Substitute Materials during the Twentieth Century

Attempts to discover whether or not one material can be used in place of another run through the history of science from antiquity to the present. This paper gives an overview of twentieth century histories of substitute materials as a technoscientific-political project. Successful substitution typically involves a coordination between material availability, narratives of use, experimental practices to discover similarities and differences between material affordances, and regimes of testing and regulation. Substitute materials are also invested with potent narratives which connects them with political aims. During the twentieth century historians have associated substitute materials primarily with a range of political projects, notably the chemurgical movement in the USA during the 1930s, British colonial development schemes in the post-world war two period, and the ersatz economies of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. It is thus framed as arising in exceptional condition, arising with conditions of war and emergency. Substitution can also be understood as a more gradual and quotidian series of material transitions and coexistences. Examining these more chronic attempts to substitute gives a way to relate histories of chemistry to geographies of production, and their associated ideologies.