Fellow in Focus: Reimagining Plastic Futures

In 1939, DuPont unveiled nylon stockings to the public at two U.S. world’s fairs. DuPont’s “Wonder World of Science” exhibitions featured a figure known as “The Test Tube Girl,” who embodied the latest in scientific developments, including nylon.

Isabelle Held examines The Test Tube Girl and other similar imagery through the lenses of race, gender, and sexuality. Drawing on visual culture and nylon artefacts, Held shows how in these examples whiteness was presented as the unmarked norm. Held also presents a counter-history, highlighting how individuals and companies pushed back against these exclusionary practices and crafted nylon hosiery for a wider range of consumers, including Black, queer, and trans people.

About Fellow in Focus
The Rohm and Haas Fellow in Focus Lecture series gives the Institute’s scholars an opportunity to present their work to a broad audience interested in history, science, and culture. Fellow in Focus lectures are presented by the Beckman Center for the History of Chemistry.