In 1944, a research plan was sent to Academia Sinica’s central office containing the year's budget and plans for the Institute of Chemistry. In the preamble of the plan, a short paragraph discussed the lack of 'pure chemistry', 純潔化學, being performed within the laboratories. And indeed, three-quarters of the budget in the work plan was either devoted to mineralogy research or pharmaceutical research. The institute, despite its original mission of gathering together chemistry researchers in China, had become a facility that housed research projects that used chemistry as a tool rather than the object of focus. The shift away from chemistry as a field of research to a tool is also reflected in the Bulletin of the Institute of Chemistry, Academia Sinica, where, more often than not, the articles are not on chemical experiments but on pharmaceuticals, food science, and soil composition.
The question of what constituted chemistry research became an issue that Chinese chemists began to grapple with as funding and laboratories became scarce in the late 1930s and 40s. To continue their research, they began to redefine their discipline with stringent standards of what constituted chemistry research. Though disciplinary boundaries hardened in their periodicals, they also needed to navigate the narrative that scientific endeavors in China would save the nation, which encouraged cooperation rather than resource guarding. The result of re-evaluating the discipline meant many researchers found themselves choosing between their research projects and their institutional identity.

In the early 20th century, indigo peasants and dyeing artisans in modern
China encountered a major challenge from synthetic indigo manufactured in Germany. This artificial “alternative” was considered a pioneering symbol of the successful integration of organic chemistry into industrial production, fundamentally altering the production model that transformed agricultural indigo into a profitable dye commodity, as well as the economic incentives for growing indigo crops. However, during the two world wars, German synthetic dye exports decreased
significantly due to war-related policies. Driven by the domestic product movement 国货运动, patriotic intellectuals and vernacular industrialists in China advocated maximizing the utilization of existing local natural resources rather than solely relying on foreign imports or the invention of chemical products. Although they were well aware of the challenges in competing with the man-made variant in terms of color purity, stability, and cost, the modified agricultural indigo was still regarded as a flexible, adaptable, and durable “alternative” during periods of social and technological transformation. This article proposes a more dimensional re-examination of the relationship between natural and chemical materials. It challenges the presumption that the impact of synthetic technologies and industrial manufacturing is overwhelming and invincible, and highlights the more complex factors that influence the survival of materials and technologies.

This presentation delves into the intertwined narratives of the global production of celluloid film stock and its influence on the camphor industry in colonial Taiwan. It explores the dual stories of natural resource extraction in Taiwan and the efforts for a synthetic substitution in Germany, highlighting the pivotal role of chemical knowledge in shaping media history. Through these narratives, the presentation unravels the intricate connections between industrial innovation, resource exploitation, and media technological advancement.