Perkin's Perfect Purple

How a Boy Created Color with Chemistry

Disney Hyperion

(pub. 10.6.2020) 

56 pages

A True Tale with

A Cherry On Top   

A uthor: Tami Lewis Brown

       and Debbie Loren Dunn
       and illustrator: Francesca Sanna

C haracter: William Henry Perkin

O verview:

 

"Many years ago, the color purple was available only to a privileged few. Making purple was tricky. The dye was concocted from a certain snail, and later, from plants, bugs, and rocks. Then it had to be soaked in minerals and . . . urine! The process was very complicated and expensive (not to mention smelly!).

Until 1856, when a boy named William Henry Perkin invented a new way. While testing a hypothesis about a cure for malaria, he found that his experiment resulted in something else -- something vivid and rare for the times: synthetic PURPLE. Perkin, a pioneer of the modern scientific method, made numerous advances possible, including canned food and chemotherapy. But it was his creation of purple that started it all."

T antalizing taste:    

"This is how it happened.

William's father was a successful carpenter.

His brother, a proud architect.

Young William dreamed of being an artist, a musician, a photographer, or a botanist ...

William was interested in everything!

When he was twelve, a friend showed him experiments with crystals, and he knew this was far more exciting than any other subject.

He began to collect glassware and equipment, and set up a lab in his house, in Shadwell, East London.

There he mixed and measured, experimented and examined."

And something more:  The Authors' Note explains "the color of our world is not the only thing William changed. The dyes that followed from Perkin's discovery allowed medical researchers to stain invisible bacteria and microbes, leading to cures for tuberculosis, cholera, and even anthrax. Methods he and others developed for changing the molecular structure of organic compounds, a process known as 'Perkin's Synthesis,' yielded synthetic smells and tastes that never existed before. Our world looks, smells, tastes, and feels different because of William Perkin."