It wasn’t just a solvent. It was a new kind of plastic. Stronger than glass. Clearer than resin. Flexible enough to wrap a bullet or shield a bomber’s cockpit.

Henry grunted. “You talk like a brochure.”

That night, the first test batch runs. A conveyor belt feeds shredded, multicolored carpet into a reactor. Steam hisses. Catalysts dance. Two hours later, a valve opens, and a clear, sweet-smelling liquid drips into a glass jar.

The world was hungry for solvents. Cameras needed film, and film needed chemicals that didn’t exist yet. Henry spent three weeks failing. He mixed esters, boiled aldehydes, and watched his beakers turn the color of mud.

In the early days, Eastman was about Kodak—the film that captured birthday parties and wars. But Henry worked in the distillation unit, where coal was transformed into methanol. It was a brutal, sooty process. The air smelled of rotten eggs and ambition. His hands were perpetually stained black.