Leo Hendrik Baekeland (1863–1944), inventor of Bakelite. Image provided by Edgar Fahs Smith Memorial Collection, Department of Special Collections, University of Pennsylvania Library.		Baekeland and Bakelite In the early 1900s, while some scientists were debating the nature of polymers, others were putting polymers to work. The Belgian inventor Leo Hendrik Baekeland (1863–1944) produced a rigid, lightweight material in 1907 by reacting phenol and formaldehyde. He called it Bakelite, and it was the first commercially produced synthetic polymer. Bakelite is a thermoset, a material that holds its shape permanently once it is formed and cannot be remolded. A smash hit, Bakelite transformed the look of the everyday world and was used to make everything from hairbrushes to telephone housings until it was eventually replaced by more modern plastics.