It's in our homes. It's the most common material in the workplace. Sometimes it's even in our bodies. We may be moving into the Information Age, but it's hard to believe that we are not living squarely in the Plastic Age.

     The very name "plastic" means versatility. You can bend it, mold it, model it, twist it and ply it in a number of different ways. The finished product can be a soft and airy foam or a hard and strong compound rivaling the sturdiest metal alloys. In its many forms, plastic has forever changed the way we live.

     The first in the long line of man-made plastics was called Bakelite, after its inventor, Leo Baekeland. Many years of work in his chemistry lab in Yonkers, New York, led him in 1907 to the invention of the first synthetic polymer (plastic), made by linking small molecules together to make large ones.

     Baekeland made his new material by mixing the disinfectant carbolic acid (phenol) with the strong-smelling preservative formaldehyde to make a third material that was nothing like the original two. It turned out to be a substance that would change the world.

1889 Moves to U.S.

1899 Sells rights to Velox to George Eastman for $1 million

1904 Sets out to find a synthetic substitute for shellac

1907 Develops the first all-artificial plastic, which he calls Bakelite

1909 Introduces Bakelite at a chemical conference and founds the General Bakelite Corp.

1944 Dies in Beacon, N.Y., at 80