Jacques Edwin Brandenberger was born October 19, 1872 in Zurich, Switzerland. In his youth, he was known for being very business oriented, and extremely motivated. He received his doctorate in Chemistry at the age of 22 from Bern University, making him the youngest doctor in all of Switzerland at the time. Brandenberger focused his experimentation towards discovering a way to water-proof cloth. He manufactured a thin, transparent, protective film to be applied to cloth fabric, hoping it would render the fabric impervious to water. However, the cloth with film bonded to it became brittle and was nearly useless.
Brandenberger then realized he could peel the film off of the cloth and use the flexible film by itself for other purposes. He had invented Composite Cellulose Film, soon to be known as Cellophane. By 1917, Brandenberger had opened a factory in Paris to mass produce cellophane as a packaging material. In 1923, Brandenberger sold the rights to cellophane to the DuPont company, where it was improved by their resident chemists, finally making it 100% water proof and more durable by 1927. Brandenberger's invention of cellophane earned him the Franklin Institute's Gold Medal, and also placed him in the National Inventor's Hall of Fame. Jacques Brandenberger died in Zurich, Switzerland in 1954.
References:
1. Enchanted Learning - Inventors from 1901-1950. http://www.enchantedlearning.com/inventors/1900a.shtml
2. National Inventors Hall of Fame. http://www.invent.org/Hall_Of_Fame/253.html
3. Dr. J.E. Brandenberger Foundation. http://www.stiftungbrandenberger.ch/drbrd_e.htm
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