Revisiting the Early History of Synthetic Polymers: Critiques and New Insights

This essay seeks to clarify existing confusion in terminology regarding the history of polymers, plastics, and macromolecules, and explores various factors that complicate the early history of macromolecules. It also suggests reasons why materials such as polyaniline, an early fully synthetic polymer that found widespread commercial application in dyes, have not previously been treated in accounts of polymer history.