Baekeland Memoirs page 3 ...

Except in the case of Velox, Baekeland also took out patents to protect his discoveries - more than a hundred patents in all, including domestic and foreign. He was a believer in the worth of the patent system and much interested in proper patent procedure. He was a member, and for one year chairman, of the Committee on Patents of the National Research Council, and a number of his published papers relate to what he believed were needed modifications of the United States Patent System. On his own experience with patents. Baekeland said this: " One of the evidences of a succesful patent is infringement. So I had to go through the experience of almost every successful inventor of defending my rights before the courts. Fortunately, I won every case. Furthermore, I was lucky enough to find among my former rivals many of the excellent men whom I count today as my dearest friends and most distinguished collaborators in our corporation." Having begun his career as a teacher of chemistry, Baekeland had a lifelong interest in education. He had a gift of talking on the many subjects which interested him in a manner that held the attention of all who heard him. He was always ready to give others, and young people in particular, the benefit of his knowledge and experience. Respecting his own education, Baekeland said this in his Perkin Medal Address in 1916:

" I feel very grateful for the excellent opportunities of education I had at the University of Ghent. I should state, however, that my real intense education only began after I had left the university, as soon as I became confronted with the big problems and responsibilities of practical life; this education I received mainly in the United States, where for twenty seven years I was thrown in contact with so many varied subjects. I hope to remain until I die a post graduate student at that greater school of practical life, which has no fixed curriculum and where no academic degrees are conferred, but where wrong petty theories are best cured by hard knocks."

In 1917 Baekeland accepted an honorary professorship of chemical engineering at Columbia University. The value of Baekeland's service to that university, where in early life he had received vital inspiration from Professor Chandler, was once expressed by his colleagues there in these words... " For more than a quarter of a century, his wise counsel and brilliant lectures, which were enrichened by a vast scientific knowledge and an almost limitless industrial experience, brought to the university a high quality of inspiring instruction and sound research enthusiasm that had much to do with giving Columbia the high reputation it has in chemical and chemical engineering education and research throughout the world."

Baekeland was a member of the important scientific societies in his field, both in the United States and abroad, and he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. No matter how busy he might be, he found time to attend scientific meetings, and also to take part in them. He was most active in the societies devoted to chemistry, of course, and he served as an officer of a number of them. He was president of the Electrochemical Society in 1909, of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers in 1912, and of the American Chemical Society in 1924, as well as of the Chemists Club in New York ( of which he was one of the founders ) in 1904. In 1906, only seventeen years after coming to the United States, Baekeland was chosen to represent the chemists of America at the Jubilee of the Foundation of the Coal - Tar Colour Industry by Sir William Perkin. Also, in 1909 he was U.S. delegate to the International Congress of Chemistry, and he was president of the Section on Plastics when in 1912 the Congress met in the United States. How much his association with his fellow chemists meant to Baekeland was expressed in the conclusion of his Perkin Medal Address, as follows ....

" Twenty-seven years ago I came here as a stranger among you and now I feel so much as one of you that sometimes I wonder that there was ever a time when we did not work and play together. When I was young and poor and unknown you never hesitated to extend to me the cordial hand of welcome, you never missed an opportunity to show me your friendliness, to help me by advice or otherwise. Much of what I have used in my work I learned from you at meetings of our chemical societies, or in the brotherly surroundings of our Chemists' Club.

What Baekeland did not say in the above was that, by the very active part he took in chemical affairs and by the full presentations of the results of his scientific and industrial researches, he contributed to the profession as much as he himself received, or even more. Baekeland was a long time member of the U.S. Naval Consulting Board, member of the U.S. Nitrate Supply Commission, 1917, chairman of the Committee on Patents, National Research Council,1917, a trustee of the Institute of International Education for many years, and a member of the advisory board, Chemistry Division, U.S. Department of Commerce, for some years beginning in 1925. Of honours and distinctions he received such a large number, that a special list of them is appended to this memoir,( see the SO WHAT IS BAKELITE - The Facts page).

In his personal life Baekeland liked simplicity. He rose early and retired early. He worked hard and made heavy demands on his phsical and mental energy. He was usually at work before other members of his staff. He was an excellent conversationalist and greatly enjoyed associating with congenial people. Possibly out of his life - long interest in photography, he had a great interest in motion pictures, and he often took time out in afternoons to see the new motion pictures being shown in New York.

One of Baekeland's chief hobbies was motoring. He bagan driving a car in the late 1890's when motoring was little more than a sport. He was one of the first to take long motor trips, having in 1906 gone with his wife and two children on an automobile tour through Europe. He afterwards wrote a long account of that extensive trip, giving the results of his experiences over there as a pioneer motor tourist, as well as interesting and humorous accounts of what happened to the family and what they saw. That story, illustrated with many of the beautiful photographs which Baekeland took on the tour, was published serially in 1907 in the pioneer motor magazine, Horseless Age. Later the several chapters were assembled by the publishers of HORSELESS AGE and issued as a book, " A Family Tour Through Europe" by Dr.L.H. Baekeland.

Baekeland was also an enthusiastic yachtsman. His first boat, purchased in 1899, was a gasoline launch in which gasoline served both as the expansive fluid in the boiler to drive a reciprocating engine, and as the means of firing the boiler !!! In that launch Baekeland, accompanied by Maximiliam Toch, went on a cruise from Yonkers up the Hudson and connecting waters to the St. Lawrence and back. And, in spite of the seemingly hazardous nature of the outfit, they returned home safely. In 1915 Baekeland purchased a 70 - foot yacht, which he christened the " Ion." It was in some respects of unusual design, constructed after Baekeland's own ideas, and was equipped with a diesel engine as auxilary power. In the " Ion " Baekeland sometimessailed in late summer from his home on the Hudson down to Florida and spent part of the winter months in that area, cruising among the islands there, fishing and exploring. Later he purchased an estate at Coconut Grove, Florida, where he lived most of the winter. Life on his Florida estate gave Baekeland the opportunity of pursuing another of his hobbies, cultivating such rare tropical fruits and flowers as would grow in southern Florida. In this endeavor he was greatly assisted by a neighbour of his at Coconut Grove, the noted botanist David Fairchild. Baekeland used to delight to send to his friends at the North rare tropical fruits from his garden.

In his family Baekeland was particularly fortunate and happy. Mention has already been made of Mrs. Baekeland, a woman who was skilled in music, gifted as a painter, a charming hostess, as well as one who assisted her husband mightily in all his endeavors. So highly did Baekeland value the assistance and inspiration of his wife that he once told Mrs. Wallace P. Cohoe that he never would have amounted to anything but for her help. The Baekelands had two children, a son, George W.,now president of the Bakelite Corporation; and a daughter, Mrs. Nina Baekeland Wyman.