Charles A. Breskin was publisher of the first widely-read plastics magazine in the U.S. As publisher of Modern Plastics and other publications Breskin shaped the direction and identity the industry, and also patterns of 20th-century American consumer culture.

In 1934, Breskin bought the magazine Plastic Products. Breskin already published Modern Packaging, an attractive publication devoted to promoting packaging innovations to appeal to wary Depression-era consumers.

Breskin hired a noted graphic designer to create a slick magazine, and in September 1934, the new Modern Plastics was born. The magazine touted plastics as a material that could help attract consumers of everything from radios to clocks to electric shavers. In 1936 Breskin recruited Gordon Kline as technical editor of the magazine a poisiton Kline held for more than 50 years before retiring during the late 1980s.

Breskin was a charter member of Society of the Plastics Industry (SPI) and the Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE).

Brekin established and endowed chair in Organic Chemistry at Brandeis University, and also the School of Plastics at Boys Town, Jerusalem.

See:

Loepp, Don and Bregar, Bill. "IMM, Modern Plastics to stop print versions," Plastics News (March 28, 2011).

Meikle, Jeffrey L. American Plastic: A Cultural History (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1995), 99-101.