Alexander S. Zimmerman
Karolith Corporation
Inducted 2002
Alexander S. Zimmerman (1893 – 1979) was a specialist in the technology of cast phenolic. At the beginning of his plastics career, Zimmerman visited Germany and brought back a process for making plastics from casein, a thermoset material derived from the protein of cow’s milk. Consequently, he formed the Karolith Corporation to produce casein plastics.
After the sale of Karolith Corporation, Zimmerman was approached by Leo Baekeland. The latter asked him to sell basic shapes made of cast phenolic (Bakelite). The Bakelite Company had been phasing out of cast phenolic for lack of sufficient business. Still, Zimmerman’s success in selling off the inventory of the Cast Phenolic Division led the company to keep the division operating with Zimmerman as manager.
Zimmerman helped Bakelite develop cast phenolic resins for producing the atomic bomb and worked with the U.S. Navy to develop shatterproof lenses for battleship gauges. In cooperation with Edwin H. Land, founder of the Polaroid Corp., Zimmerman developed a method of analyzing photoelastic stress using a special cast phenolic sheet and polarized light.