de Nemours. According to the article, Lucite was first called “Pontalite,” then changed to “Lucite,” derived from a Greek word (possibly "leukos") for “clear and light." (We found 1936 newspaper articles referencing Pontalite. Lucite was trademarked the following year.)
The newspaper article also said that Dr. Kuettel's mother, Lucy, was another namesake. The reporter wrote that Dr. Kuettel's mother had a Lucite bracelet that was made just for her in the DuPont lab. (Note: With regard to the name "Lucite" and its earlier use, it seems very likely that Dr. Kuettel, upon creating his acrylic for DuPont, repurposed the name as homage to his mother.)
We reached out to the family of Dr. Glen Kuettel and were delighted when they shared some stories about him, which we included at the end of this article. They knew that his important contribution to plastics history was used in a number of applications, but they weren't aware of Lucite handbags and bag hardware.
Dr. Kuettel’s Lucite and other trademarked plastics were not invented to be a fashion accessory. Their original intended use was more noble than that—specifically, as a type of safety glass. By the early 1940s, Lucite was being used in home décor items, furnishings, musical instruments, road reflectors and more. The earliest handbag hardware ads we could find that used the trade name Lucite were from the late 1930s.
One of the very early newspaper ads for Lucite as a frame and clasp on a 1938 bag. It looks as if there are matching Lucite decorative pieces on the coordinating gloves.
The Vintage Purse Museum acquired some original 1940s catalogs produced by DuPont, Rohm & Haas and Monsanto, who were plastics industry competitors. (Note: In 1939, there was a cross-licensing patent agreement between Rohm & Haas and DuPont, which both made plastics for use in military applications such as aircraft windshields.) Going through these catalogs we saw the different configurations (tubes, sheets, etc.) of these plastics available for manufacturers as well as the numerous applications (industrial, architectural, merchandising, etc.), and the vast amount of trade names that were created by these companies. For example:
DuPont: Lucite, Polythene, Butacite, Pyralin, Plastacele, Nylon (which became another lower-case generic word)
Rohm & Haas: Plexiglas (sheets), PlexeneM (molding powders)
Monsanto: Lustrex, Cerex, Polystyrene, Fibestos, Vuepak, Vuelite, Nitron, Thalid, Saflex, Resinox, Resimene and Ultron (We found a 1957 ad for Ultron faux alligator handbags, so we assume this was a type of vinyl.)
We reached out to the media relations contact at DuPont with questions specific to Lucite’s use in handbag hardware and purses. As of publication of this article we have not heard back, but we will update this post if we do. We also sent a message to DuPont’s official archivist, The Hagley Museum and Library, and they almost immediately responded with a number of archive links; however, we couldn’t find anything about Lucite acrylic pertaining to handbags or purse hardware.
DuPont, Monsanto and Rohm & Haas were not the only companies producing a variety of industry-changing plastics. Among the others were the Celanese Corp., which called their cellulose acetate "Lumarith" (handbag ad directly below) and the Eastman company, which manufactured "Tenite" (also used in handbags).
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| Page from an original 1940s Monsanto brochure, from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
Here’s where we reiterate the main point of contention when identifying the types of plastic used in handbags and handbag hardware: Acrylic is a plastic, but not all plastics are acrylic. All Lucite is acrylic, but not all acrylics are Lucite, which means not every handle, frame, knob, zipper pull or other plastic ornamentation on a handbag is made of DuPont Lucite brand acrylic.
We found one 1949 advertisement (below) for handbag hardware (sold to home-crafters) that said its handles were made of Plexiglas. The same ad uses the word "plastic" for its zipper pulls. An earlier ad for handbag hardware (beneath the 1949 ad) uses the word "lucite."
Some handbag hardware was made of molded plastic. The Vintage Purse Museum has many handmade vintage handbags as well as traditional manufacturer-made bags that have lightweight plastic components rather than those made of heavier acrylic. They were often referred to in the old advertisements as plastic, ivory, tortoise or shell.
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The playful Scottie dog frame on this 1940s home-crafted bag is not Lucite, but a very lightweight faux tortoise molded plastic. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.
The 1938 ad below calls this plastic frame "ivory," yet another example of using a natural material to identify a factory-made plastic. |
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| 1940s home-crafted handbag with etched acrylic handle and zipper pull. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
15 Jan 1940, Mon Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) Newspapers.com
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| Rex Fifth Avenue powder compact, petit point with "lucite" top (similar to the one in the ad below), circa 1946. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
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| 02 Jun 1946, Sun The Daily Herald (Provo, Utah) Newspapers.com |
19 Oct 1940, Sat Biddeford-Saco Journal (Biddeford, Maine) Newspapers.com
We don't know if the Monsanto cellulose bag was actually developed in 1940, but the earliest form of the clear plastic box bag for sale to the public (that we could find) appears in 1944 newspaper advertisements. It's called a Lucite "cocktail bag," "carryall" or "lunch box" and is compared to "ice cubes." It is a clear acrylic cube with holes drilled in it for rayon velvet straps. One ad says this bag is available with matching Lucite compact or cigarette case. No handbag maker is mentioned for the bag or the accessories. We don't know if these were made by a separate entity contracted with the unnamed accessories' company or made by the accessories' company itself to show off the compact and cigarette case.
Lucite in these ads appears with a capital "L," which may mean that this was made of actual DuPont Lucite acrylic.
We found two separate mentions of Gloria Vanderbilt (1924-2019) carrying a Lucite bag in 1944. One article said Vanderbilt was the very first person spotted carrying one at the Plaza New York with "a gold vanity gleaming through it." The other was by columnist Dorothy Kilgallen (1913-1965), who wrote that Vanderbilt (then married to Pasquale "Pat" DiCicco, 1909-1978) was at Le Coq Rouge restaurant carrying a Lucite bag that had a "tinted miniature" of her husband inside. We don't know if either of these stories was accurate, as there was no accompanying photo evidence, but it does seem as if she likely had one of the early Lucite bags shown in the ad below.
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| 1940s acrylic box bag with velvet handle, from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
The cocktail bags with velvet handles were sold in the mid-1940s, but we wondered when the trend of complete acrylic handbags—purse portion, clasp and handles—took off. Incredibly, we believe we know who started and popularized acrylic/plastic/Lucite handbags as today's collectors know them, approximately four years before they became mainstream.
Meet fashion designer, socialite and handbag innovator Carrie Munn.
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| Original press photo from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. Pictured is the glamorous Carrie Munn carrying one of her patented clear handbags. It also looks as if she's wearing an acrylic necklace. The photo was taken November 4, 1947, by an unnamed Acme Newspictures photographer at the 64th National Horse Show at Madison Square Garden, a high society event. |
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| Closeup of Carrie Munn's handbag in original photo above. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
While deep diving in the newspaper archives, we stumbled upon the very glamorous and influential fashion designer Carrie Munn (b. Caroline Nunder, 1898-1984), who patented several versions of her clear plastic “Munn Bag,” starting in 1947. We found, through newspaper articles, that she was promoting her handbags as late as 1950. This led us to believe her New York-based style icon status was at least partially responsible for other handbag makers taking on the production of plastic handbags during the early 1950s.
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| Carolyn Munn's first handbag patent, applied for in 1947 and granted in 1948. She had at least two others for similar bags in 1950 and 1952. |
We reached out to the Munn family (names withheld for privacy) asking if they knew if she used actual DuPont Lucite or another material. A 94-year-old close relative of Carrie's graciously shared the following through an email sent to us by another relative (excerpted): "Carrie was the first to design Lucite evening bags, ergo the patents. And as a couture designer and part of NY social scene she got a lot of exposure. (The 94-year-old) believes Carrie used Lucite...and we always referred to them as Lucite bags. She was also the first to have (a) big dinner dancing gala including a fashion show at a Waldorf Astoria every season."
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| Carrie Munn, Dec. 1, 1950 Vogue ad, screenshot via Proquest. |
The 1950s and The Popularity of The Acrylic Box Bag - And Its Imitators
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| Florida Handbags of Miami acrylic bag from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. This bag has its original tag, which states that they make "The Finest in Lucites and Unbreakables." The implication is that they used other products in addition to DuPont's brand of acrylic. |
This leads us to the 1950s, the most popular era for not only acrylic box bags, but also those made of cellulosic plastics.
We spoke with Carole Rothman, whose father-in-law, Abe Rothman, was a plastics innovator. Abe’s father started the Rialto wood button company in the early 1900s, but eventually branched out to plastic products. Abe’s son Matthew, Carole’s late husband, joined the company in the early 1960s, after handbags were phased out. They then began creating a successful line of acrylic cosmetic mirrors designed by Matthew, which are still sold with the Rialto name, although the company is under different ownership.
Carole, who also worked for a time at Rialto, told us that there wasn’t really a distinction made between the names of the plastics. That is, even though the company used different processes and different types of plastic in its products, the general term used to describe the material was "Lucite." We found newspaper classified advertisements that Rialto had placed in the help wanted section over the years. Three different ads used one of these words: “Lucite,” “Plexiglas” or “plastic” to describe the company's wares. This is an example of how these manufacturers used their terminology interchangeably.
Some companies in the 1950s, including Suki of Miami and Leslie of Miami, used acrylic lids on box-style wooden bags. This was a design choice, but it's also possible that a more sparing use of acrylic may have been due to the expense of the raw materials.
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| Pair of acrylic-topped handbags, both unlabeled, from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
1950s all-acrylic handbags were on the pricey side compared to other types of purses. Some companies only produced them for a short time because they were so costly to make. Among them was Roum California, which started with corde embroidery handbags before only briefly venturing into acrylic. Other acrylic bag-makers, including Llewellyn, Wilardy and Rialto, switched to making acrylic bathroom accessories, such as tissue boxes and wastebaskets, when the handbags went out of fashion by the early 1960s. (Note: Wilardy was still making handbags into the 1980s.)
While the companies we mentioned in the previous paragraph and others of the era very well could have exclusively been using DuPont Lucite to craft their bags for a time, we know that many were also using other brands of acrylic and even other types of plastics.
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| Lewsid Jewel handbag by Llewellyn Bley, made of tortoise-colored woven cellulose plastic. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
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This Wilardy handbag by Will Hardy showcases the use of gray acrylic along with lighter weight floral molded plastic and rhinestone ornamentation. This type of material was also used in jewelry. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.
Note the price of the Wilardy bag in the following advertisement, then the price of the molded plastic bag in the ad beneath it.  15 Mar 1959, Sun The Times (Shreveport, Louisiana) Newspapers.com |
Soon after the 1950s higher price-point acrylic purse trend hit department stores, more affordable copycat handbags made of cheaper, lighter weight plastic began rapidly appearing on the shelves.
Some companies used Tenite, which was a brand created by the Eastman Chemical Company (best known for making Kodak film). Tenite was trademarked in 1946, and the original application says that it was a “chemical composition comprising cellulose organic acid ester or mixed ester, in some cases plasticizer, pigment or dye, having a general use in the industrial arts.”
We contacted the Eastman company regarding Tenite. As they haven’t yet responded to our query, here’s a blurb from their website: “Since Tenite™ cellulosics was first introduced in 1929, it has become a staple of the plastics industry. Tenite™ is a versatile, durable, and attractive cellulosic plastic. It has been used in consumer product applications from radios and telephones, to toothbrushes and toys. Tenite™ cellulosic plastics are noted for their excellent balance of properties - toughness, hardness, strength, surface gloss, clarity, chemical resistance, and warmth to the touch. Tenite™ products are also easily molded, extruded, or fabricated and available in natural, clear, amber, and black.”
We have a number of lightweight molded plastic bags in The Vintage Purse Museum collection, including some made by Theresa Bag Co. of Lyndhurst, New Jersey. We emailed Morris J. Settembrino, son of Morris A. Settembrino (1916-1978), who owned Theresa Bag Co. in the 1950s. The company was named for the elder Morris's wife, Theresa. Their son Morris told us that they were made of plastic pellets in an injection molding machine. (We don't know if the product used was Tenite.) Theresa bags are very often misidentified online as Lucite.
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| 1950s Theresa Bag Co. injection-molded lightweight plastic handbag. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
As we mentioned, these lighter weight handbags were likely created to appeal to a broader range of consumers in styles that mimicked the acrylic bags. For instance, Llewellyn Bley’s most popular design is, arguably, the "beehive" handbag, a heavy plastic ribbed creation that sometimes features metal bees on top. This was a higher end handbag, for which Bley received a patent in 1952. Bley's design was referenced later that year by Carole Rothman's father-in-law Abe Rothman, owner of Rialto plastics, who patented a similar handbag in lightweight plastic, which was produced by Elsa Manufacturing, a company located in the Midwest. It appears that he also licensed this patent to Ranhill.
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| 1954 advertisement for Ranhill molded plastic handbags, an inexpensive alternative to acrylics such as Lucite. These styles are similar to purses made by other companies because there was cross-licensing by the patent holders, presumably in an effort to maximize the inventors' profits. |
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Molded cellulose acetate handbag designed by Abe Rothman and produced by Elsa Mfg. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. 23 Jan 1953, Fri The Indianapolis News (Indianapolis, Indiana) Newspapers.com
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| Ranhill molded plastic handbag from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. This was a copycat of the more expensive acrylic design by Wilardy. |
You can see below how these individuals and companies were intertwined and how patents were licensed. We've color-coded some of the names to illustrate their connections.
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| Pair of molded plastic jewel box-like bags by Ascot, another company whose products are mistakenly called "Lucite." From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum |
More About Plastic Handbags
While the information we presented doesn't give a complete history nor a perfect way to figure out what a bag is made of, we hope we've shown how plastics are as inextricably linked as the people who were in the handbag industry.
Next we present some additional plastic handbag facts and the amazing story of Lucite's inventor, as told to us by his family.
1. As another example of the word "Lucite" possibly being misused, here are some Majestic Metal Specialties, Inc. handbags and ads. When they were first advertised, Lucite was part of their descriptions. When the style began to go out of favor, "molded plastic" was used as a descriptor. When we saw this in the newspaper archives, we immediately did a simple test with some of our Majestic bags to see if we could tell the difference. Here's what we learned: If you hold them in your hands, and feel the weight and density of these handbags compared to others such as those made by Florida Handbags or Charles S. Kahn, the Majestic bags are much lighter. So it's conceivable that they were made of a plastic other than Lucite (or another acrylic) and that their initial ads were pure marketing.
This ad shows Majestic bags in "Gleaming Lucite" at the peak of the trend in 1956.
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| Majestic metal and plastic handbags from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. By 1959, the trend was in a decline and these bags were discount priced and advertised as "plastic novelties." |
2. We also reiterate that not all box-style plastic or "Lucite" handbags were made in the 1950s. There were a number of companies that produced acrylic or other plastic box purses well into the 1970s. Some are marked "made in Hong Kong," which is a good indicator that they are of more recent manufacture.
The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT-1948), a set of multilateral trade agreements originally ratified in 1947, strongly affected businesses during its 1964-1967 “Kennedy Round” (named for President Kennedy, who predeceased the negotiations). This deal worsened the market as the US was importing more bags than it sold, causing a large number of American companies to close rather than be forced to lower employee wages and benefits. The Vintage Purse Museum found a US House Ways and Means Committee Hearing transcript from 1970 that had an addendum listing the handbag companies that went out of business from 1968-1969 due to the GATT Kennedy Round. Some that managed to stay in business only did so because they were actively importing handbags from Asia and Europe. Acrylic handbags are still produced today, usually labeled "made in China."
We tried to find out if imported handbags were made of genuine DuPont Lucite, but could not get anyone to confirm or deny its use. Therefore, we can't say with certainty what brands of plastic were used in the handbags in the following photos. However, we can tell you these purses are from the 1960s to the 2000s.
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| 1970s Stylecraft bag made in Hong Kong, possibly acrylic, from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
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| 1960s-1970s Ritter "It's In the Bag" textured molded plastic box purse Made in Italy. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
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These two novelty bags made of molded plastic were gifts-with-purchase promotional items sold with Merle Norman cosmetics in 1975-1976. They are very often mislabeled 1950s Lucite.
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3. Here's something you should know about the chemical composition of plastic. Celluloid, cellulosic plastics and acrylics are unstable, so they can deteriorate or lead to something called "celluloid disease" or “celluloid rot,” which may spread to other plastics. It is sometimes called “Lucite disease.” It can begin with a vinegary smell and sometimes fluid will leach out of a handbag. This fluid is acetic acid, which means the bag is breaking down. There are suggestions online on how to potentially correct this problem, but we cannot recommend them as we haven't tried them.
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| 1910s beaded handbag with celluloid frame suffering from "celluloid rot." From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. (Note: This item is stored away from our other bags and is only used for educational purposes.) |
4. And, finally, here's some great info we received from the family of Dr. Glen Kuettel, inventor of Lucite. We've edited this information into third-person form, but it is taken directly from emails we received from his family, including one child and several grandchildren. We're leaving out family members' names for privacy.
Both Dr. Kuettel (1907-1994) and his wife Josephine Bassett Kuettel (1909-2000) were chemists with advanced degrees. Dr. Glen Kuettel received his PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Wisconsin in 1933. The title of his dissertation was “The chemical nature of dyestuffs in pine wood pulps."
Glen was very proud to work for DuPont. Glen and Josephine's child told us that they still have drinking cups made from nylon and a beautiful rose-colored Lucite bracelet. In later years, Dr. Kuettel served as a liaison between DuPont and the US military.
While at DuPont, he was the lead organic chemist, developing a number of products. He would vividly describe to his family the chemical process of mixing various liquid organic reagents and pulling out nylon strings from the chemical “soup.” He could recite almost every single step, every chemical compound and its constituents, up until just before he passed away (in 1994).
During one of his experiments, a wall blew out at the DuPont lab in New Jersey, which forced him and his colleagues to store chemicals further away in a sort of bunker to avoid similar mishaps.
In addition to Lucite cups owned by several family members, one relative has a 3’ x 5’ sheet of Lucite that Dr. Kuettel made and used to cover the top of his desk in his home. The relative now in possession of it told The Vintage Purse Museum that they used it to cover their own desk. The relative wrote: "People shrug it off, but shoot, in the 1930s there were very few plastics and he made this! We can all go out and buy these sheets...at any store, but there was a time when you couldn’t do this."
During WWII, DuPont and Dr. Kuettel were instrumental in finding ways to protect gunners and others in airplanes. He worked with various Lucite thicknesses, placed between panes of glass, and performed a number of bullet-shot tests to see if the plastic could prevent bullets from passing through. The relative wrote: "We have a prototype at my house, and although I’ve thought about donating it to an air museum from time to time, it’s simply hard to let go as I loved him so much."
His work during WWII led to some products we take for granted, including car windshields. The reason they don’t shatter when smashed is thanks to Dr. Kuettel. There’s a thin sheet of plastic between the glass panes, most likely developed during his bullet testing and now used in our everyday lives that save lives. He also realized the reflective power of some plastics, and created small plastic components that could be embedded in paints that are essentially now used for road paint. Those reflectors in paint, made from Lucite, have also saved countless lives.
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The Vintage Purse Museum hopes to have established with the main article and our follow-up facts that DuPont Lucite and other plastics are an extremely complex, enormously important part of many facets of world history, including the very niche history of handbags. There will always be differences of opinion as to which handbags or purse hardware can rightly be classified as Lucite, the trademarked product—or the lower-case "lucite," the generically interchangeable name for plastic. It's difficult for most people to distinguish between a number of types of plastics, but our goal is to provide information that helps you understand the possibilities.
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Special thanks to Frank Kaphan, Carole Rothman, Billy Hardy, Morris Settembrino, the families of Dr. Glen Kuettel and Carrie Munn, and all the relatives who helped us get in touch with these folks. Thank you to The Hagley Museum and Library for their speedy response. Thank you to the experts that referred us to potential sources. Other online archives we frequently use are Newspapers.com and MyHeritage.com, to which we have paid subscriptions. We also rely on Google searches for historical documents and patents, and the website of Bag Lady University. This article c2022 by Wendy Dager/The Vintage Purse Museum. Please do not use information or photos without crediting our website. Email vintagepursemuseum@gmail.com for permissions.
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