Americans' love of billiards paved the way for synthetic plastics

Summary

In Spark!Lab, we’re believers in the power of play to unlock innovation. While the old adage that “necessity is the mother of invention” may hold true, history also shows us that the desire to make life more fun, more exciting, or more pleasurable has led to a great deal of invention. These play-inspired innovations often have a wide-ranging impact beyond the seemingly trivial pursuits that spurred them.Take, for example, celluloid—the first commercially-successful synthetic plastic. A century-and-a-half after its invention, synthetic plastic is an omnipresent material in our daily lives. Surprisingly enough, we have the popularity of billiards to thank, in part, for this building block of the modern world.“Billiards on the Brain”Although we often use the names synonymously today, nineteenth-century billiards differed from the game we call pool. Billiards referred to a range of cue games, some played on tables with pockets and some without. One popular version required only three balls—a cue ball for each player and one red striker ball. A player gained points by using his or her cue stick and ball to hit the striker into the opponent’s ball. The tables had no pockets. Instead, special bumpers called “cushions” surrounded the playing surface. Players used the cushions to make ricocheting trick shots, and more difficult shots earned more points. Michael Phelan's billiard saloons at the corner of Tenth Street and Broadway, New York City, 1859. Courtesy of New York Public Library Billiards’ popularity grew rapidly in the nineteenth century. As cities expanded, so too did the number of billiard saloons where urban dwellers could learn and play the game. Some skilled players gained fame and fortune, and newspapers featured detailed coverage of high-stakes matches. In 1859, a crowd in Detroit supposedly watched Michael Phelan, a famous billiards player and promoter, for nearly ten hours straight—from 7:30 in the evening to 5:00 the next morning. Several years later, two c...