Constance Dannenbaum

Connie Levey was best known as a New Orleans real estate agent for nearly 40 years. However, she also supported her husband in his chemical engineering practice, including having two patents under her name, as outlined in the following article.

Pacific Plastics, Sept 1944, p. 37:

WOMAN INVENTS THERMOPLASTIC WALLBOARD Shredded cellulosic fibers coated with thermoplastic film form low-cost board A San Francisco woman, transplanted to New Orleans where her husband has made numerous contributions to the advancement of the plastics industry, Mrs. Constance D. Levey has herself added to the growing list of acceptable plastics processes.

Her contribution is a new type of thermoplastic wallboard.

No chemist, Mrs. Levey explained modestly how she worked out the new process that was recently granted a patent.

"Since my husband practically eats, sleeps and lives plastics, I couldn't help becoming interested. I didn't know much about it, but he coached me, sort of, and I did enjoy puttering around. Even when I realized I had discovered something new I could hardly believe it, because it all seemed so simple."

Born in San Francisco 35 years ago, and educated in the public schools and colleges of the Bay Area, she married Dr. Harold A. Levey in 1928 and moved with him to New Orleans where her husband continued his plastics development work in a large, well-staffed laboratory. She spent considerable time in the laboratory and plant, gaining knowledge of chemistry and plastics particularly.

Mrs. Levey's chief interest was the development of low priced plastics compositions, because, she declared, she felt that only through low production costs can plastics compositions complete successfully with the metals and other materials of construction.

The discovery on which the patent was issued covers a thermoplastic composition made up of shredded cellulosic fibers, such as the waste bagasse from ground sugar cane, bonded together with an agent like Gilsonite, asphaltum, wood resins, etc. at the time the composition is molded into its ultimate form one or both faces are coated with a thin sheet or film of thermoplastic material-one of the cellulose derivatives, the vinyl esters, the acetals or the like. The ultimate product possesses most of the physical characteristics and appearance of a product made wholly of these high priced plastic materials.

The outstanding aspect of this type of composition is that it carries a direct cost for materials of less than one cent per pound, it is claimed. At this rate the wallboard can be produced in the standard gauges for a material cost of from $12.00 to $15.00 per thousand square feet.

The new board can be made platen polished on both faces, can be pigmented, or it can be coated at the time of forming with clear, colored or pigmented thermoplastic sheeting, paper, cloth or metallic foil. The final product can be worked the same as other structural materials-cut and drilled-and in addition can be reshaped under heat and pressure.

In addition to its use in wallboard, another important application of the composition is in furniture, particularly the modernistic and mountable types. As the material follows most of the characteristics of a typical thermoplastic compound, it will be possible to take the large compression molded type of products by mass production methods, especially in view of the fact that the unit pressure required to mold this type of material is substantially less than for the usual thermosetting or thermoplastic compression molded types.

As the product has a hard, smooth surface, it is in no sense a substitute for other products made from bagasse and used for insulating purposes.

The discovery was made by Mrs. Levey while experimenting in the same laboratory where her husband evolved the first automatic film-forming equipment for the commercial production of transparent packaging sheeting, and where a number of other innovations in plastics were developed.

Chemist or not, Mrs. Levey is still experimenting. Her present objective is a low priced water-white transparent plastics composition.

[photo included with article]