An embargo that built an industry: Battle Act and the first penicillin plant in Poland

Conference entitled: "Beyond the Magic Bullet. Reframing the History of Antibiotics"

In 1946 The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) declared, that several European countries devastated by war, would receive five fully equipped penicillin plants, including Podbielniak extractors and penicillin strains. For Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Italy, Belarus and Ukraine that would mean an enormous support in their efforts to improve health conditions, especially since after the war large anti-venereal diseases programs have been launched in these countries. The beneficiaries had to furnish the factory buildings to house the production lines only. The local specialists had to be trained in the West in order to keep the plants working.
But due to American strategic embargo, the equipment delivered to East European countries was incomplete.It caused a political stir at World Health Organization (WHO) forum, which resulted with withdrawal of several countries from the organization...

Casimir Zeglen: the inventor of bulletproof vest

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lo8Ww1NdoyY

An interview with Dr. Slawomir Lotysz, a historian of technology from University of Zielona Gora, on Polish Television Chicago, April 2008
[in Polish, with English subtitles]

Kazimierz Żegleń: wynalazca kamizelki kuloodpornej

Wywiad, jakiego w kwietniu 2008 roku polskiej telewizji w Chicago udzielił historyk techniki z Uniwersytetu Zielonogórskiego, dr Sławomir Łotysz.
[Po polsku, z angielskimi napisami]

KER and war: Polish synthetic rubber in American war efforts, 1941-45

The full paper has been published in conference proceedings, and is available online.

With the outbreak of World War II at Pacific Ocean Japan captured 90 percent of the world production of natural caoutchouc. In fact, predicting how the things could have gone, yet before Pearl Harbor, Jesse Jones, US Secretary of Commerce and Federal Loan Administration had stockpiled about one year’s supply of crude rubber, some 570,000 tons. Politician leaders and business called for huge investment in guayule, crytostegia, and other natural American-grown substitutes. While there was neither proper technology nor time to let the plants growing, the search for synthetic butadiene became the only feasible way to produce rubber.
Until the late 1930s only three countries in the world had possessed the formula synthetic rubber: Germany, Soviet Russia and Poland. The German technology based on acetylene or, other words, on coal as the raw material, was for obvious reasons out of reach. The Soviets were unwilling to share their cellulose based formula with their allies. Poland was conquered and the experimental plant of synthetic rubber (called KER) was captured. Luckily, the inventor of the method, Waclaw Szukiewicz, escaped carrying off the formula in his head. In 1941 he was brought to America by Polish-American patriots, count Tarnowski among others. Tarnowski contacted William S.B. Lacy of the Office of Price Administration, who helped to ensure an American visa for Szukiewicz.
The scientist has landed in the middle of fierce battle for half a billion worth government’s contract. Some 700,000 tons of synthetic rubber was to be produced annually at the sum. The estimate was made on the basis that petroleum would be used as a raw material in the process of synthesizing the butadiene, but in Washington there were also some politicians, who cried for utilizing the huge surplus of agricultural production. Democratic Senator Guy M. Gillette of Iowa, and Dr Lewis H. Marks of the Publicker Commercial Alcohol Company advocated so called “Szukiewicz’s or Polish formula” of manufacturing synthetic rubber out of alcohol. On April 30, 1942 before the Senate Agricultural subcommittee Lewis stated it was possible to reach 700,000 tons level within eight months. It would be produced for 75 millions dollars comparing to 490 millions planned by government. Far from all those clashes, engineer Szukiewicz was busy in Peoria’s laboratory in Illinois, where he was kept out of sight of government agencies, which were definitively pro-oil orientated.
In the report of Committee on Agriculture and Forestry of US Senate published in 1942 one can read “We feel that sooner or later the value of this Polish process would be recognized”. It was not. “The oilmen” have won the contract “in spite of the fact, that never in this world has there been manufactured more than 50,000 tons of butadiene from petroleum, and yet some 500,000 tons has been made successfully from alcohol” as Dr William J. Hale, chemistry research consultant complained. Szukiewicz’s method was eventually employed in a single plant completed shortly before the war was over. But then it was not remembered as “Polish” or “Szukiewicz’s formula” any more. From now on it was “Publicker’s”. Ironically, in post-war Poland, after few years of successful manufacturing rubber out of alcohol, the oil based method has been introduced.

Swift as Aeolus" American contribution in developing pneumatic railways as compared to European achievements.

By common opinion, the idea of the pneumatic railway in America is being linked to Alfred Beach; the innovator who bored his famous tunnel under Broadway in 1870. It was once called “The first American subway”. In general most of the innovative ideas currently on that field stemmed from Britain and France, as all four working lines of air driven railways had been built right there. However, the American contribution is also quite remarkable and well worth emphasizing.
The story began in 1812 when George Medhurst, of London, proposed employing compressed air for transporting passengers. He suggested blowing the passenger carriages through a tunnel. The secondary plan was to pull the carriages by a piston passing through a tube with a slot on its top. His ideas remained on blueprints for many years, as no one quite knew how to put them into practice. He had an imaginative plan to seal the slot in the tube with copper plate or by placing it into the water. The first, who attempted to find a more feasible solution, was an American inventor, Henry Pinkus of Pennsylvania who at the time resided in England. In 1834, Pinkus patented a valve made of rope. Unfortunately, his “valvular cord” was unsuccessful. Then in 1838, two English engineers Samuel Clegg and Jacob Samuda adopted the same principle. When their idea eventually succeeded, they became known as the originators of the atmospheric railway system. It had since been adopted by the contractors of all four lines that were built. For several years, Pinkus had been purporting himself to be the originator of the idea, even though he had powerful supporters, such as John Herapath of Railway Magazine, he eventually failed.
The first pneumatic railway system patented in this country was issued in the small town of Tunkhannock in Pennsylvania. The inventor, Ira Avery, was a very skilled mechanic and an author of several improvements in household equipment. The principle that he adopted differed from those proposed by Medhurst in that there were to be flexible hoses laid along the whole length of the track. These hoses, when inflated, were supposed to impact the carriage’s wheels resting on them and thus encourage its rolling motion. An editor of Scientific American, who denominated Avery’s proposal as the first American Pneumatic Railway System in a future issue of the journal also gave some accounts on the proposals of his precedents--namely, Christopher Nickols and Antoine Andraud, who patented their solutions in England and France in 1839 and 1844, respectively. The idea was never put in practice however, it attracted the attention of the inventors again in the 1880s when another American, Milton Conger got two patents on just such a solution. It is worth mentioning that recently, on May of this year, a Japanese company patented, in this country, an industrial conveyor that employs the very same principle.
In the late 1840s, when the fall of atmospheric locomotion had been announced in Europe, the system felt into inventors’ disgrace. There were only few designs brought to the attention of the public during the next 20 years. Among them was that of Ithiel Richardson a resident of Boston, who patented his system in 1853. Then another inventor turned his attention to pneumatic propulsion. It was Elias Parkman Needham who was very skilled in pneumatics as a manufacturer of melodeons. He patented his Tubular Pneumatic Ways in 1864. The fame of Needham as an inventor of the pneumatic tube remained for many years. In 1867, when Alfred Beach presented his model at the American Institute Fair, some journalists referred to it as “the Needham’s Pneumatic Railway”. The one who influenced Beach the most however, was Thomas Webster Rammell of London. He built his experimental pneumatic tube at Crystal Palace in Sydenham in 1864 while Alfred Beach was still considering a cable road as the best solution for traffic congestion in New York. Three years later, Beach finally had his own wooden tube presented at the Fair, while Rammell was struggling with difficulties which were obstructing the construction of the first regular pneumatic railway tube under the Thames River in London. In fact, the Whitehall and Waterloo Railway was never completed, but before the construction had been abandoned in 1868 it influenced several American engineers who proposed similar lines in this country, mostly under the East River which divided New York from its neighbors. It was suggested not only to lay the pneumatic tubes across the river but also along its length, close to the shores of Manhattan. It was believed that it would be cheaper and easier than boring tunnels under the avenues. After the success of his demonstration under Broadway, Alfred Beach was very close to realizing his dream. Finally he obtained a bill allowing his company to build his pneumatic subway yet unfortunately; he failed to collect the necessary funds.
Another innovator, who had to abandon his plans of pneumatic ways along Manhattan, was surgeon Henry Gilbert. He designed an elevated structure with arcades in Victorian Gothic style and patented it in 1870. In 1872 he formed The Gilbert Elevated Railroad Company, which was authorized to “...construct, maintain and operate the tubular ways and railway by atmospheric pressure, compressed air or other power...” Finally the Company opted for ordinary steam traction.
Yet another, Albert Brisbane, who had entirely engaged himself in promoting his pneumatic tubes yet was still, more likely than not, remembered as a pupil of Charles Fourier and prophet of utopian socialism in America. His rolling spheres were intended to transport merchandises over long distances at very high speeds. The companies he chartered were aimed at connecting major American cities. The public opinions on that scheme varied from enthusiasm to irony. L. Reavis in his “Saint Louis: the future great city of the world” is dreaming about possible benefits of such tube passing through his city. On the other hand in “ Underground; or, Life below the surface” by Thomas Knox we can read about a man rotating some 200 times per minute on his way from New York to Washington and how he supposedly looked like after such a journey. Human ingenuity has no limits, and as such – in 1873 Henry Yates, of Kalamazoo, patented a system in which a car, cylindrical in shape, was to be placed inside the hollow rim. The body of the car was held in proper position, and it retained its center of gravity while the wheels were moving allowing the passengers to remain in a stationary position while seated inside the sphere.
During Railway Mania of the 1840s the pneumatic or rather atmospheric railways were considered as an alternative for steam locomotion, particularly on mountain sections. During the 1860s when the traffic congestion in large cities reached an enormous level, a pneumatic subway was thought to be the best solution to the problem. But the most characteristic case poses the significant growth of the interest in pneumatic railways among American inventors in the 1880s. It was the time of escalating demands for an effective rapid transit in large cities. The elevated roads and horse trams couldn’t answer those demands anymore & the electric drive for railways was still in the early stages of development. Perhaps looking for a solution for the traffic needs of dynamically developing American cities, the inventors drew inspiration even from untried or unsuccessful solutions. They had a clear definition of the problem and had new technologies at their disposal, thus they accepted the challenge. The total number of patents for various improvements in working pneumatic railways exceeded 150. The significant parts were more or less finished designs of whole systems. In addition though, there were also the improvements in separate components of those, which had reached the stage of extended tests or even practical operation.

These systems can be classified according to the means the pneumatic power was to be employed for driving trains.
1. A carriage enclosed in a tunnel has its body fitted to the interior tunnel’s walls. The movement of the car is caused by producing a vacuum at the front of it or overpressure behind it. The system was commonly called the pneumatic one. The cars are supposed to run on their wheels or, in the case of being shaped like a ball or cylinder, to roll around on an axis.
2. The second group adopted a similar principle, vacuum or overpressure is applied on a piston moving within a tube. The piston is connected by means of rigid bar with a truck running on outside rails. There were also several proposals to employ a magnetic attraction.
3. The pistons were also adopted in those systems in which the moving parts of the track interacted with the cars, causing its motion. For instance, a piston passing through the tube would mobilize the rotating cogged wheels and by consequence shove a bar connected with a truck. These cogged wheels could be also driven my pneumatic engines placed along the track. Another manner was to place the car on a track having a capacity to raise the car’s wheels and thus putting them in motion. Initially an inflating hose was employed but a piston could also cause the same effect as the rising of a membrane.

The history remembers the winners and quickly forgets about those who were vanquished. The pneumatic railways, if ever remembered, are mostly linked to the names of Clegg and Samuda, Brunel or Beach among Americans. In most cases, their efforts appear as the samples of the spectacular failures or at least romantic stories of unrealized dreams. All others involved in developing pneumatic railways still remain in oblivion or if recognized at all are remembered as the authors of other inventions. Generally, the output from English engineers is emphasized. Yet, in reality, there were many Swiss, Polish, German & Belgian inventors but first and foremost French and American, who had great impact on it

A glimpse behind the curtain: Polish perspectives on the American housing industry in the 1950s

Good ideas from bad guys: Polish Engineers and American Housing Technology

in English

Before Kevlar: The Amazing Transnational Quest for the Bulletproof Vest

in English

Silk Against Bullets: The Birth of Modern Soft Armor

Decades before Kevlar was invented, Casimir Zeglen, a Polish-born priest living in Chicago, developed and started selling a bulletproof vest made of silk. At that time, it was the lightest and the easiest to wear. First and foremost, Zeglen’s vest was the most reliable and the only true bulletproof vest on the market. Silk is one of the strongest natural fibers, but Zeglen’s vest wouldn’t have been as resistant as it was if it hadn’t been woven in a peculiar way – a way developed by this ingenious monk.

Casimir Zeglen: Pioneer of Bulletproof Vests

Brown Bag Lecture Series [in English]

Silk Against Bullets: The Birth of Modern Soft Armor

in English

Jozef Sendzimir: powstaniec, wynalazca, czlowiek wyjatkowy / Joseph de Sendzimir: freedom fighter, inventor, exceptional man.

in Polish