Day-Glo! Magician brightens up the war to save lives
MAGICIAN INVENTS DAY-GLO COLOURS.
In 1934, in the middle of the Great Depression, a nineteen-year-old American university student was working a summer job at a tomato quality control laboratory, when he fell and was knocked unconscious. Months later, Robert 'Bob' Switzer awoke from a coma with blurred vision.
To continue his recuperation, Bob's doctor recommended avoiding bright light. Acting on this advice, Switzer's father, a pharmacist, turned his shop’s basement into a darkroom. One day, Bob was playing with an ultraviolet light with his younger brother Joseph. The pair noticed that the some of the organic compounds in his father storeroom glowed brightly under the ultraviolet light. Intrigued, the pair started experimenting with the chemicals, especially with Murine eye wash. They found that by mixing it with an alcohol solution of white shellac paint, they could make a fluorescent yellow paint. The compound appeared white to the naked eye, but under a U.V. light it shone intensely.
Bob and Joe Switzer (1952)
(Source: DayGlo Color Corps)
Joe Switzer, a year younger than his brother but always the extrovert of the pair, had just graduated from high school and was an amateur magician. According to Bob, he was “a master of sleight of hand,” whose favourite stunt was driving the family’s Model T. Ford around their neighbourhood blindfolded.
Helped by Bob, Joe used the fluorescent paint in a 'black art' act. By painting the head and body of a Balinese dancer and performing against a black background in a darkened room, with the stage lit with U.V., Joe was able to create the illusion of the dancer appearing in an instant, dancing around wildly, and for a climax, the head of the dancer separated and flew off its body.
Joe entered the act at the annual convention of the Pacific Coast Association of Magicians. He won the prize for the convention’s most outstanding effect, and the brothers began to sell the illusion to other magicians. In later productions, the brothers introduced a fluorescent sword to decapitate the Balinese dancer and squirted fluorescent 'blood' from the hole in her seemingly gaping neck.
Logo of the Pacific Coast Association of Magicians
(Source: Pacific Coast Association of Magicians)
Fluorescent products became a big seller among magicians, aiding the growth of 'Midnight Spook Shows' in the 1940s and 1950s. Quickly realising the economic potential of their discovery beyond its use in magical entertainment, the brothers set up the Switzer Brothers’ Ultra Violet Laboratories, in their mother’s laundry room.
Poster for a spook show performed by Brundell, marked with fluorescent inks
(Source: Unattributed)
Some of their first customers were spiritualists, who used the product to paint messages on drapery, or create fake ectoplasm, and fool their grieving customers into thinking that the medium could summon up images and messages from beyond the grave. Morticians bought the fluorescent paint to mix with embalming fluid, so that they could tell when the liquid had been evenly distributed around a body they were preparing. The brothers also developed a range of invisible laundry marking inks for the National Marking Machine Co., which they later sold to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Over the next couple of years, inspired by work they did for 'black art' displays in movie theatre lobbies, the Switzers experimented in creating a luminous paint that shined in daylight. In 1936, after dipping silk fabric into a combination of alcohol and fluorescent dye, by complete accident, the pair discovered the secret to daylight fluorescents. These new pigments reflected visible colour from the spectrum, while also absorbing and transforming U.V. wavelengths of colours lower in the spectrum. As a result, viewers perceived a more intense, dazzling colour. The first products were patented in 1937 as Day-Glo fluorescents.
Initially, Day-Glo colours were used for commercial advertisements. But when World War Two erupted, the dyes found a new niche. The eye-popping colours were widely used by the U.S. military to improve safety and save lives.
Swatch for Day-Glo high-visibility fluorescent signal fabric
(Source: Day-Glo Color Corps)
U.S. ground troops in North Africa identified themselves using daylight fluorescent fabric panels to prevent friendly fire bombings by Allied pilots. Day-Glo paints were used on training aircraft to prevent mid-air collisions. Fluorescent paddles were used on Navy aircraft carriers in the Pacific to help planes land in low-visibility conditions and at night, something that Japanese pilots were unable to do. And, fluorescent buoys were used to mark where underwater mines had been cleared.
The Switzers also introduced fluorescent penetrants that were found to be useful for the war effort and are still used today. The penetrants, known as Zyglo and Magnaglo, identified defects in metal fabricated parts, such as critical aircraft parts.
Some wartime information posters were printed in Day-Glo inks to grab the attention of the war-weary populations.
The U.S. military spent $12 million on Day-Glo products during World War Two, making the Switzer brothers rich beyond their dreams.
Colour swatch for Day-Glo Blaze Orange printing ink (1966)
(Source: Day-Glo Color Corps)
After the war, Day-Glo colours were extensively adopted. They reached the zenith of pop culture relevance when the Beatles wore military-style suits in Day-Glo colours on the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967. Joseph Switzer, who never lost his penchant for showmanship, wore suits made of fluorescent satin and drove a Ford Thunderbird painted in Day-Glo.
The Switzer brothers’ legacy shines on in their rainbow of trademark high-visibility tones - Saturn Yellow, Blaze Orange, Aurora Pink, Neon Red, Corona Magenta, Signal Green, Horizon Blue - that are found on everything from food wrappers to public safety workers today. And, of course, they are now used by military forces around the world.
Article in Popular Science magazine about Day-Glo (1956)
(Source: Popular Science)
*****
In another example of magic-related chemistry during World War Two, scientists at Shell’s research laboratories, found how to produce nitration grade toluene, on a commercial scale from petroleum. This discovery was highly useful to the war effort, as toluene is a starting point for the production of T.N.T., a widely used explosive material. But, toluene has many other uses, including as a chemical framework for dyes; useful for making coloured silks used by many magicians. “Odd but true”, a wartime Shell advertisement stated, picturing a magician surrounded by silk scarfs and bomb casings, “the viciousness of an American block buster, and the lovely colors in the fabric, come from the same basic material…”.
'Beauty and the Bomb...' - a wartime advert for Shell Research
Research supported by The Good Magic Award 2021 from The Good Thinking Society
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Written by the Magic at War team, The Colditz Conjurer is a remarkable tale of perseverance, courage and cunning in the face of adversity. It features over 55 original photographs and maps. 126 pages.
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