The Slow Invention of Spray Paint

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly
Frye and I'm Tracy V.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Wilson.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
This episode is brought to you by Everything is Depressing
and I'm curious.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
I also have a forthcoming episode that has similar motivations.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Yeah, I don't know what day it is. What day
it was. I have been traveling a lot for work,
and there was one day. You know, my husband and
I had been a part for like over a week,
which is very unusual for us. I don't know that
it's ever happened before, save one exception, because he was
traveling and I was traveling some of that with surprisers.

(00:50):
But we got home and I was like, hey, let's
go out for lunch because I flew in early in
the morning, early meaning in the morning period. And we did,
and we were at this place that we loved in
our house that is near train tracks, and as trains
were going by, I, in my somewhat exhausted state, kept
gazing at them, and I was looking at all the
graffiti and I had this moment of like, I wonder

(01:12):
what train people of the eighteen hundreds 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.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
I love when that kind of train of thought leads
to an episode.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
Yeah, to be clear, I don't want to disappoint anyone,
because I know it is a much beloved subject for
some people. We're not talking about graffiti art, 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,

(01:51):
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 onto 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,

(02:13):
and some of this becomes more of an argument about
what the definition of spray paint is. Uh. 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

(02:36):
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

(02:58):
could just go to the hardware store and a can
of paint and paint something at your house.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
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

(03:26):
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

(03:47):
verify this with. 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.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
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,

(04:26):
Banks 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.

(04:47):
Whitewashing is a way to manage moisture and bacteria, as
well as to brightness 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

(05:09):
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.

Speaker 2 (05:18):
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, Banks recognized that sending his men to do
this job with buckets of paint and paint brushes was

(05:41):
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 out of the nozzle.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
Yeah, I've seen this compared to like a modern lawn
care insecticider weed killer nozzle, like the way that those
are kind of handheld while you're carrying the reservoir. Also
as an aside, sometimes Banks'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

(06:24):
the Great Chicago Fire. That creates a wildly different timeline.
That fire happened in eighteen seventy one, 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 eighteen eighty, so I do not think the
Chicago fire was a part of the equation.

Speaker 2 (06:42):
There is a Banks company operating today, and while the
company doesn't offer a comprehensive history of its namesake, there
are some photos of Banks's sprayer base and an invention
by another man that we'll talk about in just a bit.
So the next figure to enter this story of spray
paint is Francis Davis Millet maybe really, but sometimes he's

(07:05):
held up as a maybe. This part of the story
takes place a few years after Banks 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 eighteen ninety three. Millet is

(07:28):
worthy of a little exploration because his life story touches
on a lot of significant events. Francis Davis Millett was
born on November third, eighteen forty six, in Mattapoise At, 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 eighteen fifty seven, his father, Asa

(07:50):
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 eighteen sixty four,
Frank enlisted and was made the drummer for the Massachusetts
volunteer Militia. After the war, Millett attended Harvard University and

(08:13):
he studied language and literature there. He graduated in eighteen
sixty nine 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
Greece as a repellent of water based inks, so images

(08:36):
etched into an oil or grease coded material would absorb
the ink to then be transferred onto the paper. And
he also started taking life.

Speaker 1 (08:44):
Drawing classes at this time at the Lowell Institute. He
had been artistically inclined even before he started all these studies,
and he was producing paintings even while he was still
in undergrad But once he finished school, his artistic output accelerated,
even though he was also holding down a full time job.

Speaker 2 (09:05):
Although he was working as a journalist, as early as
eighteen seventy, 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 approved
with art school training, he started producing portraits. By the
spring of eighteen seventy one, Millet was ready to leave

(09:26):
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, turkeya Greece, Italy, and
mor Locales on study trips. Millet had never been to
Europe before, and it seems like he was eager to

(09:48):
take in as 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 compet titians at the Royal Academy. He eventually
became the only American to win a gold medal.

Speaker 1 (10:05):
At the school. 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.
In eighteen seventy three, Millett got his first experience working

(10:29):
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. In
eighteen seventy five, 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

(10:49):
Boston Museum School of Art and taught there.

Speaker 2 (10:53):
His next notable career achievement was in murals. These were
murals that adorned the interiors of Boston Trinity Church that
was over the course of eighteen seventy six. In eighteen
seventy seven, 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

(11:15):
society people and celebrities like Mark Twain. When the Russo
Turkish War began in eighteen seventy seven, Millet combined his
art in 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

(11:36):
the war started, and once it concluded, he went back
to the French capital. When the Paris Exposition took place
in eighteen seventy eight, Frank was selected as a fine
arts ter. He lived and worked in London and Paris
for several years, and married Lily Greeley in Paris in
eighteen seventy nine. After the wedding, the two of them

(11:57):
returned to Massachusetts again and the Bridgewaters The studio was
expanded into a home for the newlyweds.

Speaker 1 (12:03):
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 eighteen eighties, 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

(12:27):
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.
Frank and Lily's fourth child was also born in England,

(12:49):
in eighteen eighty eight. That was another son named John
Alfred Parsons, and.

Speaker 2 (12:54):
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 Saint 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

(13:17):
Lewis Comfort Tiffany to decorate lavish interiors. He also started
writing and publishing short fiction. In the early eighteen nineties,
he became vice president of New York's National Academy of Design.

Speaker 1 (13:30):
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 eighteen eighty three, 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 eighteen eighty nine, So when preparations began

(13:55):
for the eighteen ninety three World's Columbian 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.

Speaker 2 (14:09):
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

(14:29):
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 paint brushers, so
they brought in paint sprayers.

Speaker 1 (14:44):
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. Give the fact that
Joseph Banks is said to have invented a sprayer in
Chicago several years prior, it's pretty normal to consider that

(15:07):
he may have been called into 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 that are found bandied about every time you

(15:30):
can find information about spray paint history online.

Speaker 2 (15:34):
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 nineteenth century hats spraying
paint while standing on scaffoldings 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

(15:58):
of the Fair and Historical and Descriptive Presentation of the
World's Science, Art, and Industry as Viewed through the Columbian
Exposition at Chicago at eighteen ninety three. This book, published
in eighteen ninety three, details the process of setting up
the fare. The architects involved planning of the layout and
expo buildings, and there was the illustration, and in this

(16:21):
it was labeled in the book as Millet spraying machine.

Speaker 1 (16:27):
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,

(16:49):
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.

Speaker 2 (17:03):
That long footnote also spells out exactly how the buildings
were painted.

Speaker 1 (17:08):
Quote.

Speaker 2 (17:09):
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 fifty. It consisted of a
piece of gas pipe so shaped at one end as

(17:29):
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.

Speaker 1 (17:43):
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 esthetic 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

(18:04):
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 consequent discoloration of a certain
portion of the work, have made it necessary to apply

(18:24):
some sort of paint to all the buildings. 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.

Speaker 2 (18:42):
So this Millet sprayer was a lot different from the
bank sprayer. Whether Millet knew about the bank 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.

Speaker 1 (19:00):
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 doctor
Allan de Vilbis born in eighteen forty one. By the
late eighteen eighties he was an experienced doctor and he
was an ode laryngologist, an ear nosen throat specialist, and

(19:21):
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.

Speaker 2 (19:39):
De Vilbis's solution was the atomizer. He created an apparatus
with a hollow bulb on one end which connected to
a spray er nozzle via tube. Another tube led to
a reservoir where the liquid needing administration was held pinched
the bulb in the resulting pressure burst would create a
fine spray of droplets.

Speaker 1 (20:00):
Devilbis started marketing this invention to other physicians and it
rapidly caught on. He opened the Devilbis Manufacturing Company in
eighteen ninety to produce his atomizers at a larger scale,
and as de Vilbis'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,

(20:24):
vintage Devilbis adamizers are very popular on the collector's market
and also thanks to his son Thomas D. Vilbis, in
nineteen oh seven, it included a paint sprayer.

Speaker 2 (20:36):
The paint sprayer was quickly adopted by furniture makers and
the company continued to expand and grow. The Banks company
we mentioned just a little while ago includes the Devilbis
Company as part of it today.

Speaker 1 (20:50):
Yet those companies, as any time we've talked about companies
and inventions, have gone through numerous ownerships, iterations, et cetera.
But that's their current status. The Devilbis adamizer is the
other model that is shown on the Bank's page next
to the Bank sprayer, also as the Devilbis paint atomizer,
was gaining popularity. Frank Millet died at sea at the

(21:11):
age of sixty six because he was a passenger on
the Titanic when it struck an iceberg and sank.

Speaker 2 (21:17):
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 stuffumis
in history class going.

Speaker 1 (21:37):
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 US National Institute of Standards
and Technology defines an aerosol product as quote a self dispensing,

(21:59):
pre urized 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.

Speaker 2 (22:15):
There are instances of aerosols going back to the eighteenth century.
Some of aerosol history is related to a topic we
have covered on the show before. That's in our twenty
twenty three episode on Johann Jakob's Steppa and the rise
of carbonation. In that case, some drinks were aerosolized to
give them bubbles, and there were efforts to create spray

(22:37):
cans in the nineteenth 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. It wasn't until a Norwegian scientists named Eric
Rotheim that an aerosol can became a realistic product. Rothheim
was born in eighteen ninety eight or eighteen ninety nine,

(22:58):
and he got a chemical engineering degree in Switzerland and
in his late twenties. In nineteen twenty six, 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

(23:20):
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 effects. 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

(23:42):
material to be dispensed is enclosed in a pressure resisting
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 twenty
four point nine degrees celsius twenty four point nine degrees

(24:05):
celsius below zero, Its vapor density is one point six
one seven, and its specific volume in a gaseous condition
is three hundred and fifty times its specific volume in
a liquid condition at ordinary atmospheric pressure and room temperature.
Rotheim initially started his own company to produce the cans,
but then partnered with the Oslo, Norway company Furnace Fabric

(24:28):
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 Froda Mortensen on the cans design.
They did well overall producing a prototype, but they kind
of hit a wall when it came to developing a
novel that would not clog.

Speaker 1 (24:48):
Eventually, in frustration, Rotheim is said to have sold the
patent to US company for one hundred kroner. That would
have been a little less than ten dollars. 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

(25:09):
written by museum curator dog Andriessen, 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.

Speaker 2 (25:21):
Eric Rotheim did not live very long after all of
this would or would not have happened. He died quite young,
at the age of thirty nine. That was in nineteen
thirty eight, so just before World War Two. The company
he had founded, ell Remix, shut down by nineteen forty.

Speaker 1 (25:39):
The war did prove.

Speaker 2 (25:40):
To be a time though, when his invention received rapid adoption.
The widespread encounters with malaria and typhus the 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

(26:03):
the field. According to that same museum account, good You
had been working at DuPont at the time when Rothheim
was in talks with the company about the patent. Rotheim's
prototype spray can is in the collection of the Oslo
Science Park. And now we have to jump ahead just
a few years to talk about a man named Ed
Seymour in nineteen forty nine, Ed, who was in the

(26:26):
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. 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

(26:49):
the insecticide sprays they were already in use at the time.
Years later, in twenty fourteen, Seymour's daughter, Nancy Seymour Heatley
told a reporter quote, there's an herb 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,

(27:10):
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 sprayhead to make
it easy to spread. So not only did he meet
his need.

Speaker 1 (27:26):
Of being able to easily show off his coatings, but
he also realized that the finish he could get from
Aerosoli's spray was really smooth.

Speaker 2 (27:35):
In December of nineteen fifty one, 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 toe for the paint for easy mixing.
This is described in the patent this way quote in
use of the package before depressing buttons to affect spraying

(27:57):
of the paint, the package is agitated sample 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
pigments settled on the base and affects the redispersion of
this pigment in the vehicle. In practice, that has been

(28:19):
found that shaking or whirling the package for a few
seconds is adequate to affect redispersion of the pigment within.

Speaker 1 (28:28):
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. Quote,
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

(28:51):
local bank to develop this revolutionary idea. Soon after perfecting
the first break in, 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.

Speaker 2 (29:08):
The Daily Chronicle of Decalb, 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 eleven ounce can, resembling an

(29:32):
insect spray device. All you do is shake the can
and press the button. Almost any job of painting around
the home, farm, or factory becomes a simple operation with
no mass, 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, Illinois, and

(29:54):
then the paint is shipped to Chicago for packaging in
the cans. By the time of that writing, twenty five
colors were available in shipping throughout the United States. Eventually,
the Seymour Company expanded to include an automotive division, an
industrial division specializing in coatings for industrial equipment, traffic paints,
cast iron coatings, and more, and that company still exists today.

(30:18):
Ed's daughter, Nancy, who we quoted earlier ran the company
after her father, and she was the CEO until her
death in twenty seventeen. Also as an aside of something
that I found that just seems nice at a time
when we need nice things. In nineteen sixty Ed Seymour
was awarded Boss of the Year by the local chapter
of the National Secretaries Association. As Seymour was developing his business,

(30:41):
Precision Valve, Company owned by Richard Nixon's close friend Robert
Henry Applanapp was developing a more reliable nozzle. Up to
the point when Apple and App filed his patent application
for valve mechanism for dispensing gases and liquids under pressure,
nozzles continued to be problematic, just as they had been

(31:01):
for Rothheim. Apple and Apps 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
and which require various sizes, shapes, and types of containers

(31:24):
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.

Speaker 1 (31:44):
Yeah, up 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

(32:04):
it seemed to be a constant growth industry. Then in
the nineteen seventies, 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 nineteen seventy.
It got a pretty significant update in nineteen ninety and

(32:27):
it has similarly led to reformulations 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

(32:47):
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.

Speaker 2 (33:00):
Yeah, do you have listener mail? I do.

Speaker 1 (33:04):
This is from our listener, Lindsay, and I'm not even
going a 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

(33:25):
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 Howe's 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 cow. It is

(33:46):
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.

(34:09):
Thank you also over 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 sheet too, is my guess. This

(34:29):
is 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. Good. Thank you
so much, lindsay, I love the idea of having personal
connections to Paracelsus and his important and also problematic history.

(34:56):
Every time I think of in my laugh a little bit.
And also and I needed these dog pictures and I
may have shown them to my best friend who loves sheetsoos,
especially now, because we all need cute puppies in our lives.
Images of cue. One of these, paul Anka is on
a set where it looks like he's in front of
a cottage. It's just perfect. I love everything about it.

(35:19):
It's like a 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
History podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. 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.

Speaker 2 (35:44):
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.

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Tracy Wilson

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}The Slow Invention of Spray Paint