64WWW.CEN-ONLINE.ORG OCTOBER 22, 2007

ONE OF THE MOST RECOGNIZED prod-ucts in the world—Scotch Tape—was in-vented by Richard G. Drew (1899–1980), a banjo-playing, engineering school dropout who had the good sense to apply for a job at 3M and the good fortune to get it. Last month, several hundred 3M employees and retirees gathered at the company’s head-quarters, in St. Paul, Minn., for a celebration of the designation of Scotch Tape as an ACS National Historic Chemical Landmark.

For ACS Board Chair Judith L. Benham, who presented the commemorative plaque to Fred J. Palensky, executive vice presi-dent of R&D and chief technology officer, and George W. Buckley, chairman, presi-dent, and chief executive officer, coming to the award ceremony was a homecoming. Retired after nearly 29 years of service to 3M, Benham told attendees she could have put her car on autopilot. “It still knows how to get here,” she said.

Since the ACS Historic Chemical Land-marks program began 15 years ago, more than 50 landmarks have been dedicated. Each shows how chemists have ex-panded the frontiers of knowledge. The landmarks honor the develop-ment of life-saving drugs, like penicillin; advances in industry, like the invention of nylon; and creation of new products, like Scotch Tape.

The history of the invention of Scotch Tape started out with a brash promise. In 1921, Drew, a young lab assistant, was work-ing on making waterproof sandpaper. Taking samples to a nearby auto body shop for testing, he identified a big problem that he believed he could solve—making auto painting easier.

IN THE 1920S, two-tone paint jobs were high fashion for cars, and to create this look, auto painters had to mask off a por-tion of the car while the other part was painted. To do this, the painters glued old newspapers to the body of the cars with library pastes or homemade glue. This

created the desired sharp demarcation between the two colors, but removing the glued-on newspaper frequently marred the finish, ruining the paint job and leading Drew to comment that in that auto body shop he heard “the choicest profanity I’d ever known.”

Drew promised the auto painters that he could solve this problem. He had neither experience nor know-how, but he was opti-mistic. He spent two years experimenting with vegetable oils, resins, chicle, linseed oil,

and glue glycerine. Finally, he developed a formula that was

kept sticky with the addition of glycerine. For backing, he set-

tled on crepe paper. The product he created, Scotch Masking Tape,

adhered strongly to the painted sur-face, yet stripped off easily. It was a smash-ing success and the first of what are now more than 900 varieties of Scotch Tape.

Drew’s second brand, invented in 1929, was first called Cellulose Tape and later renamed Scotch Transparent Tape. This was the innovation that put 3M on the map. Benham explained how this product had a significant positive impact on society, one of the requirements for landmark status.

“Introduced during the Great Depres-sion, Scotch Transparent Tape quickly

helped people prolong the life of items they could not afford to replace. The new tape was used to seal opened cans, mend torn pages of books, and fix broken toys,” Benham said. “Banks used it to repair torn currency, and farmers used it to seal cracked eggs, for example. The possible uses for Scotch Tape, it seemed, were lim-ited only by consumers’ imaginations.

“Put simply, Scotch Tape became popular during the Depression because it answered a profound need: to prolong the usefulness of everyday, commonplace items,” she continued. “With little dispos-able cash to buy new items, Americans had to make broken, torn, and damaged things last. Indeed, Scotch Tape was the perfect seal to bind a broken nation.”

As a result of the

product’s success, 3M was one of the few companies in the world that didn’t lay off employees during the Depression. Dur-ing World War II, almost all of 3M’s tape production was diverted to the war effort. Rubber shortages prompted the company to switch from rubber-based adhesives to synthetic acrylate adhesives, which maintained their clarity better and didn’t yellow over time.

Drew, who died in 1980, was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame earlier this year. He never forgot how a little bit of sandpaper changed his life. “Would there have been any masking or cellophane tape if it hadn’t been for earlier 3M research on adhesive binders for wa-terproof abrasive paper?” He once mused. “Probably not.”—LINDA R. RABER

ACS NEWS

SCOTCH TAPE: AN INNOVATION

THAT STUCK

HONORED

Benham (left) and Palensky unveil the commemorative plaque.

3M

3M