Leo Hendrik Baekeland was born in Belgium in 1863, studied and taught chemistry in his native land, but then, at the age of twenty-six, emigrated to the United States.
There, for the rest of his life, he died in 944 he engaged in industrial research.
His earliest invention was the photographic paper, “Velox.” But the invention for which he was best known is a plastic, valuable as a nonconductor of electricity and as a heat resistant.
This was given the registered name Bakelite, formed from the name of its inventor.
