1948 Plexiglas-Coke ad

I worked 35 years for the Rohm and Haas Company until they were bought by Dow Chemical in in 2009. Among other things, R&H invented Plexiglas and I had some involvement with various Plexiglas products during my career. There is a surprising amount of Rohm and Haas memorabilia on eBay and I do a search every now and then. What I especially like are Plexiglas ads. These generally fall into two categories. During World War II, Plexiglas was used for warplane canopies and you see a lot of ads featuring fighters and bombers proudly wearing their Plexiglas canopies. After the war, Rohm and Haas was successful in moving Plexiglas into architecture (like skylights) and into signage. Most of the 1950s and later ads appear in architectural and advertising magazines.

This ad is a particularly nice one in that it's an advertisement type ad, from the 1940s. And it appeared in the October 25, 1948 issue of Time Magazine.

It also features the Coca-Cola logo which is very collectable. And since it's in Time Magazine, the back of the page has some interest as well.

There is a little piece about Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich.  According to Wikipedia, Shostakovich had been denounced by the Communist government in February 1948 for the sin of "formalism". The second sentence of the article makes a little more sense when you know this.

The page also features an ad for Smith-Corona typewriters that says about as much as one can say about changes in attitudes toward working women and changes in technology as one could say in a 3/4 page advertisement.

Vintage Rohm and Haas Magazine Ads

Many people collect vintage magazine ads. I don't but I worked for 35 years for the company featured in these ads. Rohm and Haas Company was a large chemical company with a 100-year history when it was bought by Dow Chemical in 2009. Although it was a pretty big company, most people did not know if it, unless you lived in it's headquarter city of Philadelphia. The company mainly sold to other industrial companies, not directly to the consumer market. One R&H product you probably know is Plexiglas.

This ad is from the January 1955 edition of "Chain Store Age". Rohm and Haas had invented the plastic it named Plexiglas in the 1930s. The company got a big boost during the Second World War when Plexiglas was the material of choice for aircraft windows. After the war, Plexiglas found a big market in outdoor signage, as the ad above illustrates. Plexiglas would find a lot of other architectural uses such as lighting and skylights.

The above ad is from the October 1959 edition of "Architectural Record". The next ad is from the May 1965 edition of the same magazine.

There is a surprising amount of Rohm and Haas memorabilia available on eBay and I've bought a number of pieces over the years. I've been looking more actively for ads recently and over the next few months I'll feature what I've found.