Really hard to get past the headline's blame of Americans for this. Because it is evidently always the fault of Americans?
I'm also not clear that this somehow "paved the way" for synthetic plastics. Was an early mover precisely because it was a luxury activity. But I don't think anyone thinks they would have not been invented had it not been for the sport?
"Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead."
I think you're imposing these value judgments yourself. The article isn't framing the innovation of synthetic plastic balls as a bad thing. If anything it's celebrating America's contribution to material science, which isn't unexpected from the Smithsonian.
It probably would have been invented anyway, by somebody - but when is not known. Billiards gave the first person reason to develop the idea once he saw it could work. There was a year of experimentation needed before it worked in the real world (though as the article notes a trained chemist could probably have figured out the working formula faster).
Everything we know could have been invented by someone else earlier if they had tried (many things depend on earlier inventions and so earlier is often only a few years). Most of them would be invented by someone else a few years latter as well. However we remember the person who invented it (and often the person who made it successful) and not the others who didn't.
According to Wikipedia, Alexander Parkes created the first celluloid (later called "Parkesine") on purpose in 1855 (as mentioned in the article, Collodion already existed and, when dried, created a celluloid-like film). John Wesley Hyatt apparently acquired Parkes's patent.
Daniel Spill, who worked with Parkes directly in England, founded several companies with Parkes selling Celluloid in England.
Spill and Hyatt spent the better part of a decade in court against each other over who invented it first and who has the right to the patents. The judge ultimately ruled that both of them can continue their businesses, and that Parkes invented it first.
> Because it is evidently always the fault of Americans?
It is when we willingly took hegemony of the world economy for the last 80 years, and we at least pretend like this is representative of the interests of americans.
The fact that we clearly haven't been able to implement at least common-sense regulation of use of plastics in consumer industries is a pretty clear indication we are to blame, IMO. We haven't even been able to make it less shitty of a consumer experience, let alone pretend to care about health.
I mean, I'm not sure that it's _complaining_, as such. All in all, it's probably preferable that billiard balls are made of plastic and not ivory, even if they were initially mildly explosive.
I'm also not clear that this somehow "paved the way" for synthetic plastics. Was an early mover precisely because it was a luxury activity. But I don't think anyone thinks they would have not been invented had it not been for the sport?