Pod Insights Stuff You Missed in History Class The Slow Invention of Spray Paint About this episode The possible contenders for the title of inventor of spray paint were actually working across decades. And really, all those people contributed pieces of the story.
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Holly Frey? This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human. A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. In season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, host Martine Hackett continues the conversation with people living with MG, CIDP, and the broader rare disease community, exploring what comes after diagnosis through stories of hope, progress, and connection. Produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Argonix. Listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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1:08 Holly Frey? We've all tumbled down an internet rabbit hole trying to self-diagnose, and it leaves us more anxious than informed. Our feeds are full of wellness trends, but how do we know what's real, what's exaggerated, and what's just wrong? Health vs. Hype from the American Medical Association breaks it all down. Emmy-nominated science communicator Trace Dominguez talks to doctors, influencers, and real people trying these trends, not to cancel them, but to understand them. Because when it comes to your health, who you listen to matters. So listen to Health vs. Hype wherever you get your podcasts.
1:40 Tracy V. Wilson? The Old Gays are back with Silver Linings, their lovable podcast from iHeart's Ruby Studio in partnership with Veeve Healthcare. Robert, Mick, Bill, and Jessa strut back down memory lane for season two, sharing lessons on life, love, and loss. These are the kind of insights that only come from experience. So tune into Silver Linings with The Old Gays on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
2:08 Holly Frey? Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeart Radio.
2:18 Holly Frey? Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Frey.
2:21 Tracy V. Wilson? And I'm Tracy V. Wilson.
2:23 Holly Frey? This episode is brought to you by Everything is Depressing and I'm Curious.
2:30 Tracy V. Wilson? I also have a forthcoming episode that has similar motivations.
2:34 Holly Frey? Yeah, I um, I don't know what, what day it is, what day it was. Uh, I have been traveling a lot for work and there was one day, you know, my husband and I had been apart for like over a week, which is very unusual for us. I don't know that it's ever happened before, save one exception. Cause he was traveling and I was traveling. Some of that was surprises, but we got home and I was like, hey, let's go out for lunch. Cause I flew in early in the morning, early meaning in the morning period. Um, and we did, and we were at this place that we love near our house that is near train tracks. And as trains were going by, I, in my somewhat exhausted state, kept gazing at them.
3:14 Holly Frey? And I was looking at all the graffiti and I had this moment of like, I wonder what train people of the 1800s would think of trains today. And then I went, they didn't even have spray paint. And then I went, when did that happen? So here we are.
3:30 Tracy V. Wilson? I, I love when that kind of train of thought leads to an episode.
3:34 Holly Frey? Yeah. Uh, to be clear, I don't want to disappoint anyone because I know it is a, a much beloved subject for some people. I'm, we're not talking about graffiti art.
3:46 Holly Frey? Even though I think that is fascinating, it'll get a little chatter on our Friday episode because I stumbled into a hotbed of people discussing it. But the invention of spray paint, like a lot of inventions, is kind of a matter of debate. But this isn't just a case that we've had in some instances where a bunch of different inventors are on to the same idea, kind of around the same time. And there's like a race for a patent or arguments over like when people filed. The possible contenders for the title of inventor are actually spread across decades for this one. Um, and some of this becomes more of an argument about what the definition of spray paint is.
4:26 Holly Frey? But there are also kind of clusters of moments, particularly at the beginning, where there are disagreements about maybe who was where and what they knew of what other people were doing. Really, though, if you look at it in kind of its grander scale, it's more a matter of all of these people contributing pieces to the story. And in some cases, in one in particular, we know a pretty decent amount about the various characters involved, and we're going to talk about them. But others unfortunately don't offer a whole lot of information about their personal history in any kind of definitive record. So we're going to step through a number of people and moments that get us to the point where you could just go to the hardware store and grab a can of paint and paint something at your house.
5:10 Tracy V. Wilson? One of the earliest figures cited as an inventor of a sprayable pigment is Joseph Binks. And this is already a tricky part of the story because it is hard to find information to back this up. There's also not a lot of information on who Binks was as a person. Most of the references about this are on pages from body shops that use spray booths, which is cool. I've had a similar experience sometimes when I have been researching something that would be used in some particular capacity today, but that's not a primary source. So it could be entirely true, but there's not hard evidence that we can verify this with.
5:54 Tracy V. Wilson? There is a book that does include this information. It's titled Collision Repair and Refinishing: A Foundation Course for Technicians. Holly was not able to get a copy of that. It may or may not have a more concrete source of where that detail comes from.
6:12 Holly Frey? Yeah, also, since that is a book that is about, I mean, I was able to get a preview of it and see the contents. It definitely is about the hard need information of doing the job of collision repair. So I can't imagine the historical element is real heavy, but in any case, according to the often repeated story, Binks was working as a maintenance manager at Marshall Fields Department Store in Chicago. And as part of his routine work schedule, he had to oversee the whitewashing of the basement. So just in case you don't know what that means or why it's done, because I think some people think whitewashing just means painting a thing white. That's not actually accurate.
6:53 Holly Frey? Uh, whitewashing is a way to manage moisture and bacteria as well as to brighten a space. True whitewash uses lime putty as a base, so it is not a matter of applying white pigment, but a wash that happens to be white that also helps to keep the space clean. And because of its white color, there is also an improvement to visibility because it brightens the space and it offers a way to strengthen the mortar or brickwork. So a big department store would have a vested interest in all of those benefits in its basement.
7:24 Tracy V. Wilson? But whitewashing all the corridors of Marshall Fields took weeks, even with the whole team working on it. The basement had many levels. Every level had its own series of corridors and rooms, and all of that needed whitewashing. As a supervisor, Binks recognized that sending his men to do this job with buckets of paint and paintbrushes was not efficient. And this was not the only job in the store that needed to be done. So he decided to try to create a faster method. The resulting device had a reservoir for the whitewash, a hose with a nozzle and a hands pump that could pressurize the liquid in the reservoir and then spray it out of the nozzle.
8:08 Holly Frey? Yeah, I've seen this compared to like a modern lawn care insecticide or weed killer nozzle, like the way that those are kind of handheld while you're carrying the reservoir. Also, as an aside, sometimes Binks's story is told with the detail that he invented this sprayer as a way to repaint a lot of buildings quickly after the scourge of the Great Chicago Fire. That creates a wildly different timeline. That fire happened in 1871, way before he was working on this project at Marshall Fields. And most sources do mention his sprayer as having been invented in the late 1880s. So I do not think the Chicago Fire was a part of the equation.
8:49 Tracy V. Wilson? There is a Binks company operating today. And while the company doesn't offer a comprehensive history of its namesake, there are some photos of Binks's sprayer base and an invention by another man that we'll talk about in just a bit.
9:04 Holly Frey? So the next figure to enter the story of spray paint is Francis Davis Millet. Maybe, really, but sometimes he's held up as a maybe. This part of the story takes place a few years after Binks is said to have come up with his whitewash spray invention. And it involves an event that is essentially a recurring character on Stuff You Missed in History Class, the World Columbian Exposition, also known as the Chicago World's Fair, which took place from May through October of 1893.
9:34 Tracy V. Wilson? Millet is worthy of a little exploration because his life story touches on a lot of significant events. Francis Davis Millet was born on November 3rd, 1846, in Matipoiset, Massachusetts, and was delivered at home by his father, who was a doctor. The family moved around Massachusetts while he was a kid. And in 1857, his father Asa lost everything during a financial crisis in the United States. When the Civil War began, Asa Millet worked as a surgeon for the Union Army. And Francis, who went by Frank, traveled with him as an assistant. In 1864, Frank enlisted and was made the drummer for the Massachusetts Volunteer Militia.
10:17 Holly Frey? After the war, Millet attended Harvard University, and he studied language and literature there. He graduated in 1869 and started working as a reporter and editor in various Boston-area newspapers. But while he was working in journalism, he started studying lithography. We've talked a little bit about lithography, printmaking, on the show before. It uses grease as a repellent of water-based ink, so images etched into an oil or grease-coated material would absorb the ink to then be transferred onto the paper. And he also started taking life drawing classes at this time at the Lowell Institute. He had been artistically inclined even before he started all these studies.
11:00 Holly Frey? And he was producing paintings even while he was still an undergrad. But once he finished school, his artistic output accelerated, even though he was also holding down a full-time job.
11:11 Tracy V. Wilson? Although he was working as a journalist, as early as 1870, Millet was listing himself in the city directory of Boston as an artist. And he set up his own studio that year as well. As his skills improved with art school training, he started producing portraits. By the spring of 1871, Millet was ready to leave his journalism work behind and go to art school full time. And he went abroad to do that, enrolling at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. While in Europe, he traveled to Germany, London, Hungary, Turkey, Greece, Italy, and more locales on study trips. Millet had never been to Europe before, and it seems like he was eager to take in as
11:55 Tracy V. Wilson? much as he could while he was abroad. His art style during these years became more complex and vivid in its color choices. He also started winning awards in student competitions at the Royal Academy. He eventually became the only American to win a gold medal at the school.
12:13 Holly Frey? And coming up, we'll talk about Millet's very busy career and how frequently he was involved with world's fairs. But first, we're going to take a sponsor break.
12:26 Speaker 02 First thought is like, wow, how are we going to do all this?
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14:33 Holly Frey? We've all done it. Tumble down an internet rabbit hole trying to self-diagnose. And sometimes doing our own research can leave us more anxious than informed. Your feed is packed with wellness trends telling you to cold plunge, protein max, detox, track your sleep. But what's actually real? What's exaggerated? What's just wrong? That's exactly what Health vs. Hype from the American Medical Association and iHeartMedia's Ruby Studio is here to find out. Each episode, Emmy-nominated science communicator Trace Dominguez, who's racked up billions of views across PBS, Discovery Channel, and YouTube, talks to doctors, influencers, and real people trying these trends. Not to cancel them, not to hype them
15:17 Holly Frey? more, but to actually understand them. Because when it comes to your health, who you listen to matters. Start asking better questions and listen to Health vs. Hype on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
15:36 Speaker 04 Okay, Chicken Nugget fans, I've got huge news. The new Burger King Chicken Nuggets just dropped, and they are the crispiest, the juiciest, and the tastiest chicken nuggets ever at Burger King. Burger King heard that a lot of you didn't like the old Chicken Nuggets, so they got to work and reinvented them. To go along with the new Chicken Nuggets, a lot of the sauces were reinvented too, because better Chicken Nuggets deserve better sauces. We're talking new buffalo sauce, honey mustard, sweet and sour, and even a whole new option too, the new special savory sauce, which is only available for a limited time at participating US restaurants. I mean, you need to taste it all for yourself.
16:18 Speaker 04 This new Chicken Nugget, reinvented based on real feedback, is made with 100% white meat chicken and is now better than ever. You gotta try the new Burger King Chicken Nuggets and sauces today.
16:37 Holly Frey? In 1873, Millet got his first experience working at a world's fair, when he was selected to work at the Vienna Universal Exposition as Secretary to the Chairman of the Massachusetts Board of Commissioners to the fair.
16:51 Tracy V. Wilson? In 1875, Millet was back in Massachusetts and built a studio on a piece of land his father gave him in Bridgewater. The following year, he co-founded the Boston Museum School of Art and taught there. His next notable career achievement was in murals. These were murals that adorned the interiors of Boston's Trinity Church. That was over the course of 1876 and 1877. He started exhibiting his canvas paintings throughout the northeastern United States. Millet had gained a degree of fame as an artist at this point and made portraits of society people and celebrities like Mark Twain.
17:31 Tracy V. Wilson? When the Russo-Turkish War began in 1877, Millet combined his art and his journalism experience and became a war correspondent. He sketched what he saw on the battlefield for publication in newspapers. He'd already been living temporarily in Paris when the war started, and once it concluded, he went back to the French capital. When the Paris Exposition took place in 1878, Frank was selected as a fine art juror. He lived and worked in London and Paris for several years and married Lily Greeley in Paris in 1879. After the wedding, the two of them returned to Massachusetts again, and the Bridgewater Studio was expanded into a home for the newlyweds.
18:15 Holly Frey? But they didn't really settle down. They were there long enough to have their first child, a daughter named Catherine, and then a second child, Edwin, who sadly died as an infant. And then they were on the go again. Throughout the 1880s, Millet seemed to be constantly in motion, traveling throughout Europe and the US while also constantly producing paintings and having exhibitions. His third child with Lily, a son named Lawrence, was born while the Millets were living in England. And he eventually maintained a pretty regular schedule of living in two places: England from May to October each year, and the US for the remaining months, normally in Massachusetts or New York, as determined by his work schedule.
18:57 Holly Frey? Frank and Lily's fourth child was also born in England in 1888. That was another son named John Alfred Parsons.
19:05 Tracy V. Wilson? And Frank was kind of a Renaissance man in terms of the art he created. He kept being selected for a variety of high-profile jobs, including the design of the stained glass throughout St. Stephen's Church in Lynn, Massachusetts. He also designed theatrical costumes for a lot of productions. He was considered an expert in historical clothing and worked alongside Louis Comfort Tiffany to decorate lavish interiors. He also started writing and publishing short fiction. In the early 1890s, he became vice president of New York's National Academy of Design.
19:42 Holly Frey? This is like such a stripped-down version of his stuff, too, that like, we'll talk about Frank on Friday. He also continued to be involved in world's fairs, including the Munich International Exposition in 1883, where he was once again a juror, but also was part of the executive committee. He was again a juror for the Paris Exposition of 1889. So when preparations began for the 1893 World's Colombian Exposition in Chicago, it isn't really surprising that Millet was involved. He was selected to be the director of decorations, and that is how his story ties into spray paint.
20:21 Tracy V. Wilson? For the exposition, a full array of neoclassical buildings was designed to house the various exhibit halls. And according to the lore, things got behind schedule. The buildings were made of a composite of plaster and jute fiber that was spread over steel frames, and they were supposed to look like white marble once they were painted. But the finishing touch of the paint started too late, and there was no way that even a massive workforce of people could manage it if they were just using paintbrushers. So they brought in paint sprayers.
20:56 Holly Frey? This is one of the points of contention regarding spray paint history. So the paint sprayer is sometimes described as a new invention created by Millet to solve this problem. But this has been a matter of doubt for a lot of people over the years. Given the fact that Joseph Banks is said to have invented a sprayer in Chicago several years prior, it's pretty normal to consider that he may have been called in to help, and that seems like a pretty rational explanation. And some accounts you read will say exactly that. But that version that Joseph Banks was the inventor and they were using his versus Millet invented a new thing, these two possibilities are very much the ones
21:39 Holly Frey? that are found bandied about every time you can find information about spray paint history online.
21:46 Tracy V. Wilson? That could have been where Holly left it, but then she stumbled across an illustration on a dead University of Chicago page that showed Ben in 19th century hats spraying paint while standing on scaffolding, sitting on top of a compressor. The caption just read, "Spray paint," but the attribution led to a book by Hubert Howe Bancroft titled, "The Book of the Fair and Historical and Descriptive Presentation of the World's Science, Art, and Industry as Viewed Through the Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893."
22:21 Tracy V. Wilson? This book, published in 1893, details the process of setting up the fair, the architects involved, planning of the layout and expo buildings, and there was the illustration, and in this, it was labeled in the book as Millet Spraying Machine.
22:38 Holly Frey? So this book has a very long footnote, like a footnote that takes up the next page, about construction and mentions why things fell behind schedule in the first place. Quote, "Among the many difficulties encountered by the construction department was the intensely cold and stormy weather, accompanied with heavy snowfalls, which marked the winter preceding the opening of the fair, one of the severest in the annals of Chicago. For weeks, the buildings were capped with snow and ice, the melting of which caused a severe strain on the roofs, crushing in portions and causing slight interior damage."
23:15 Tracy V. Wilson? That long footnote also spells out exactly how the buildings were painted. Quote, "To paint the buildings by the ordinary method was found to be an impossible task within the time allotted. A contrivance was therefore fashioned by Frank D. Millet, in charge of the decoration department, whereby four men, working in unison, could accomplish the task of 50. It consisted of a piece of gas pipe so shaped at one end as to discharge a spray of paint, and from which a rubber hose connected with an air pump driven by electric power. By the pump, paint was drawn from a barrel and scattered by force of air over the surface to be coated."
23:55 Holly Frey? Millet is also quoted in the book explaining the whole decision-making process behind the sprayer and how the paint was mixed for it. Quote, "Every experiment which has been made to produce aesthetic effects of texture suggested by the usual treatment of plaster objects has resulted in partial or in total failure. And every time the warm white of the staff," the staff is that mixture of plaster and jute, "every time the warm white of the staff has been meddled with its glory has departed. But the conditions imposed by the climate, by the impossibility of securing a homogeneous surface, and by the exposure and con- Discoloration of a certain portion of the work have made it necessary to apply some sort of paint to all the buildings.
24:39 Holly Frey? Ordinary white lead and oil have been found to give the best results for the irregular absorption of the staff and the weathering rapidly produce an agreeable and not too monotonous effect, and the surface deteriorates less rapidly after this treatment.
24:54 Tracy V. Wilson? So this Millet sprayer was a lot different from the Bink sprayer. Whether Millet knew about the Bink sprayer is not known, but the sprayer created for the expo appears to have been a more industrial design, both in the size and the use of electrical current to run it.
25:11 Holly Frey? Meanwhile, in Toledo, Ohio, a physician had run into his own problem that led him to create a means to spray fluid in a fine mist. That physician was Dr. Alan de Vilbus, born in 1841. By the late 1880s, he was an experienced doctor and he was an otolaryngologist, an ear, nose, and throat specialist. And in the course of his work, he often prescribed treatments or anesthetics that involved coating the throat or the sinuses with medicine. But there wasn't a great way to get even distribution, so often these liquids would end up swallowed by the patient, or they would only coat one portion of the affected area.
25:51 Tracy V. Wilson? De Vilbus's solution was the atomizer. He created an apparatus with a hollow bulb on one end, which connected to a sprayer nozzle via a tube. Another tube led to a reservoir where the liquid needing administration was held. Pinch the bulb and the resulting pressure burst would create a fine spray of droplets.
26:12 Holly Frey? De Vilbus started marketing this invention to other physicians, and it rapidly caught on. He opened the De Vilbus Manufacturing Company in 1890 to produce his atomizers at a larger scale. And as De Vilbus's sons grew up, they joined and then eventually took over the family business. And through them, the product line expanded. That included perfume atomizers. By the way, vintage De Vilbus atomizers are very popular on the collector's market. And also, thanks to his son, Thomas de Vilbus, in 1907, it included a paint sprayer.
26:47 Tracy V. Wilson? The Devilbus paint sprayer was quickly adopted by furniture makers and the company continued to expand and grow. The Binks Company we mentioned just a little while ago includes the Devilbus Company as part of it today.
27:01 Holly Frey? Yeah, those companies, as anytime we've talked about companies and inventions, have gone through numerous ownerships, iterations, et cetera, but that's their current status. The Devilbus atomizer is the other model that is shown on the Binks page next to the Binks sprayer. Also, as the Devilbus paint atomizer was gaining popularity, Frank Millett died at sea at the age of 66 because he was a passenger on the Titanic when it struck an iceberg and sank.
27:29 Tracy V. Wilson? Coming up, we will talk about the evolution of these sprayers to the paint can that we are familiar with today. First, we will hear from the sponsors that keep Stephumist in history class going.
27:43 Holly Frey? We've all done it. Tumble down an internet rabbit hole trying to self diagnose. And sometimes doing our own research can leave us more anxious than informed. Your feed is packed with wellness trends telling you to cold plunge, protein max, detox, track your sleep. But what's actually real? What's exaggerated? What's just wrong? That's exactly what Health vs. Hype from the American Medical Association and iHeartMedia's Ruby Studio is here to find out. Each episode, Emmy nominated science communicator Trace Dominguez, who's racked up billions of views across PBS, Discovery Channel, and YouTube, talks to doctors, influencers, and real people trying these trends. Not to cancel them, not
28:27 Holly Frey? to hype them more, but to actually understand them. Because when it comes to your health, who you listen to matters. Start asking better questions and listen to Health vs. Hype on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
28:46 Speaker 04 Okay, Chicken Nugget fans, I've got huge news. The new Burger King Chicken Nuggets just dropped, and they are the crispiest, the juiciest, and the tastiest chicken nuggets ever at Burger King. Burger King heard that a lot of you didn't like the old chicken nuggets, so they got to work and reinvented them. To go along with the new chicken nuggets, a lot of the sauces were reinvented too, because better chicken nuggets deserve better sauces. We're talking new buffalo sauce, honey mustard, sweet and sour, and even a whole new option too, the new special savory sauce, which is only available for a limited time at participating US restaurants. I mean, you need to taste it all for yourself.
29:28 Speaker 04 This new chicken nugget, reinvented based on real feedback, is made with 100% white meat chicken and is now better than ever. You gotta try the new Burger King Chicken Nuggets and sauces today.
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30:53 Tracy V. Wilson? Guess who's back in the house? The old gays return for season two of Silver Linings, their hit podcast from iHeart's Ruby Studio in partnership with Vive Healthcare. Just wait until you hear what hosts Robert McMillan and Jesay have in store this time around. They strut back down memory lane navigating life, love, loss, and everything that shaped them along the way. And as usual, someone just might break into song. From leather bars to bathhouses, dance floors to drag brunch, nothing stays off limits. These are the kinds of insights that can only come from experience. So, listen to your elders, honey, and discover the silver linings you can take with you. All sass, zero filter, and decades of perspective from four friends proving that queer joy
31:38 Tracy V. Wilson? only gets better with age on the podcast that never gets old. Listen to Silver Linings, available on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
31:57 Holly Frey? The paint sprayers that we have been talking about so far were propelled by compressed air, but none of them were aerosol-based. So, all an aerosol is by definition is simply small particles of liquid or even solid suspended in a gas. Today, the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology defines an aerosol product as, quote, "a self-dispensing, pressurized packaging form consisting of a metal, glass, or plastic container with a permanently attached continuous or metering valve, and designed to dispense products as sprays, streams, gels, foams, lotions, or gases."
32:36 Tracy V. Wilson? There are instances of aerosols going back to the 18th century. Some of aerosol history is related to a topic we have covered on the show before. That's in our 2023 episode on Johan Jakobsen and the rise of carbonation.
32:51 Tracy V. Wilson? In that case, some drinks were aerosolized to give them bubbles. And there were efforts to create spray cans in the 19th century, but they weren't really usable. The cans had to be heavy to keep the contents from exploding out. And that made them too heavy to easily carry.
33:08 Holly Frey? It wasn't until a Norwegian scientist named Eric Rothheim that an aerosol can became a realistic product. Rothheim was born in 1898 or 1899, and he got a chemical engineering degree in Switzerland. And in his late twenties, in 1926, he applied for a Norwegian patent for an aerosol can. He also filed for and received a US patent under the title, "Method and Means for the Atomizing or Distribution of Liquid or Semi-Liquid Materials." That patent opens with, quote, "This invention has for its object, "a method for the atomizing or distribution of liquid or semi-liquid materials, "as well as means for carrying the method into effect.
33:51 Holly Frey? "The invention also comprises a method of preparing the liquids or materials to be atomized "or distributed, as well as the products obtained by the said preparation." According to the invention, the material to be dispensed is enclosed in a pressure-resistant vessel, "together with dimethyl ether under a pressure sufficient to affect liquefaction "of the dimethyl ether by condensation." The substance dimethyl ether is a gas at ordinary temperature. In a liquefied condition, it has a boiling point of negative 24.9 degrees Celsius, 24.9 degrees Celsius below zero. Its vapor density is 1.617 and its specific volume in a gaseous condition
34:33 Holly Frey? "is 350 times its specific volume in a liquid condition at ordinary atmospheric pressure and room temperature."
34:41 Tracy V. Wilson? Rothheim initially started his own company to produce the cans, but then partnered with the Oslo, Norway company Furnace Fabric "to develop a version for the mass market with the intent to use the can for paints and varnishes." He worked alongside a scientist named Frodo Mortensen on the can's design. They did well overall, producing a prototype, but they kind of hit a wall when it came to developing a nozzle that would not clog.
35:09 Holly Frey? Eventually, in frustration, Rothheim is said to have sold the patent to a US company for 100 kroner. That would have been a little less than $10. What company bought it has proven really tricky to track down, and there might be a reason. There is actually a contradictory account on the Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology site, written by museum curator Dag Andreessen. And that version states that while Rothheim was in talks with a number of US companies to sell the patent, including DuPont, there was never actually a deal.
35:42 Tracy V. Wilson? Eric Rothheim did not live very long after all of this would or would not have happened. He died quite young, at the age of 39. That was in 1938, so just before World War II. The company he had founded, Elremix, shut down by 1940. The war did prove to be a time, though, when his invention received rapid adoption. The widespread encounters with malaria and typhus that soldiers experienced drove US researchers Lyle Goodhue and William Sullivan from the Department of Agriculture to use Rothheim's basic design to create small spray cans of insecticide that could be carried into
36:23 Tracy V. Wilson? the field. According to that same museum account, Goodhue had been working at DuPont at the time when Rothheim was in talks with the company about the patent. Rothheim's prototype spray can is in the collection of the Oslo Science Park.
36:39 Holly Frey? And now, we have to jump ahead just a few years to talk about a man named Ed Seymour. In 1949, Ed, who was in the paint business, had developed a unique aluminum coating that was intended to be used on radiators. And he wanted to be able to show this paint off in demonstrations with an easy way to apply it that wouldn't require a full shop of equipment.
37:01 Tracy V. Wilson? According to the story, Ed's wife Bonnie was the one who suggested maybe he could put the paint into a spray gun. She compared it to the insecticide sprays that were already in use at the time. Years later, in 2014, Seymour's daughter Nancy Seymour Heatley told a reporter, "There's an urban legend that says my mother was using what they called a bug bomb and said, 'Hey, why don't you put paint in an aerosol can?' I have no idea if that is true."
37:31 Holly Frey? True or not, Ed Seymour never claimed that the invention happened any other way, and he went with what was perhaps Bonnie's idea. He combined the paint with aerosol in a can, and then he used a spray head to make it easy to spread. So not only did he meet his need of being able to easily show off his coatings, but he also realized that the finish he could get from aerosolized spray was really smooth.
37:55 Tracy V. Wilson? In December of 1951, he was granted a patent on his invention, "Hermetically Sealed Package for Mixing and Discharging Paint." This design included an agitator attached to the end of the uptake tube for the paint for easy mixing. This is described in the patent this way, "In use of the package before depressing buttons to affect spraying of the paint, the package is agitated, for example, by giving it a whirling motion. This causes the flexible tube to move the agitator in an arc over the base. This movement and the agitation thus imparted to the paint removes pigment settled on the base and affects the
38:35 Tracy V. Wilson? redispersion of this pigment in the vehicle. In practice, it has been found that shaking or whirling the package for a few seconds is adequate to affect redispersion of the pigment within."
38:48 Holly Frey? According to the Seymour Company's website, this was initially meant to be something, as we said, that he just used to show off his paints to other businesses, but then he realized that he had invented a new consumer product. "Though intended to show sales prospects how the paint would look when applied to surfaces, the aerosol sprayer proved so popular that Ed borrowed a few thousand dollars from a local bank to develop this revolutionary idea. Soon after perfecting the first spray can, Ed and the employees of his new company formulated the paint, which was mixed and filled with aerosol using a combination of customized and specially engineered machinery."
39:28 Tracy V. Wilson? The Daily Chronicle of DeKalb, Illinois, reported on Seymour's patents the following year. Quote, "A Sycamore Paint Manufacturer and Inventor has been issued a patent on a new development in spray painting, which he calls a rattle in a can. Seymour's development is a new device which permits perfect and complete enamel spraying from an 11-ounce can resembling an insect spray device. All you do is shake the can, then press the button. Almost any job of painting around the home, farm, or factory becomes a simple operation with no mess, sticky brushes, or turpentine," officials of the company said. The write-up then mentions the metal agitator and the fact that Seymour manufactures the paint in Sycamore,
40:13 Tracy V. Wilson? Illinois, and then the paint is shipped to Chicago for packaging in the cans. By the time of that writing, 25 colors were available and shipping throughout the United States.
40:24 Holly Frey? Eventually, the Seymour Company expanded to include an automotive division and industrial division specializing in coatings for industrial equipment, traffic paints, cast iron coatings, and more, and that company still exists today. Ed's daughter Nancy, who we quoted earlier, ran the company after her father, and she was the CEO until her death in 2017. Also, as an aside of something that I found that just seems nice at a time when we need nice things. In 1960, Ed Seymour was awarded Boss of the Year by the local chapter of the National Secretaries Association.
40:59 Tracy V. Wilson? As Seymour was developing his business, Precision Valve Company, owned by Richard Nixon's close friend, Robert Henry Aplinap, was developing a more reliable nozzle, up to the point when Aplinap filed his patent application for valve mechanism for dispensing gases and liquids under pressure. Nozzles continued to be problematic, just as they had been for Rothheim. Aplinapse patent mentions that, quote, "The full utilization of the aerosol principle of dispensing and the insecticidal, germicidal, cosmetic, pharmaceutical, paint, wax, and many other similar fields had been really slowed," quote, "because the large variety of formulations which have been developed
41:41 Tracy V. Wilson? and which require various sizes, shapes, and types of containers cannot conveniently be used with the types of dispensing valves presently available. Furthermore, the present valves do not provide safe and efficient operation in conjunction with simplicity of assembly to assure low cost in mass production." Precision Valve had invented the plastic nozzle.
42:04 Holly Frey? Yeah, to that point, they were all metals. So they would clog, they would get rusted, they were just a pain in the neck. They didn't have enough interior flexibility to allow multiple sizes of pigments to get through. But at this point, with the plastic nozzle in place, the spray paint industry exploded. A lot of new companies emerged, including all the ones you're familiar with. And for decades, it seemed to be a constant growth industry. Then, in the 1970s, regulations against lead paint were put into place and many companies had to reformulate. The Clean Air Act, which is the, quote, "comprehensive federal law that regulates air emissions from stationary and mobile sources," was established in 1970. It got a pretty significant update in 1990, and it has similarly led to reformulations
42:49 Holly Frey? to create low VOC products, removing or reducing the volatile organic compounds, and efforts to remove chlorofluorocarbons and ozone-depleting chemicals. The Seymour Company, I will say, was ahead of the game on this and had things removed before they were required to. So there are lots of companies still working on it. There's a cool development that I think is interesting of trying to develop a truly sustainable spray paint. I hope that happens really soon. That's the slow invention of spray paint.
43:22 Tracy V. Wilson? Do you have listener mail?
43:23 Holly Frey? I do. This is from our listener Lindsay, and I'm not even gonna joke. Part of the reason I selected this is because of the name of her pet. It's so good. Lindsay writes, greetings. I would like to say first and foremost that I appreciate and adore the podcast. Having grown up in Cincinnati, there have been many episodes that have delighted me with personal connections, but this one has finally prompted me to write in. I studied in Salzburg for an academic year abroad. While I lived in house Humboldt, another possible episode, I spent quite a bit of time visiting friends and house Paracelsus. I smiled when you mentioned that the Salzburg peasant revolt could be its own episode. If it does become an episode, which I highly encourage, please do not leave out the painted
44:06 Holly Frey? cow. It is hands down my absolute favorite history story. And then we get a link to some story behind it. Finally, I want to thank both of you for the various times that you've taken a few moments, especially this year, at the beginning of the show to affirm your stance and express concern over the attacks on equality, science, and education. It's not easy to speak up to a large audience like that, but it is very important. Again, thank you. Thank you also for taking the time to read a silly email from a fan that got so excited, she stopped her workday to write in over the story of a cow. Pet tax of my dog named Paul Anka is attached. This dog is very cute. It appears to be a very precious Shih Tzu is my guess. It is
44:50 Holly Frey? a black and white baby. It is a very good poser. It knows its angles and how to take portraits. This dog is precious. I would kiss this dog so much, it would grow tired of me.
45:03 Tracy V. Wilson? So good.
45:04 Holly Frey? Thank you so much, Lindsay. I love the idea of having personal connections to Paracelsus and his important and also problematic history.
45:16 Holly Frey? Every time I think of him, I laugh a little bit. And also, listen, I needed these dog pictures, and I may have shown them to my best friend who loves Shih Tzus especially.
45:26 Tracy V. Wilson? No.
45:27 Holly Frey? Because we all need cute puppies in our lives. Images of cute. One of these Paul Anka is on a set where it looks like he's in front of a cottage.
45:37 Holly Frey? It's just perfect. I love everything about it. It's like, no Renaissance painting is any better. If you would like to write to us with your pet pictures, thoughts, connections to histories, et cetera, you can do that at [email protected] . You can also find us on wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts, and we hope you subscribe there, the iHeartRadio app being one among them.
46:05 Tracy V. Wilson? Stuff You Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
46:19 Holly Frey? A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. In season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, host Martine Hackett continues the conversation with people living with MG, CIDP, and the broader rare disease community, exploring what comes after diagnosis through stories of hope, progress, and connection. Produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenx. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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