Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. So we
Speaker 1: have a little bit of housekeeping to do before we
Speaker 1: get into today's episode. If you are a listener, you
Speaker 1: may be wondering what happened to that trip to Italy.
Speaker 1: We were planning that trip to Italy that we've been
Speaker 1: planning since late for two years now. So, uh, it
Speaker 1: was originally planned for a certain date, back up, pushed
Speaker 1: back for a pandemic. We've pushed it a few times.
Speaker 1: It is currently back on for May of two. Yes,
Speaker 1: it had been originally planned to happen maybe essentially as
Speaker 1: when this episode is coming out, but it seems much
Speaker 1: safer for everyone to try to postpone it again for
Speaker 1: hopeful fingers crossed last time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And if
Speaker 1: you are interested in that trip, I can promise you
Speaker 1: we had an absolute blast on our last trip and
Speaker 1: we went to France, and I expect nothing but the
Speaker 1: same on this one. We are going to do some
Speaker 1: very fun stuff and if you're interested, you can go
Speaker 1: to Defined Destinations dot com, slash Rome Dash Florence. That
Speaker 1: will give you the whole scoop on all this planned. Uh,
Speaker 1: And I know there's been some shifting. A lot of
Speaker 1: people have stuck with it. So if you're one of
Speaker 1: our listeners that registered way way back in the beginning,
Speaker 1: in the before times, and you've stuck it out and
Speaker 1: you're still planning to come with us, fantastic. If you
Speaker 1: are someone who wasn't in on that and now you
Speaker 1: think you want to, there are still some spaces left, uh,
Speaker 1: so please take a peek at that. And if it
Speaker 1: looks delicious and fun for you, and I think it's
Speaker 1: going to be both of those things, we'd love to
Speaker 1: have you with us. Yeah, all right, and now, uh
Speaker 1: we are getting into today's topic. So this involves colors,
Speaker 1: which is one of my favorite things to talk about.
Speaker 1: So we mentioned the creation of Synthetic Die on the
Speaker 1: podcast before, most specifically on episode on the history of Colors.
Speaker 1: But the chemist who stumbled onto mauve Die, which you
Speaker 1: will sometimes here pronounced mov as well, just how I
Speaker 1: set it growing up, and now I've transitioned to move.
Speaker 1: But if I say a mom, that's just because it's
Speaker 1: ingrained from forty plus years before I decided to change
Speaker 1: it up. Uh. That man is often latted as having
Speaker 1: changed the world, which is a pretty significant thing to
Speaker 1: say about a person. And William Henry Perkin is unique
Speaker 1: in that he saw how quickly the world of industry
Speaker 1: changed in response to his innovation. So today we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about his life and how, yes, creating move
Speaker 1: was the beginning, and that's something he did while still
Speaker 1: quite young. But it wasn't as though he made this
Speaker 1: discovery and then just let that be the thing that
Speaker 1: defined him. He then hustled and turned that discovery into
Speaker 1: a business and continued to innovate and he ushered in
Speaker 1: a new field of commercially oriented chemistry. William Henry Perkin
Speaker 1: was born on March twelfth, thirty eight, at three King
Speaker 1: David Lane in Shadowell, London. His father was George Fowler Perkin,
Speaker 1: who was a carpenter and a builder, And that might
Speaker 1: sound like a really humble start, but the builder there
Speaker 1: is more like a general contractor, and George Perkin was
Speaker 1: really successful. His seven children, of which William Henry was
Speaker 1: the last, had a private school and easy walking distance
Speaker 1: of the family home. That was the Arbor Terrorists School,
Speaker 1: which William Henry attended, and William was a very smart kid. Uh.
Speaker 1: Pretty much every biography of him just mentions how curious
Speaker 1: and intellectual he was for a child, and he was
Speaker 1: interested in all kinds of things, from music to art
Speaker 1: to science. And when he was fourteen, he took a
Speaker 1: self portrait. Photograph has become a really common image that
Speaker 1: pops up when you look at Perkin's name, and that's
Speaker 1: notable considering that the dagara type had only been introduced
Speaker 1: thirteen years earlier, when he was still a baby, and
Speaker 1: by the time Perkin took his own photo, he had
Speaker 1: been dabbling in photography for about two years, So that
Speaker 1: speaks both to his ingenuity in new technology as well
Speaker 1: as the family's wealth in being able to afford the
Speaker 1: supplies needed for a budding fourteen year old photographer to
Speaker 1: kind of muck around and play with things. Early in
Speaker 1: his life, William was steered towards architecture as a career.
Speaker 1: His father encouraged him in that direction, and that actually
Speaker 1: seems like it could have been a pretty good match
Speaker 1: for his intellect and temperament because it would have combined
Speaker 1: his interest and curiosity and things like engineering and mechanics
Speaker 1: with a natural ability and art. William is said to
Speaker 1: have drawn and painted very well, and even started copying
Speaker 1: over architectural plans while he was a boy, so he
Speaker 1: seemed amenable to the idea of a career as an architect.
Speaker 1: But the moment that got him passionately interested in chemistry
Speaker 1: took place when he was still twelve years old. He
Speaker 1: saw a friend doing some very basic experiments with crystals,
Speaker 1: and he would later write about how much this got
Speaker 1: him thinking about chemistry and its possibility, saying quote the
Speaker 1: possibility also of making new discoveries impressed me very much.
Speaker 1: I determined if possible, to accumulate bottles of chemicals and
Speaker 1: make experiments. Shortly after this revelation, William started attending the
Speaker 1: City of London School. He took chemistry classes as not
Speaker 1: an elective because that wasn't even an option, but as
Speaker 1: sort of an ala carte add on to his class
Speaker 1: schedule for an extra seven shillings each term. Perkin was
Speaker 1: enrolled in lunchtime classes twice a week, so he needed
Speaker 1: to skip his lunch to go to class, and he
Speaker 1: was willing to do it because not only did Perkin
Speaker 1: perform chemistry experiments also when he was at home under
Speaker 1: advisement of his chemistry teacher, Thomas Hall, but he also
Speaker 1: attended additional chemistry lectures around London him he clearly was
Speaker 1: into this. He went to London Hospital to hear Henry
Speaker 1: Leatherby speak on the subject, and then he was also
Speaker 1: able to get permission from Michael Faraday to sit in
Speaker 1: on his electricity lectures at the Royal Institution. Perkin enrolled
Speaker 1: at the Royal College of Chemistry in eighteen fifty three
Speaker 1: at the age of fifteen. He had needed to convince
Speaker 1: his father that this was a good plan. He had
Speaker 1: gotten his chemistry teacher to help him in that effort.
Speaker 1: One of the reasons that George Perkin was initially pretty
Speaker 1: wary of the idea was that chemistry as a career
Speaker 1: was not really established. There just weren't many jobs to
Speaker 1: be had. But between William and his teacher, Thomas Hall,
Speaker 1: they made the case that this field had potential, and
Speaker 1: George Perkin finally acquiesced and at the Royal College of Chemistry.
Speaker 1: Perkin studied under August Wilhelm von Hoffman, and William quickly
Speaker 1: showed a very high degree of aptitude as well as
Speaker 1: dedication to the field of chemistry, and Hoffman made Perkin
Speaker 1: an honorary assistant. He's aims to have been just about
Speaker 1: obsessed with this field. As he mentioned, he was doing
Speaker 1: so much extra work in chemistry, and at this point
Speaker 1: he converted his room at home into a rudimentary lab.
Speaker 1: He recalled this setup later in life, writing quote, my
Speaker 1: private laboratory occupied half a long room and a few
Speaker 1: shelves for little bottles, and a table in my fireplace.
Speaker 1: I had even constructed an oven. I worked with an
Speaker 1: old brazilious alcohol lamp, and I did the burnings with
Speaker 1: charcoal in a shed. And in this laboratory I worked
Speaker 1: nights and during vacations. Perkin wrote his first published work
Speaker 1: on the production of menap philamine through combining cyanogen chloride
Speaker 1: with napthaline in eighteen fifty six. He was also promoted
Speaker 1: to a staff position in the lab that year, and
Speaker 1: then when he was eighteen, Perkins started his famous projects
Speaker 1: which he intended to synthesize quinine, and this was a
Speaker 1: vacation project. The school was closed for Easter break, so
Speaker 1: his teacher and mentor Hoffmann had suggested years earlier, back
Speaker 1: in eighteen forty nine that naphthaline could be used to
Speaker 1: prepare synthetic quinine, and quinine, of course, is in high
Speaker 1: demand for its curative powers, specifically for treating malaria, so
Speaker 1: finding a way to synthesize it in a lab instead
Speaker 1: of having to extract it from a bark was a
Speaker 1: rather thrilling prospect. And again Perkin was a striver, and
Speaker 1: coal tar, which was rich in amino compounds and was
Speaker 1: considered a pollutant, was also considered a potential solution to
Speaker 1: this problem. But the quinine alluded Perkin. His first attempt
Speaker 1: resulted in a reddish brown material that was not at
Speaker 1: all what he was after, and his second attempt he
Speaker 1: combined analyne sulfate with potassium dichromate, and this resulted in
Speaker 1: a black precipitate, still not quinine. And then there are
Speaker 1: two versions of this story, and one version he was
Speaker 1: washing his lab equipment after this failure, and note the
Speaker 1: black goo he had created left a purple residue and
Speaker 1: that it stained a cloth. And in the other he
Speaker 1: decided to try to salvage something out of this unsuccessful
Speaker 1: result and tried an extraction of the black precipitate with methanol.
Speaker 1: What he got was a move matter whichever of those
Speaker 1: versions played out, and it's possible that it could be
Speaker 1: kind of some overlap between them. He ended up with
Speaker 1: a purple substance that got the name moving. Okay, that's
Speaker 1: not a particularly common word, so in planer terms, he
Speaker 1: had accidentally discovered how to synthesize purple dye using an
Speaker 1: abundant source material that was considered garbage. So the name
Speaker 1: mouve is derived from the old French word for mallow
Speaker 1: because of that plant's pale purple flowers, so that's why
Speaker 1: it's called moving. There's a lot of writing about how
Speaker 1: much credit has to be given to Perkin regarding his
Speaker 1: insight here, and that's because it would have been easy
Speaker 1: to see that his result was not quinine as he
Speaker 1: had hoped, and then to write up the experiment and
Speaker 1: discard the seemingly incorrect result. But Perkins saw that he
Speaker 1: had possibly come up with something interesting, even if it
Speaker 1: had missed his intended target. So he next replicated the process,
Speaker 1: and then he started refining it to always get the
Speaker 1: move material on purpose. His older brother, Thomas Dix Perkin,
Speaker 1: assisted him in these experiments, and then he got the
Speaker 1: idea to test it as a die and to see
Speaker 1: if it had potential as a commercial product. So he
Speaker 1: first did a series of experiments dyeing silk samples with
Speaker 1: his movin, and then he sent those samples to the J.
Speaker 1: Polar and Son die house to get their opinion. And
Speaker 1: the letter he got back from Robert Polar read quote,
Speaker 1: if you're discovery does not make the goods too expensive,
Speaker 1: It is decidedly one of the most valuable that has
Speaker 1: come out for a very long time. This color is
Speaker 1: one which has been very much wanted in all classes
Speaker 1: of goods, and could not be obtained fast on silks,
Speaker 1: and only at great expense on cotton yarns. I enclose
Speaker 1: you a pattern of the best lilac we have on cotton.
Speaker 1: It is died by only one house in the United Kingdom.
Speaker 1: But even this is not quite fast, and does not
Speaker 1: stand the tests that yours does, and fades by exposure
Speaker 1: to air. So this letter had to be a rather
Speaker 1: thrilling read for a young man who had been drawn
Speaker 1: to chemistry as a preteen because of the potential of
Speaker 1: discovering new things. And this person is basically like, yes,
Speaker 1: you did, and we really wanted. A close friend of his,
Speaker 1: Arthur H. Church, who was also an assistant at the
Speaker 1: lab at the Royal College of Chemistry, suggested that Perkin
Speaker 1: get a patent on his die as quickly as possible.
Speaker 1: There was a little bit of a hiccup here, because
Speaker 1: normally the Patent office would only grant patents to inventors
Speaker 1: who were twenty one or older. William was younger than that.
Speaker 1: But William and his brother prepared a sample and then
Speaker 1: on the advice of legal counsel, he applied for a
Speaker 1: patent anyway, that was granted on August eight. So coming up,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about how Perkin turned this discovery
Speaker 1: into an industry, but first we will pause for a
Speaker 1: sponsor break. Once Perkin had refined his method for creating
Speaker 1: moving and he had run it by those dyers, his
Speaker 1: next move was to set up a plant to make it.
Speaker 1: This was the start of an incredibly lucrative career in
Speaker 1: chemical manufacture, but it was at the time not a
Speaker 1: sure thing at all. Even though his purple, which he
Speaker 1: called a few different things, including moving analgine purple and
Speaker 1: tyrian purple, had received enthusiastic support from the die mill.
Speaker 1: This was not an industry that really existed at the time.
Speaker 1: Other diyes were still sourced from nature, not created synthetically,
Speaker 1: and he and be certain that die mills would be
Speaker 1: willing to use his product, or that they would be
Speaker 1: happy with the result. Keep in mind, Perkin was still
Speaker 1: a teenager at this point. He was really smart, sure,
Speaker 1: but he had absolutely no experience in the textile industry
Speaker 1: or in manufacturing. He had been able to conduct some
Speaker 1: experimental die runs at J. Puller and Son, and based
Speaker 1: on those he'd been able to refine his formulas to
Speaker 1: meet the needs of specific dyeing scenarios as potential problems
Speaker 1: had been identified. So it worked a different way on
Speaker 1: silk than it did on cotton, and he kind of
Speaker 1: worked with them to figure out the best ways to
Speaker 1: get the optimal result. But even though all of this
Speaker 1: work had already been done, the risk in setting up
Speaker 1: a plant was still very significant. On top of all
Speaker 1: of that, there was the matter of perkins job and
Speaker 1: his mentor august Bill Ham von Hoffman. When Perkin approached
Speaker 1: him to discuss his plan to become a full time
Speaker 1: chemical manufacturer, it did not go spectacularly well. Even though
Speaker 1: Perkin had sample to show how well his die actually worked.
Speaker 1: But regardless of whether his professor was impressed with the
Speaker 1: work itself, he was chagrined that Perkin would step away
Speaker 1: from academic life to drop down to what the academic
Speaker 1: community saw as a demeaning manufacturing job, even if he
Speaker 1: did own the place. It's a little snooty um. All
Speaker 1: of this gave Perkins confidence a little bit of a wobble,
Speaker 1: So he consulted another die expert in London and gave
Speaker 1: him some of the die to test, and that dire
Speaker 1: named Thomas Keith, responded very positively to the results and
Speaker 1: he urged Perkin to absolutely move forward with his business.
Speaker 1: But even so, securing capital for it again for a young,
Speaker 1: unproven man and a young unproven industry, was a hurdle
Speaker 1: that was proving hard to overcome. Another boost to any
Speaker 1: wavering on perkins part came from his father. While George
Speaker 1: Perkin may have initially doubted the lucrative possibilities of a
Speaker 1: career in chemistry, by the time Williams Moving die had
Speaker 1: been refined, he was really a believer. He offered to
Speaker 1: finance the startup of a die plant. To be clear,
Speaker 1: George Perkin was wealthy, but he was still taking a
Speaker 1: huge risk here. He put most of his assets on
Speaker 1: the line for his son, so if this business failed,
Speaker 1: he would be cleaned out financially. That's gotta be um,
Speaker 1: both a huge sense of trust and like feeling very
Speaker 1: loved and believed in by your parents, and also stressful. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you believe in me. Please don't let
Speaker 1: me ruin you. Uh. There was an additional and immense
Speaker 1: element of support that came from William's brother, Thomas Dicks Perkin.
Speaker 1: We mentioned that he had already helped will with his
Speaker 1: his experiments, and Thomas had a head for business and
Speaker 1: he had learned about construction from their father, and so
Speaker 1: he became William's partner essentially with the intent that William
Speaker 1: could handle the development and science part of the business
Speaker 1: and Thomas would take care of any business administration. So
Speaker 1: once he had signed on to manage such things, William
Speaker 1: Perkin was in a fairly good place to start this business,
Speaker 1: even though it did still have risks. And soon they
Speaker 1: had set up Perkin and Sons as a company and
Speaker 1: they bought a plot of land at Greenford Green in Middlesex.
Speaker 1: From there, they had to start not just a business,
Speaker 1: but really a whole industry from scratch. No one had
Speaker 1: plans for a chemical manufacturing plant, so they had to
Speaker 1: be drawn up according to what they thought they would need. Additionally,
Speaker 1: Perkins Company had to figure out a supply chain for
Speaker 1: the raw materials that they needed in large quantities. That
Speaker 1: posed its own problem. For example, the ben zine that
Speaker 1: was required could only be sourced from a coaltard distiller
Speaker 1: in Glasgow, but the ben zine that the company offered
Speaker 1: was crude and required a whole other distillation process once
Speaker 1: it got to the plant, And that same sort of
Speaker 1: problem happened again and again with other materials. But Perkin
Speaker 1: and his brother worked through these issues and in December
Speaker 1: of eighteen fifty seven they delivered their first order to
Speaker 1: Thomas Keith and Son's Dyres. Almost immediately, it became apparent
Speaker 1: that while the pigment itself was consistent, the way that
Speaker 1: fabrics took the die was not. And William had worked
Speaker 1: on this a little bit at the Polar Company, but
Speaker 1: there were still some things to work out. So silk,
Speaker 1: for example, would take the die so rapidly that if
Speaker 1: it wasn't applied in a completely uniform manner. The color
Speaker 1: would be darker or more intense anywhere the fabric had
Speaker 1: been in the die longer than another. Perkin worked with
Speaker 1: dyers to fix this problem, and similarly found ways to
Speaker 1: ensure that other textiles less prone to quickly bond with
Speaker 1: die would also uptake the pigment, and soon he had developed,
Speaker 1: of course, not only this die, but also fixatives as
Speaker 1: well as application processes that textile dyers then implemented. Perkin
Speaker 1: ran into another problem with the die business due to
Speaker 1: a paperwork error. The patent that Perkin and sons held
Speaker 1: in France for perp Will Die was invalid, and soon
Speaker 1: front plants started creating moving for die houses there that
Speaker 1: cut Perkin out of a significant revenue source. And this
Speaker 1: was particularly true because France became absolutely insessed with this die.
Speaker 1: Empress Eugenie, wife of Napoleon the Third, warr and set
Speaker 1: this trend for the entire country to want purple garments,
Speaker 1: and even bigger unofficial endorsement came from Queen Victoria, though
Speaker 1: Queen Victoria wore a gown died with Perkins moving to
Speaker 1: her daughter's wedding, and from there the popularity of the
Speaker 1: color spread throughout Europe and the US at a really
Speaker 1: rapid pace. Despite losing out on that French business, and
Speaker 1: because of the high profile appearance of his die on
Speaker 1: the Queen's Gown, perkins own business was booming. And keep
Speaker 1: in mind he had only just set up this die
Speaker 1: manufactured plant, and people were already setting up kind of
Speaker 1: copycat plans to do die in France, so he had
Speaker 1: already started this entire new industry. His moving die cost
Speaker 1: a hundred and twenty pounds per kilo, but it also
Speaker 1: took a lot of raw material to produce, so according
Speaker 1: to Perkins calculations, it took one pounds of coal to
Speaker 1: get ten pounds twelve ounces of coal tar, which he
Speaker 1: used to get the moving and from that ten pounds
Speaker 1: twelve ounces. The yield of moving after all of the
Speaker 1: chemical processes were complete was just one quarter of an ounce.
Speaker 1: But still, this was a superior option to natural means
Speaker 1: of accruing enough purple pigment to achieve a saturated purple
Speaker 1: tone in textiles, and perkins synthetic version was more color fast.
Speaker 1: He had had the good fortune to stumble onto a
Speaker 1: synthetic purple at exactly the right time purple had been
Speaker 1: on the rise in popularity, and the options to get
Speaker 1: it had been limited until his discovery. Just a couple
Speaker 1: of years into their chemical manufacturing venture. It became a
Speaker 1: parents of William, Thomas and George that the original plant
Speaker 1: just couldn't keep up with demand. A new facility was
Speaker 1: built in eighteen fifty nine, and from there they expanded
Speaker 1: their catalog to include more colors. The most popular remove
Speaker 1: another purple tone that was called Britannia Violet and Perkins Green.
Speaker 1: Over time, their color offerings were not used exclusively in
Speaker 1: the textile industry because Perkin and Sons Dies were the
Speaker 1: first synthetic guys to make their way onto postage stamps.
Speaker 1: Coming up, we're going to talk about how Perkin eventually
Speaker 1: stepped away from this industry he had created and what
Speaker 1: happened to his life after that. But first we'll hear
Speaker 1: from the sponsors that keep stuff you missed in history class.
Speaker 1: Going a synthetic red dye proved to be difficult to
Speaker 1: create for a number of years. Thomas Dick's Perkin had
Speaker 1: actually patented a magenta manufacture process in eighteen fifty nine
Speaker 1: that the plant used briefly, but that involved handling mercury,
Speaker 1: and that process was shut down complete Lee when their
Speaker 1: workers started to become ill. Perkin, working to find an
Speaker 1: improved process, produced artificial alizarin that's a crimson dye from
Speaker 1: Anthracyne in eighteen sixty nine, and when he filed his
Speaker 1: patent on it, he discovered that another patent for essentially
Speaker 1: the same process had been filed the prior day by
Speaker 1: chemists working for the German company B A. SF. While
Speaker 1: they were both issued patents, Perkin then refined the technique
Speaker 1: with a different process and that made him able to
Speaker 1: manufacture it before B. S F could get it to market.
Speaker 1: This seemed like a big potential problem, but the two
Speaker 1: companies eventually came to an agreement that allowed Perkin and
Speaker 1: Son the English market pretty much on their own to monopolies.
Speaker 1: William Henry Perkin married for the first time in eighteen
Speaker 1: fifty nine when he was twenty one. His bride, Jemima
Speaker 1: Harriet Lasette, was his first cousin. This couple had two
Speaker 1: children together. They were William Henry Perkin Jr. Who was
Speaker 1: born in eighteen sixty and then another son, Arthur George,
Speaker 1: again the following year. Unfortunately, though Jemima died of tuberculosis
Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty one, which left William Sr. With two
Speaker 1: infant sons. Perkin remarried five years later to Alexandria Caroline
Speaker 1: Malwow who went by Sasha. He and Sasha had a son, Frederick,
Speaker 1: followed by four daughters, Sasha, Lucy, Annie, and Helen Mary.
Speaker 1: The die manufacturing plant was a thriving business, but the
Speaker 1: Perkin brothers were also constantly operating at kind of a
Speaker 1: breakneck pace, and part of that for William was that
Speaker 1: he wanted to continue his other experiments, which were not
Speaker 1: exclusively in the development of pigments. Perkin had another significant
Speaker 1: chemistry achievement in eighteen fifty eight. That year, he worked
Speaker 1: alongside another scientist B. F. Deppa, and the two produced
Speaker 1: the first lab created version of glycine. Glycine is an
Speaker 1: amino acid, and that was the first amino acid produced
Speaker 1: in a lab setting. With the same collaborate. Later, Perkins
Speaker 1: synthesized tartaric acid two years later in eighteen sixty and
Speaker 1: he was publishing about these findings and other experiments throughout
Speaker 1: his time running the business. Yeah, he kept his hand
Speaker 1: in in the scientific world throughout another process that Perkins
Speaker 1: developed while he was still in the synthetic die business
Speaker 1: was what's called the Perkin reaction. I am not a chemist,
Speaker 1: and I will mess this up if I try to
Speaker 1: extrapolate from a definition into Planer terms. So I am
Speaker 1: going to read the Miriam Webster definition of a Perkin
Speaker 1: reaction here, and it is quote A reaction for making
Speaker 1: an unsaturated aromatic acid as cinemic acid by heating and
Speaker 1: aromatic aldehyde with an acid and hydride as acidic and
Speaker 1: hydride in the presence of a base as sodium acetate
Speaker 1: or potassium carbonate. I don't want to dunk on Miriam
Speaker 1: Webster because I used Miriam Webster all the time, but
Speaker 1: I still have a number of questions after he read that.
Speaker 1: But basically what this means is that using this method,
Speaker 1: it's a lot of chemistry stuff, and I feel foolish
Speaker 1: that I don't grasp chemistry well enough to really be
Speaker 1: able to say more about it. He was able to
Speaker 1: synthesize the first artificial perfume. You made a compound called
Speaker 1: kumar in which smells like fresh moan hay. To be clear,
Speaker 1: though Perkin did not make this into a perfume. He
Speaker 1: just developed Kumaran, and it was later used in perfumes
Speaker 1: and as a flavoring for sweets. Today, perkins work, both
Speaker 1: in this area and others, is cited as the launching
Speaker 1: point for organic chemistry and all of the many industries
Speaker 1: which have developed through it. After seventeen years in the
Speaker 1: dye industry, William Perkin reached a point where he wanted
Speaker 1: to be doing his research more than he wanted to
Speaker 1: be running a business, and so on January one, seventy four,
Speaker 1: Perkin and Sons was officially sold for a hundred and
Speaker 1: five thousand pounds. While Perkin was undoubtedly ready to start
Speaker 1: a less frantic pace of his life with his finances
Speaker 1: secure from the deal, there were some problems with this sale.
Speaker 1: The plant at Greenford Green was not well run by
Speaker 1: its new owners, which was Brooke, Simpson and Spiller. They
Speaker 1: rapidly lost clients. This led the purchasers to claim that
Speaker 1: the Perkins had misled them, and they sued the Perkins,
Speaker 1: citing deception bordering on fraud. This matter was finally settled
Speaker 1: in March eighteen seventy five, with a judge ruling in
Speaker 1: the Perkins favor. Yeah, he was basically like they put
Speaker 1: together a huge dossier of like, here's everything we left
Speaker 1: these people, We told him how to do it. They
Speaker 1: did it wrong, and the judge was like, yep, they
Speaker 1: sure did. So. With this legal matter completed, William Perkins
Speaker 1: set up his home lab, He built a new house,
Speaker 1: and he settled into a life of research. This all
Speaker 1: sounds like a really idyllic retirement, but he was still
Speaker 1: just thirty seven at this point. He was a young man.
Speaker 1: In the years between founding the chemical plant and selling it,
Speaker 1: he had managed to write and publish almost two papers
Speaker 1: per year on a variety of organic chemists three subjects.
Speaker 1: Once he was free of the time limitations of industrial work,
Speaker 1: his publishing output only went up, and he wrote and
Speaker 1: published papers on his research right up until the end
Speaker 1: of his life. He also continued to enjoy art and
Speaker 1: music throughout his life, and he was able to enjoy
Speaker 1: more of these pastimes and share them with his kids
Speaker 1: in his post industry years. In nineteen o six, the
Speaker 1: fiftieth anniversary of perkins synthesis of moving, he was knighted
Speaker 1: and there were jubilee celebrations to mark the half century
Speaker 1: birthday of his revolutionary chemical accident. The official name of
Speaker 1: this anniversary festivity was the International Celebration of the Coultar
Speaker 1: Color Jubilee. It consisted of a lot of events for Perkins,
Speaker 1: who his hand all around Britain and abroad. When he
Speaker 1: traveled to the US that year, he was elected an
Speaker 1: honorary Fellow of the American Chemical Society. As part of
Speaker 1: that honor, he was given a silver punch bowl, and
Speaker 1: he said it would be good for lemonade. This is
Speaker 1: a good natured nod to his being a teetotaler. Perkin
Speaker 1: never drank. At that same ceremony he was given the
Speaker 1: Perkin Medal of the American Chemical Society. That was the
Speaker 1: first That medal is still issued annually for quote innovation
Speaker 1: and applied chemistry resulting in outstanding commercial development. One of
Speaker 1: these celebration events, which took place at the Royal Institution,
Speaker 1: this is kind of like the culmination event was described
Speaker 1: this way. Quote Sir William H. Perkin, on his appearance
Speaker 1: was received with loud and prolonged cheers. There was a
Speaker 1: large attendance of representatives of scientific societies and of commercial
Speaker 1: organizations interested in the coal tar color industry. A great
Speaker 1: many ladies were also present at that event. The Chairman
Speaker 1: of the Royal Institution, Professor R. Medola, gave a brief
Speaker 1: speech which included quote, the object for which we are
Speaker 1: assembled on the present occasion is so well known to
Speaker 1: most of you that, in the view of the long
Speaker 1: program before us, I do not propose to occupy your
Speaker 1: attention myself for more than a very few moments. It will,
Speaker 1: I am sure, be your wish in the first place,
Speaker 1: that we should take this opportunity of offering our hearty
Speaker 1: congratulations to the founder of the cold tar color industry
Speaker 1: on having lived to witness the consummation of his labors,
Speaker 1: which we are celebrating on this fiftieth anniversary. Yes, so
Speaker 1: there was no doubt during his lifetime that people thought
Speaker 1: he had really, uh completely invented this entire new field.
Speaker 1: And when Perkin wrapped up his time at the jubilee,
Speaker 1: concluded his final speech with quote, when I look back
Speaker 1: on my life and consider all the ways I have
Speaker 1: been led above all, I thank God to whom I
Speaker 1: owe everything, for all his goodness to me, and ascribe
Speaker 1: to him all the praise and honor. Perkin was Methodist,
Speaker 1: and his religion was an integral part of his identity.
Speaker 1: And how he lived his life. He made a lot
Speaker 1: of money in the chemical color industry, and he gave
Speaker 1: a lot of it away. He provided a fund to
Speaker 1: build a Methodist church in Sudbury, and he thought being
Speaker 1: a job creator was one of the best achievements of
Speaker 1: their company's success. In July of nineteen oh seven, Perkin,
Speaker 1: who had just gotten through all of this travel, which
Speaker 1: was celebrating him but really took a toll on him,
Speaker 1: started to feel ill and he did not seek medical
Speaker 1: help for several days because he was a bit wary
Speaker 1: of doctors. He also didn't think whatever was going on
Speaker 1: with serious. He did speak with a dietitian because he
Speaker 1: did not realize that he had pneumonia, and that also
Speaker 1: his appendix had burst. A doctor was finally called in,
Speaker 1: but it was too late, and Perkin died on July fourteenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen o seven. Perkins obituary and the Journal of the
Speaker 1: Society of Dires and Colorist Threat in part quote his
Speaker 1: neighbors at Sudbury loved him for his quiet philanthropy. His
Speaker 1: generous courtesy and kindness of heart were striking characteristics which
Speaker 1: strangely attached him to all those with whom he was
Speaker 1: personally acquainted. Aside from the fact that every ing from
Speaker 1: anesthetics to artificial sweeteners are often traced back to the
Speaker 1: work that Perkin did, he also left a legacy in
Speaker 1: chemistry through his children. Perkin's sons all had careers that
Speaker 1: followed in their father's footsteps. William Henry Perkin Jr. Was
Speaker 1: considered Great Britain's finest organic chemist during his life, and
Speaker 1: Arthur eventually became head of the Department of color Chemistry
Speaker 1: at University of Leeds. Frederick, his son from his second marriage,
Speaker 1: became a pioneer in low temperature carbonization. So his his
Speaker 1: tendrils in science just kept like going on and on
Speaker 1: and on and on. Uh, and we are still I
Speaker 1: think you could make a firm case enjoying the benefits
Speaker 1: of his work today. UM. I obviously love the color purple.
Speaker 1: H He's an interesting one and UH seems to have
Speaker 1: maintained a fairly kind and low key attitude throughout his life.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about that a bit more in our behind
Speaker 1: the scenes. UH. And now I have a listener mail
Speaker 1: about some of our Halloween fun This one is about
Speaker 1: haunted houses and it's from our listener Barb who writes
Speaker 1: High Ladies. I love the show and especially look forward
Speaker 1: to your October episodes. I'm also a huge fan of
Speaker 1: haunted houses, so after hearing this week's episode on the
Speaker 1: history of them, I knew I needed to write in.
Speaker 1: As a kid, I have fond memories of going through
Speaker 1: our local haunted house each year with my dad. It
Speaker 1: was an old, possibly even abandoned house on the end
Speaker 1: of my block and was run by the j C's.
Speaker 1: My dad started taking me as a pretty young child,
Speaker 1: maybe four or five. His favorite story to tell us
Speaker 1: about the first time we went at the end of
Speaker 1: the haunted house, just as you exited, there was a
Speaker 1: person who would chase you with a quote chainsaw. I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure it was just the motor without a blade,
Speaker 1: but that sound was scary enough in the dark, my
Speaker 1: dad said. I jumped a few feet in the air,
Speaker 1: and my feet were moving before they hit the ground.
Speaker 1: I was out of there. One might think this experience
Speaker 1: would keep me away. Nope, not me. I was hooked.
Speaker 1: We went every year, sometimes more than once. When I
Speaker 1: was a little older, I would talk my friends into
Speaker 1: going with me as well. I even dragged my now
Speaker 1: husband to a haunted Schoolhouse, which had become one of
Speaker 1: my favorites to visit as a date. I had no
Speaker 1: idea about the changes in safety measures for haunted houses
Speaker 1: over the years. Are Haunted House at the end of
Speaker 1: the block moved to a new location in the early nineties,
Speaker 1: so your episode shed some light on why that might
Speaker 1: have been. Thanks so much for all the spooky October episodes.
Speaker 1: I had the pleasure to see you in person at
Speaker 1: the October Live event in Chicago and meet you afterwards.
Speaker 1: You were both so gracious and a delight to me.
Speaker 1: I hope you can come back to our area once
Speaker 1: live shows start back up. Thanks again, Barb, Barb, I
Speaker 1: hope so too. I hate three UM, I missed touring
Speaker 1: and I love Chicago. I would love to do UM.
Speaker 1: I don't know that Tracy would agree. I would do
Speaker 1: like a two month long tour of every city we've
Speaker 1: ever hit, and then some because we haven't done it
Speaker 1: in so long. Know I it's as long as we
Speaker 1: had like a break day every three days. We take
Speaker 1: a break day four maximum. Yeah, because day five of
Speaker 1: a tour I would be anymore. That's how I would like.
Speaker 1: I would wake up in the middle of the night
Speaker 1: to go to the bathroom, and my body would try
Speaker 1: to take me to wear the room had the bathroom
Speaker 1: in a different hotel, and I would wind up in
Speaker 1: a corner like where am I? Yes, I think there
Speaker 1: was a time where you texted me once and asked
Speaker 1: me what airport I had landed in, and I told
Speaker 1: you I did not know, um. And then when I
Speaker 1: got to the baggage claim, I recognized the airport and
Speaker 1: was like, oh, here's where I am. I'm fine because
Speaker 1: we were in a city with multiple airports and I
Speaker 1: was like, I don't know. Um. You know, that's how
Speaker 1: it works when you're touring. Your brain gets a little
Speaker 1: fuzzy on your whereabouts. But Barb, thank you again so much,
Speaker 1: and I'm glad that that was a fun episode, and
Speaker 1: also like, I just love hearing people's life long affinities
Speaker 1: for haunts and all of the fun that Halloween in
Speaker 1: October can bring. First sure, if you would like to
Speaker 1: write to us, you can do so at History Podcast
Speaker 1: at i heeart radio dot com. You can also find
Speaker 1: us on social media as missed in History, And if
Speaker 1: you haven't subscribed to the podcast yet, that's super duper easy.
Speaker 1: You can do it right now. If you want, you
Speaker 1: can find that on the I heart Radio app or
Speaker 1: anywhere else you listen to your favorite podcast. Stuff you
Speaker 1: Missed in History Class is a production of I heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the iHeart
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Speaker 1: favorite shows.