The Origin of Aerosols

Aerosol paint, commonly called spray paint, must ha ve been an object that was created without any idea of what it would create. What it created was the modern graffiti subculture. The history of spray paint and its progeny, the modern graffiti subculture, is a story of how everyday objects become what they are today and how they take on a life of their own, far surpassing whatever benign use they were originally intended for and taking on a meaning of their own in a cultural context. This is a paper that seeks to explore that story and explain how objects and people can interact to produce something far beyond either the object itself or the people who use it. It necessarily entails a journey that explores how objects affect people and how people affect objects and how the complex relationships between thembring objects, people and culture together to enrich people’s lives and enable them to reach out and affect the world around them. This is also a story of how “lash-ups” come together at specific times, in specific places, under specific conditions and cir cumstances and among different people, for spray paint and the modern graffiti subculture to come to be what it is today.

The origin of aerosol paints can be best situated in the history of aerosol technology more generally as a medium for dispensing various substances. The concept of aerosol dates all the way back to the late 18th century when pressurized carbonated beverages were introduced in France, and in 1837 a man by the name of Perpigna

Invented the valve that provided for an easier way of filling your cup. Rather than pouring your drink into a cup, you could spray it into the cup. As early as 1862, aerosol technology was being incorporated into metal cans for the first time, but they were far too large and bulky to be of any practical use. In 1899 inventors Helbling and Pertsch patented the use of methyl and ethyl chloride as a propellant for aerosols, and in 1927 a Norwegian engineer by the name of Erik Rotheim patented the first aerosol can and valve that could hold produc ts and dispense them with the use of propellants.

However the Second World War is what really pushed aerosol technology in the direction of its current form, and place and region had a lot to do with how that came to be. Molotch states the concept, in its most basic form, that “Places produce stuff.” (161) This doesn’t just mean that stuff is made somewhere. That much is obvious, everything is made somewhere. What is significant about places and regions is that they have certain circumstances, resources and characters specific to them that influence and enable the development of certain products.

For example, certain places and regions become nodes of production and innovation for certain products because certain conditions in those places and regions facilitate their innovation and production, such as leather working in San Croce, a small town in the Italian region of Tuscany. The production of leather products in San Croce is no accident. Rather it is due to certain circumstances specific to the region such as climate, culture and the availability of nearby sources of raw cowhides. (Amin, Ash, 1992) The leather tanning industry in San Croce is a result of a culture of specialized labor to produce leather goods, but also a result of the availability and quality of local raw ingredients and the climate conducive to working with them.

The development of aerosol devices as we have come to know them, was also the result of regional circumstances. During WWII the US government had stationed hundreds of thousands of soldiers and marines in the South Pacific and as a result of their activity in this region the American servicemen became highly susceptible to diseases, such as malaria, which are spread by insects. In order to try to find some way to protect servicemen from these buzzing pests, the US government funded research to find some portable technology to spray these disease carrying insects and thereby protect American servicemen during their tours of duty in the South Pacific.

As a result of this funding, in 1943, two researchers from the Department of Agriculture, Lyle Goodhue and William Sullivan, developed a small portable can pressurized by a liquid gas, a fluorocarbon, that was capable of spraying an anti- insecticide agent to combat the plague of insect-borne disease that was affecting American servicemen in the South Pacific. These aerosol insecticides became available to the general American public in 1947.

This history is an excellent example of how “lash-ups” come together to manifest themselves into one object, specific to that time, place and circumstances or conditions. Molotch explains this phenomenon in the design and production of objects in this way, “Somehow all the elements come together more or less at the same time and in a given geographic place that operates not just as a container, but as a crucible that yields up one particular product and not another.” (2, emphasis added) In the case of aerosol cans, without the involvement of American servicemen in the South Pacific during WWII, and their susceptibility to insect-borne disease, the development of a practical and portable aerosol can would not have been developed at that time, lacking those circumstances and conditions that were the impetus for its creation. It was those people suffering in that place, at that time, which led to the development of a true aerosol can, like the aerosol cans that later came to contain paint. Furthermore, the development and design of the portable aerosol can was the result of a globalized chain of production, from the servicemen’s need in the South Pacific, to the labs of the Department of Agriculture in the United States. All of these circumstances, resources, places and people came together in order for the aerosol can to be manifested at that time. As Molotch puts it, “Somehow, everything must… ‘lash-up’ such that the otherwise loose elements adhere; only then can there be a new thing in the world.” (2)

The story of aerosol paint continues shortly thereafter, when in 1947 a 27 year old inventor named Robert H. Abplanalp came up with the last essential part of what to become the prototypical form of aerosol cans, which is the crimp on valve. The crimp on valve enabled the removal, replacement and manipulation of valve nozzles on portable aerosol cans, which in turn enabled liquids to be sprayed from a pressurized can for the first time, and in controllable ways. (The importance of nozzles to aerosol paints and the modern graffiti subculture will be discussed in a later section.) Abplanalp also began the use of an inexpensive, practical and durable aluminum can, which is the standard for all aerosol cans through the current day. Abplanalp’s company became a multi-million dollar supplier of aerosol cans, although his cans were used for the dispensing of liquefied creams, foams and powders, mostly for hygienic use, and not spray paint. His Precise Valve Corporation manufactured billions of aerosol cans per year for decades.

Finally in 1949 someone got the wonderful idea of putting paint in an aerosol can, and what we now know as spray paint was born. The man credited with the invention of aerosol paint in a can is Edward Seymour, although he credits his wife Bonnie with having come up with the idea. Seymour founded his company Seymour of Sycamour, Inc. to manufacture his spray paints and the first color produced was aluminum, which, it just so happens, is perhaps the most popular color used to fill in letters in works of illegal graffiti due to its opacity, coverage and speed of application, compared to other colors.