Over forty years ago, Manhattan physician Robert Lerch purchased a red and black Bakelite clasp bracelet with a geometric Art Deco design. That was the beginning of a Bakelite collection that has grown to approximately 2,000 pieces of jewelry as well as 3,000 other objects, such as radios, buttons, clocks, boxes, umbrella handles, and knives.

Belgian-born chemist Dr. Leo Baekeland invented Bakelite in the early 1900s while living in the Yonkers, New York community of Harmony Park. Working in a barn turned laboratory behind his home, he combined phenol, or carbolic acid, with formaldehyde to produce what he described as an artificial resinoid that was heat- and solvent-resistant and could be molded under pressure into various forms. He eponymously named it Bakelite.

Bakelite was rapidly adopted for a wide range of household and industrial products, including the hard black telephone and the square Brownie camera case. Initially, it was only available in dark colors of brown and black, acceptable in the industrial world but less appropriate for decorative objects and fashion accessories. Subsequent modification of the Bakelite production process yielded a transparent form called cast phenolic that could be manufactured in a wide range of brilliant and marbleized colors. With this discovery, Bakelite entered the jewelry-making arena. Soon, jewelry workshops were transforming Bakelite rods and sheets into bracelets, beads, buttons, and brooches that were offered at very affordable prices. But Bakelite was not just for the five-and-dime. New York’s B. Altman, Lord & Taylor, Bergdorf Goodman, and Saks Fifth Avenue stocked their counters with higher-end Bakelite creations, and Coco Chanel included Bakelite pieces in her costume jewelry line.

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