From the original caption: “The above Stock represents the produce of the enormous number of 2,000 Elephants. Our average Sale of Billiard Balls is 950 per month, which is equivalent to the produce of 95 Elephants, or the annual total of 1,140 Elephants.” [emphasis added] Image courtesy of the Smithsonian National Museum of History.
In the late 19th and early 20th century, the popularity of billiards soared, and the most desired billiard balls were made of ivory, cut from the tusks of Asian elephants. Unfortunately for the elephants, their tusks were also considered the best material with which to carve piano keys, decorative knick-knacks and combs. While a single tusk could provide enough material for hundreds of piano keys, generally only five billiard balls could be obtained from a single elephant tusk. The demand proved nearly dismal for the elephant population, and a suitable substitute for elephant ivory was sought. That substitute came in the form of a solid, stable nitrocellulose (celluloid plastic), invented by John Wesley Hyatt in 1868. His work built off the discoveries of Alexander Parkes, who invented the first man-made celluloid plastic, Parkesine. Parkes was unable to make Parkesine commercially viable, and the product never took off. Hyatt’s version went on to become the first plastic to succeed on a large scale, and plastics have become, for better or worse, ubiquitous.
–This story was originally published on April 4, 2010. Minor updates have been made.