Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy Wilson. Uh So. Historian
Speaker 1: Robert Friedell wrote a book about zippers back in which
Speaker 1: I recently read, and a line in the introduction to
Speaker 1: that book really struck me, which was, while zippers are
Speaker 1: used everywhere, they are almost never necessary. And I recoiled initially,
Speaker 1: we need zippers everywhere, but really you could find an
Speaker 1: alternate way to do almost everything that a zipper does.
Speaker 1: But they're so convenient and handy that, of course they
Speaker 1: have become ubiquitous throughout everyone's wardrobes. But without trying to
Speaker 1: throw anyone under the bus. That quote, it's kind of
Speaker 1: how I feel about most write ups about the invention
Speaker 1: of the zipper, because it's one of those things I
Speaker 1: of course so a lot. So I have done a
Speaker 1: lot of thinking about zippers and how they work and
Speaker 1: wonder where they came from. But if you look at
Speaker 1: any right up, if you just you know, do an
Speaker 1: Internet search and say who invented the zipper? You get
Speaker 1: to maybe three paragraphs, and it's really really glossing over
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff. Um, there's a lot of story here,
Speaker 1: So I thought today might be a good time to
Speaker 1: delve into the oddly arduous creation of this simple thing
Speaker 1: that we almost all have on our clothes and our
Speaker 1: handbags and our luggage, etcetera. Zippers. Now that I think
Speaker 1: about it, they are in so many locations besides just
Speaker 1: my jeans. Uh. In eighteen fifty one, Alias How, who
Speaker 1: we talked about forever ago in Our Sewing Machine episode,
Speaker 1: filed for a patent on an automatic continuous clothing closure.
Speaker 1: If you look at the patent sketches, it really looks
Speaker 1: like a zipper, but it's also a little misleading. His vice,
Speaker 1: which he described as a series of clasps united by
Speaker 1: a connecting cord, was really more like a spiral drawstring
Speaker 1: that was pre laced through clasps on either side of
Speaker 1: that opening that needed to be closed, So when you
Speaker 1: pulled on the draw string, it pulled the two sides
Speaker 1: together and closed it up. If you've ever seen a
Speaker 1: spiral laced corset, it's kind of the same idea, but
Speaker 1: on a smaller scale. You may recall that at one
Speaker 1: point in his career, Elias How traveled to England to
Speaker 1: make machines specifically intended for corset making. That was just
Speaker 1: a few years before he filed this patent, so it's
Speaker 1: possible that he was inspired by that connection. We don't
Speaker 1: really know how didn't pursue the development of this though,
Speaker 1: because he became too busy working on sewing machines. But
Speaker 1: to really get into zippers in their origins, we have
Speaker 1: to talk about a few other men, and the first
Speaker 1: of those is Whitcomb L. Judson, who was born in Chicago, Illinois,
Speaker 1: on Marche. We don't have a whole lot of details
Speaker 1: about his personal life. We have virtually none about his youth.
Speaker 1: We know that while he was still a teenager, he
Speaker 1: enlisted with the Union Army and he was part of
Speaker 1: the Illinois Infantry Regiment in the US Civil War. He
Speaker 1: earned an undergraduate degree at Knox College, a liberal arts
Speaker 1: college in Galsburg, Illinois, and his details from there are
Speaker 1: pretty sparse until he appears in a Minneapolis, Minnesota directory
Speaker 1: in eighteen eighty six. And in that directory, his profession
Speaker 1: is simply listed as traveling agent i e. Like a
Speaker 1: traveling salesman, with no indication as to who his employer was.
Speaker 1: His story can be pieced together a bit through his
Speaker 1: business relationship with another man, Harry Earl. In Earl started
Speaker 1: his own company, Earl Manufacturing Company, and Whitcomb was an employee,
Speaker 1: working initially as a salesman. Before founding that company, Harry
Speaker 1: Earl had worked for Pitts Agricultural Works, so it's been
Speaker 1: theorized that's where the two men met as employees. In
Speaker 1: any case, once he was working for Harry Earle, Whitcomb
Speaker 1: Judson started working not just on sales but on inventions,
Speaker 1: and his first big effort in invention was in designing
Speaker 1: a pneumatic street railway. He actually received a total of
Speaker 1: fourteen patents related to the project over the course of
Speaker 1: just a few years. But he didn't revolutionize urban to
Speaker 1: suburban transportation as he had hoped because the system just
Speaker 1: didn't really work that well, and by the time he
Speaker 1: did start to really make progress on it, electric lines
Speaker 1: had surpassed what he had hoped to do. But that
Speaker 1: whole effort, including starting a company called Judson Pneumatic Street
Speaker 1: Railway Company, gave him a lot of experience in the
Speaker 1: ins and outs of trying to innovate in a technological space.
Speaker 1: In Whitcomb Judson invented an item called a clasp blocker.
Speaker 1: This was intended to be used in shoots, although Judson
Speaker 1: was clear that it could be applied so many things
Speaker 1: that needed closures, including mail bags and gloves. This was
Speaker 1: essentially a set of hooks and eyes that had a
Speaker 1: slider that moved the hooks into position to fasten them,
Speaker 1: although exactly how this whole thing is supposed to have
Speaker 1: worked as a little unclear. The description in the patent
Speaker 1: mentions clasps which have quote underreaching and overlapping projections or
Speaker 1: lips at their forward ends, which prevent the engagement or
Speaker 1: disengagement of the hook portions of the clasps, except when
Speaker 1: thrown upward, so that the parts stand at an angle
Speaker 1: to each other of about ninety degrees. I can't really
Speaker 1: visualize what that means. A little confusing even looking at diagrams,
Speaker 1: I was like, would come what. It was listed in
Speaker 1: Scientific American as one of the patents issued on August
Speaker 1: twenty nine, and it was actually two patents because Judson
Speaker 1: had refined his idea and submitted a second patent application
Speaker 1: before the first one was granted, But the two patents
Speaker 1: ended up being issued on the same day. We don't
Speaker 1: know what sparked this idea or what inspired his design.
Speaker 1: He had moved to Chicago at this time from New York,
Speaker 1: where he and Earl had been working on the pneumatic
Speaker 1: travel system. We also don't know why he moved. The
Speaker 1: two men remained close friends and business associates. Though. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they had seemed so all in on trying to connect
Speaker 1: like the more populated parts of New York to more
Speaker 1: rural parts with this travel thing, and then as I
Speaker 1: think they realized it wasn't gonna happen, Whitcomb moved on. Uh.
Speaker 1: He did take his fastener to the World's Fair in
Speaker 1: Chicago that year to show it to the world. It
Speaker 1: did not really get a lot of buzz there, but
Speaker 1: Whitcomb Judson felt that there was potential for his fastener,
Speaker 1: and in four he and Harry Earl founded the Universal
Speaker 1: Fastener Company along with several investors. Just prior to the
Speaker 1: company being officially founded, Judson filed two more patent applications
Speaker 1: for his fastener, one for a more effective slider and
Speaker 1: one for the fasteners on each side of the closure.
Speaker 1: Prior to this, the teeth of the fastener were items
Speaker 1: that were not permanently affixed to the item being closed.
Speaker 1: They were individual pieces that slid kind of through the buttonholes.
Speaker 1: But this new patent called for permanently attached clasps and
Speaker 1: offered a number of ways that they might work to
Speaker 1: fit together, including alternating from side to side as they
Speaker 1: fit together with what Judson called pin piles and sockets.
Speaker 1: This is starting to sound a lot more like a zipper.
Speaker 1: In the first manufacture efforts of Universal Fastener Company were
Speaker 1: made in a workshop owned by the Bride and Horseshoe Company.
Speaker 1: The first working version and working goes in air quotes
Speaker 1: because it apparently did not work, at least not consistently.
Speaker 1: First working versions were made affixed to mailbags. If the
Speaker 1: company could get a government contract, it could fund a
Speaker 1: larger effort to move into the home consumer goods market.
Speaker 1: The Postal Service did place an order for twenty bags
Speaker 1: that had Dunson's closure. There were never any additional orders
Speaker 1: placed after that, though. That's like the saddest trombone part
Speaker 1: of this story for me. They had to have felt
Speaker 1: so excited that they had a government order and then
Speaker 1: it was like, no, no thanks, that's now these are
Speaker 1: these are done so they're not really working for us.
Speaker 1: As Universal Fastener struggled, Harry Earle struck a deal for
Speaker 1: the company to be acquired by the Allyria Fastener Company
Speaker 1: in Allria, Ohio. But Wickham Judson had reached a plateau
Speaker 1: where his proclivities as an inventor couldn't keep up with
Speaker 1: the knowledge that he needed to actually manufacture these designs,
Speaker 1: and things went pretty badly. The entire Alliria company ended
Speaker 1: up being liquidated in nineteen o one, and at that
Speaker 1: point Harry Earle gained the rights to the Universal Fastener patents,
Speaker 1: so Earle once again found investor and launched the Fastener
Speaker 1: Manufacturing and Machine Company. This new iteration of their business venture,
Speaker 1: which was based in New Jersey, aggressively advertised the merits
Speaker 1: of Judson's closure invention, which they simply called the Fastener.
Speaker 1: They advertised it in print and touted a wider variety
Speaker 1: of uses than had even been suggested before. They said
Speaker 1: this could go on everything from corsets to leggings, two shoes,
Speaker 1: and boots. In nineteen o four, the company re orged
Speaker 1: under the name Automatic Hook and Eye Company. This reflected
Speaker 1: another change in the design of the fastener, which then
Speaker 1: went by the new name of the Cecurity Fastener. That's
Speaker 1: a sea dash c U r I t y spelling,
Speaker 1: which is an awkward brand name in my opinion. At
Speaker 1: this point, the advertising leaned into the women's clothing market,
Speaker 1: and most of the print material focused on how much
Speaker 1: easier it was going to be to fasten skirt plackets.
Speaker 1: That seems like they were onto something, and they were,
Speaker 1: But the fastener still needed some work, and we will
Speaker 1: talk about its problems after we paused for a quick
Speaker 1: sponsor break. While things were moving forward for Judson's invention,
Speaker 1: there were still some pretty obvious problems. The security fasteners
Speaker 1: sometimes jammed up. Also, so ASTs needed instructions on how
Speaker 1: to stitch them into garments, and worst of all, in
Speaker 1: my opinion, if you wanted to launder the garment, you
Speaker 1: had to remove the fastener, wash it, and then reinstall
Speaker 1: that fastener once the skirt or dress was clean, because
Speaker 1: while they did have a coating, they were still prone
Speaker 1: to rust. Additionally, these fasteners were expensive. They went to
Speaker 1: market at thirty five cents at a time when a
Speaker 1: basic skirt was about seventy seven cents. In the Sears
Speaker 1: Robot catalog, dressmakers and resellers could get bulk discounts, but
Speaker 1: even so, a closure for a garment costing one quarter
Speaker 1: to one half of the value of the overall article
Speaker 1: of clothing, it was just a lot like For comparison,
Speaker 1: that would be like purchasing a pair of button fly
Speaker 1: jeans today for eighty dollars and then having a company
Speaker 1: tell you that you're already perfectly functioning garment would cost
Speaker 1: another thirty dollars to modernize to a new closure. Most
Speaker 1: people would skip that offer, and in the early nine
Speaker 1: hundreds most people did just that. By nine six, Harry
Speaker 1: Earle had left the company Whitcom. Judson soon extricated himself
Speaker 1: from the business as well. These two men had been
Speaker 1: trying to manufacture and market Judson's bastener for more than
Speaker 1: a decade. At that point, with several restarts, it was
Speaker 1: just not happening. Judson had also moved on creatively to
Speaker 1: working on inventions related to the new technology of automobiles.
Speaker 1: He was working on an early combustion engine and had
Speaker 1: decided to move to miss Schigan to be near his son.
Speaker 1: Skirt closures were just no longer holding his attention. The
Speaker 1: automatic hook and eye company continued without the two men
Speaker 1: who had catalyzed its founding, though, and that same year
Speaker 1: that they left, a new figure entered the picture who
Speaker 1: was key to the development of the zipper, and that
Speaker 1: was Gideon Sundback Otto Friedrich. Gideon Sundback was born in
Speaker 1: small On, Sweden on a Details about his early life
Speaker 1: are a little sparse. We know he studied engineering at
Speaker 1: bing In and received his degree in nineteen o three.
Speaker 1: Once you finished schooling, he moved briefly to Germany before
Speaker 1: deciding to head to the US. And he was in
Speaker 1: a good position to do so. The family had money,
Speaker 1: so moving to a new country wasn't really that much
Speaker 1: of a gamble. Yeah. One of the books that I
Speaker 1: read was like, sometimes you will see people acting like
Speaker 1: this is you know, the classic like poor immigrant story
Speaker 1: trying to find a new life, and it's like, No,
Speaker 1: he was a wealthy kid who thought like, oh, I
Speaker 1: can go make my fortune here in this other place.
Speaker 1: Not quite the same. He arrived in North American nineteen
Speaker 1: o five and headed for Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he was
Speaker 1: employed as a tracer at Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company.
Speaker 1: That job is exactly what it sounds like he was
Speaker 1: tracing engineering drawings and schematics to make copies, but he
Speaker 1: was soon promoted to a draftsman position, and he worked
Speaker 1: in that role for about a year. Through various contacts,
Speaker 1: someone mentioned sun Back to Frank Russell in nineteen o six.
Speaker 1: At the time, Russell was the president of Automatic Hook
Speaker 1: and Eye Company. The company executive had realized that what
Speaker 1: they needed to make the security fastener really work in
Speaker 1: a way that was reliable and affordable was an engineer,
Speaker 1: and so Automatic recruited Sunback. Reading about this offer and move,
Speaker 1: it seems almost like people who had looked at Sunback's
Speaker 1: qualifications and his job at Westinghouse or left scratching their
Speaker 1: heads about why they would take a position at this
Speaker 1: flown during company in Hoboken with a fundamentally flawed product
Speaker 1: background made that kind of a question mark decision. Uh
Speaker 1: he did take the job, though possibly just for the challenge.
Speaker 1: There's also been speculation that part of that decision for
Speaker 1: the move was because he had met a young woman
Speaker 1: named Elvira Aaronson on his first visit to Hoboken when
Speaker 1: he toured the factory, and that he had been quite
Speaker 1: taken with her. And those two did eventually marry, and
Speaker 1: we know that because her father was involved in Automatic
Speaker 1: as an executive. Elvira Aaronson was around the company a lot.
Speaker 1: She actually worked in the factory and she sometimes modeled
Speaker 1: garments that the company's closures were sewn into. And these
Speaker 1: two started seeing each other almost immediately after. Sundback moved
Speaker 1: to New Jersey, and he had Elvira, who he called Vira,
Speaker 1: help him perfect his English, which was by all accounts
Speaker 1: already quite good. There's some people that were like, you
Speaker 1: don't actually need English lessons. So if he had been
Speaker 1: drawn to the job because of the potential to spend
Speaker 1: time with her, that absolutely worked out. But the reasoning
Speaker 1: for his move from Westinghouse is still speculation. We really
Speaker 1: don't know if he moved to be with her or not.
Speaker 1: The timing of his hire meant that Sunback was joining
Speaker 1: Automatic hook and Eye just as Harry Earl and Whitcomb
Speaker 1: Judson were leaving. There was a brief period of overlap.
Speaker 1: Gideon later described Whitcomb as a man who invented something
Speaker 1: every night, but soon he was gone and Sunback settled
Speaker 1: in to try to understand Judson's invention and where it
Speaker 1: was going wrong, and he quickly identified a few issues. One,
Speaker 1: when a woman was wearing a skirt with a security
Speaker 1: closure on it, the fastener would often pop open if
Speaker 1: she moved in a way that applied any tension across it.
Speaker 1: He realized that if just one of the interlocking pieces
Speaker 1: was moved askew through pretty much more normal motion of
Speaker 1: the wearer, the whole thing would come undone. So obviously
Speaker 1: not good at all. It does the work getting Him's
Speaker 1: first pass at a solution was something he called a
Speaker 1: placo fastener. This was more flexible, so that a person
Speaker 1: could bend or twist in a normal day to day
Speaker 1: way without popping the whole thing apart. This one's a
Speaker 1: market in nineteen o eight. But the more flexible eyes
Speaker 1: that sun Back had designed were also bulkier. They could
Speaker 1: be rendered entirely useless forever if any fabric got caught
Speaker 1: in them, and then from a production standpoint, they were
Speaker 1: expensive in part because once a placao had come off
Speaker 1: the production line, workers had to open and close it
Speaker 1: repeatedly to primeate. So like wear down any ridges that
Speaker 1: would cause it to stick. It's not very efficient process. No,
Speaker 1: that's a lot of man hours just to get one
Speaker 1: function enclosure out the door. Still, they marketed the heck
Speaker 1: out of that Placau fastener, and one of the big
Speaker 1: points in the sales pitch was that at last, a
Speaker 1: lady could fasten her garments at the back of the
Speaker 1: waist securely with no help, but they needed help sewing
Speaker 1: them into clothes. It seemed that everyone had trouble with
Speaker 1: that step. Complaints became so frequent that the company started
Speaker 1: offering customers the option to send their garments in with
Speaker 1: their Placo fastener, which would then be stitched in at
Speaker 1: the factory and then sent back to that customer ready
Speaker 1: to wear. That seems like a huge money pit. Now
Speaker 1: we need a sewing division to fix all these problems.
Speaker 1: The ongoing issues once again led to financial problems for
Speaker 1: American Hook and I, and Sunback found himself not only
Speaker 1: negotiating with creditors on behalf the company, but also expanding
Speaker 1: their product line and taking side projects just to keep
Speaker 1: cash coming in. Things became bad enough that the company
Speaker 1: could not afford to pay Sunback and instead gave him
Speaker 1: all the patent rights to the various fasteners that the
Speaker 1: company had. This is another thing that leaves a lot
Speaker 1: of people going why was this man who had an
Speaker 1: engineering degree and could have gone almost anywhere he wanted
Speaker 1: so invested in this company that he would literally take
Speaker 1: side jobs and be like, yeah, I'll do this engineering
Speaker 1: as a freelance contractor for you so that I can
Speaker 1: give that money to my boss. Like it's a little weird.
Speaker 1: But by nineteen o nine, sunback, it turned out, probably
Speaker 1: because of that, was really running the company and he
Speaker 1: did briefly manage to turn around the money situation there.
Speaker 1: He also sought to expand the company into international markets.
Speaker 1: He and his at this point father in law, Peter Aaronson,
Speaker 1: made a move to sell their fasteners in France as
Speaker 1: Lafirm toute American or American Clothes all but that effort
Speaker 1: had sputtered out by nine twelve. In the time that
Speaker 1: the French sales efforts were happening, Gideon, who had married
Speaker 1: Elvira Errandson in nineteen o nine, welcomed a child. This
Speaker 1: was a daughter named Ruth Margitte. But though they should
Speaker 1: have been joyous, this was not a happy occasion. Elvira
Speaker 1: die not long after Ruth's birth, and Gideon was just devastated,
Speaker 1: so much so that he could not envision himself raising
Speaker 1: a child. When Elvira died that aaronsons were in Europe
Speaker 1: and Gideon had no personal support system and hobookens, so
Speaker 1: Ruth was sent to Sweden, where Sunback's mother took care
Speaker 1: of her throughout her childhood. Yeah, there's not a lot
Speaker 1: of information on their relationship. It appears they did not
Speaker 1: really reunite until she was at least a teenager, and
Speaker 1: then he was left kind of explaining like, no, I
Speaker 1: was grieving not a lot beyond that of what happened
Speaker 1: with them. Yeah, I read a thing recently about like
Speaker 1: how common this has been in points in history, especially
Speaker 1: when like a mother dies with an infant and the
Speaker 1: father is totally at a loss for what to do,
Speaker 1: like particularly in this era, and so a different person
Speaker 1: entirely would wind up raising the child. Yeah. I suspect
Speaker 1: had Elvira's parents still ben in New Jersey and not
Speaker 1: working overseas, that would have Benna a means to keep
Speaker 1: the family a little closer together, but it just wasn't.
Speaker 1: But by the time of Elvira's death and Ruth's birth,
Speaker 1: wickcom Judson had also died. He had moved as planned
Speaker 1: to Muskegan, Michigan, and he died there on December seven,
Speaker 1: nine nine, at the age of sixty three, so he
Speaker 1: never got to see the success that eventually came from
Speaker 1: other inventors building on his idea. His work in the
Speaker 1: early automotive industry, however, became very profitable, and that ensured
Speaker 1: that his son, who carried on his father's work in
Speaker 1: that field, became very very wealthy. In the years that
Speaker 1: Sunback had been with American Hook and I, other inventors
Speaker 1: had gotten the idea that they could improve on Judson's
Speaker 1: design and patent their own slide fastener. A woman named
Speaker 1: Ida Josephine Calhoun had come up with a design that
Speaker 1: was very similar to Judson's, but had a slider that
Speaker 1: separated into two parts to help with some of the
Speaker 1: jamning problems. Frank camp Field had come up with a
Speaker 1: slide fastener that eliminated hooks and eyes and instead used
Speaker 1: a ball in socket closure. Yeah. Those were both interesting
Speaker 1: didn't ever go to market. But the first version of
Speaker 1: the closure that came closest to Sundbacks, and which led
Speaker 1: to some legal issues down the road, was one designed
Speaker 1: by a woman from Zurich, Switzerland named Katerina kun Moose.
Speaker 1: She developed her fastener with a partner named en Reforster.
Speaker 1: Kun Moose and Forrester got patents for their design in
Speaker 1: Great Britain, France, and Germany. But though the European developed
Speaker 1: closure worked and was pretty darn close to what we'd
Speaker 1: easily recognized as a zipper today, it never went into
Speaker 1: production and those patents were abandoned. We'll talk about the
Speaker 1: breakthrough that led to the modern zipper after we paused
Speaker 1: for a quick word from the sponsors that keep the
Speaker 1: show going. While still leaving his wife, Sundback worked on
Speaker 1: a new idea which involved small interlocking teeth and was
Speaker 1: very much what we would recognize as a zipper. This
Speaker 1: change in design direction had been catalyzed by a deep
Speaker 1: frustration that he had experienced with trying to make the
Speaker 1: security fastener and its various problems actually work. He wrote
Speaker 1: of this shift quote, I was fed up with hooks
Speaker 1: and eyes, rusting metal and everything pertaining to the fastener,
Speaker 1: the complaints, as far as our salesmen were concerned. We're
Speaker 1: here's a scratchy fastener. These hooks are awfully rough and rusted.
Speaker 1: I decided to turn in an entirely different direction and
Speaker 1: away from hooks and eyes and get away from the
Speaker 1: metallic appearance, make something attractive to the wearer, and starting
Speaker 1: in nineteen twelve he started to do a lot more
Speaker 1: experimenting with the design. In October of that year he
Speaker 1: applied for a new patent, and this version used a
Speaker 1: completely different approach. One side had a row of clamp
Speaker 1: and the other side had a raised cord, so when
Speaker 1: the slider moved up, it closed the clamps onto the cord,
Speaker 1: and the slider moved down, it opened the clamps and
Speaker 1: the cord edge was released. This worked a lot better
Speaker 1: than any of the previous designs that Judson or sun
Speaker 1: Back had worked on. It was consistent, it was quiet,
Speaker 1: it sure looked a lot nicer than the security fastener,
Speaker 1: and it was flexible, with no tendency to pop open
Speaker 1: when a wearer moved around. Sun Back called it the
Speaker 1: hookless fastener. Not super catchy, but it also conveyed that
Speaker 1: a main concern about previous fasteners was out of the picture.
Speaker 1: There was, however, a problem, or more accurately too one.
Speaker 1: The factory was back in financial hot water. It had
Speaker 1: to shut down completely temporarily because operational funds for it
Speaker 1: just did not exist, and sun Back took advantage of
Speaker 1: the down time to test and refined the hookless fastener
Speaker 1: that actually revealed the second problem. The cording side of
Speaker 1: it wore out way too fast for it to be
Speaker 1: a reliable closure. The cotton used in the courting that
Speaker 1: which was just what was available at the time, just
Speaker 1: could not stand up to the opening and closing of
Speaker 1: the clamps. Ultimately, this version of the fastener never went
Speaker 1: into production, but it did reinvigorate sent Back and other
Speaker 1: executives that American Hook and I, so much so that
Speaker 1: plans were set in motion to move the factory and
Speaker 1: re establish the company as the hookless Fastener Company. And
Speaker 1: the decision was made to move to Meadville, Pennsylvania, in
Speaker 1: part just to give everybody a fresh start. When Louis Walker,
Speaker 1: a company executive who was a significant driving force behind
Speaker 1: the business aspects of the various fasteners we've talked about
Speaker 1: and their development, when he was asked by journalists why
Speaker 1: the company had chosen to start anew in Meadville, he
Speaker 1: gave an interesting answer. He mentioned the good community and
Speaker 1: the good schools and the clean air and water and
Speaker 1: quote minimum of labor troubles. By autumn nine, the first
Speaker 1: fasteners were rolling off the production line in Meadville, but
Speaker 1: they were not the new hookless models. They were the
Speaker 1: old Placo fasteners the company had made in New Jersey.
Speaker 1: The new design just wasn't ready because of the where
Speaker 1: problem Sunback had identified, but they had to sell something,
Speaker 1: so the company fell back to the old design. The
Speaker 1: new fastener had been kept under wraps, so nobody outside
Speaker 1: of a small circle in the company was any the
Speaker 1: wiser of this. Yeah, and even then, it took a
Speaker 1: long time for send Back apparently to own up to
Speaker 1: the fact that, like that, that courted fastener was not
Speaker 1: gonna last. But it didn't take long for him to
Speaker 1: make the necessary adjustments to his design that led to
Speaker 1: a successful product, so successful that it introduced a closure
Speaker 1: into the world that remains largely unchanged in design. While
Speaker 1: Sundback claimed that he lost sleep as he thought about
Speaker 1: endless possible solutions, we don't actually know how he landed
Speaker 1: at the version of his fastener that would launch an
Speaker 1: entire industry. But the important element here was the introduction
Speaker 1: of what we would call zipper teeth. Today, zipper teeth,
Speaker 1: which are often called scoops on the manufacturing side, have
Speaker 1: a little bump on one side and a little divot
Speaker 1: on the other. When you stack these teeth in an
Speaker 1: alternating pattern, so one tooth bump lands in the divot
Speaker 1: of a tooth on the opposite side, and you have
Speaker 1: a lot of them together, you get a surprisingly sturdy closure.
Speaker 1: This is all described in detail and send Back's patent,
Speaker 1: which he filed in August of nineteen fourteen. Why he
Speaker 1: waited until then is unknown. He had the design figured
Speaker 1: out at the end of nineteen thirteen, but because sent
Speaker 1: Back didn't really document his process, there has always loomed
Speaker 1: one question about his fastener breakthrough. Did he know about
Speaker 1: the one Katerina coon Moose had designed and patented in
Speaker 1: Europe in nineteen eleven, because the scoop and bump were
Speaker 1: present in her non produced design. This was enough of
Speaker 1: a concern that, even though that Coon, Moose and Forster
Speaker 1: design was not patented in the US, the U S
Speaker 1: Patent Office, who kept abreast of information on patents around
Speaker 1: the world, wanted to talk to sun Back about his
Speaker 1: patent application for what he called a separable fastener because
Speaker 1: they wanted to make sure he had not copied that
Speaker 1: European patent. The big distinction was that the design by
Speaker 1: kud Moose had featured round bumps and scoops. Sunbacks had
Speaker 1: rectangular divots and bumps. He had determined that round would
Speaker 1: allow too much movement of the teeth. They would swivel
Speaker 1: and pop apart, so he came up with a shape
Speaker 1: to prevent that swiveling motion. So once the teeth were
Speaker 1: stacked together, they flexed as a unit, but not at
Speaker 1: each touch point. And this discussion of this difference with
Speaker 1: the patent office was something that continued on for several years.
Speaker 1: Gideon Sunback and Hookless Fastener Company actually made their case
Speaker 1: regarding the different shaping of the connector points repeatedly. They
Speaker 1: even had versions made in their factory that strictly followed
Speaker 1: the Coon Moose design, just so they could show that
Speaker 1: it was very clear that it would not work properly. Simultaneously,
Speaker 1: as sent Back in his company defended their patent application,
Speaker 1: other very similar patent applications were filed in the United States,
Speaker 1: further prolonging the process. Ultimately, the Sundback design was granted
Speaker 1: a patent, but it took several years and an awful
Speaker 1: lot of legal back and forth. That patent was finally
Speaker 1: issued in March of nineteen seventeen, so almost three years
Speaker 1: after he filed for the Canadian rights, Sundback patented the
Speaker 1: hookless fastener under his own name, not the companies that
Speaker 1: had been agreed to with the company, and he also
Speaker 1: established the Lightning Fastener Company in Canada to manufacture separable
Speaker 1: fasteners there. The first large scale use of sun Backs
Speaker 1: invention was in the military. World War One. Uniforms and
Speaker 1: pack gear made use of the new fastener, but although
Speaker 1: it saved time and was reliable, it took a long
Speaker 1: time to catch on with the general population. Zippers were
Speaker 1: still struggling to be recognized for their utility value. That
Speaker 1: ease with which they enabled a person to get dressed
Speaker 1: or undressed led to a bit of panic about the
Speaker 1: moral decline they might catalyze. They found a use as
Speaker 1: a closure for tobacco pouches when locktights started buying bulk
Speaker 1: for the pouches they made, but the garment market was
Speaker 1: still pretty elusive. But a consumer garment market usage of
Speaker 1: the separable fastener catapulted Sundbacks Fastener forward in the nineteen twenties.
Speaker 1: You might have noticed that we have not discussed the
Speaker 1: origin of the word zipper and when it started to
Speaker 1: be used, but it is tied to this nineteen twenties product.
Speaker 1: Sundback did not come up with the word. It was
Speaker 1: coined by the BF good Rich company because in three
Speaker 1: be of good Rich started using the hookless fastener in galoshes,
Speaker 1: and the story goes that an employee there came up
Speaker 1: with on a mono poetic name, which the company registered
Speaker 1: as a trademark. In there are some variations to that
Speaker 1: who actually decided they should call it a zipper, but
Speaker 1: it's generally agreed that an employee of B. F. Good
Speaker 1: Rich was the one that came up with it. Lightning
Speaker 1: Fastener Company challenged the good Rich trademark in nineteen thirty one.
Speaker 1: That case ended up being dismissed, but good Rich was
Speaker 1: eventually granted exclusive use of the name zipper boots, not
Speaker 1: the word zipper on its own. As the nineteen thirties
Speaker 1: war on the zipper finally started to lose its negative
Speaker 1: connotations as high profile people started to embrace this new closure.
Speaker 1: Advertising started touting zippers as a helpful closure for children's
Speaker 1: clothing because it made them more able to manage getting
Speaker 1: dressed on their own. The Prince of Wales started opting
Speaker 1: for zippers instead of buttons and his trousers and four,
Speaker 1: further improving the image of the zipper. Elsa Schipperelli, who
Speaker 1: we talked about in our virtual live show, was one
Speaker 1: of the first fashion designers to start using zippers, and
Speaker 1: by the late nineteen thirties and France most designers were
Speaker 1: using them. And as France goes, so goes the world
Speaker 1: when it comes to fashion. UH. It was Lightning Fastener
Speaker 1: Company in St. Catherine's, Ontario that first went all in
Speaker 1: on producing Sunback separable fastener in ninety seven. And when
Speaker 1: we say all in, what we mean is that it
Speaker 1: built the first factory that it was exclusively intended to
Speaker 1: manufacture zippers. Prior to that, it had always been like
Speaker 1: we're working it into another space. UH. Sundback also designed
Speaker 1: the machinery that was used for zipper production at that plant.
Speaker 1: By the time World War Two was over, the zipper
Speaker 1: was ubiquitous. Through a series of name changes and acquisitions,
Speaker 1: the company Sundback worked for had evolved into Talent, which
Speaker 1: continues to exist today. By the end of the nineteen fifties,
Speaker 1: Talent was turning out five hundred million zippers a year.
Speaker 1: Levi's first garment to incorporate zippers was a pair of
Speaker 1: overalls that they sold in nineteen fifty four. That was
Speaker 1: also the year that Gideon Sunbac died of a heart condition.
Speaker 1: He had remained in Meadville, Pennsylvania for the rest of
Speaker 1: his life, although he frequently visited Canada and the factory
Speaker 1: in St. Catharine's Sundback lived long enough to see the
Speaker 1: beginning of his inventions widespread acceptance, although he may never
Speaker 1: have dreamed of the way that it would become so
Speaker 1: completely ingreened in everyday life that people rarely even give
Speaker 1: it much thought. He was buried in Meadville's Greendale Cemetery.
Speaker 1: And because we know you're probably wondering if you've ever
Speaker 1: looked at a zipper pull and seeing the letters y
Speaker 1: K K and wondered what they mean, here's the scoop.
Speaker 1: It is an abbreviation for Yoshida Kodyo, Kibushi Ki Kaisha.
Speaker 1: That's one of the companies that dominates the market today.
Speaker 1: So why k K or Yoshida Company Limited was founded
Speaker 1: in ninety four by Tadao Yoshida. Today, it dominates the
Speaker 1: zipper market. It makes more than one point five billion
Speaker 1: zippers each year that's billion with a B in more
Speaker 1: than seventy countries around the globe. Yoshida Company Limited achieved
Speaker 1: its success in the zipper market by carefully designing every
Speaker 1: aspect not just to their product, but of their supply chain.
Speaker 1: Everything from smelting brass to creating the boxes that the
Speaker 1: product is shipped in is done under the company's umbrella
Speaker 1: Zippers Zippers. Tracy, I'm still working through the pile yeah
Speaker 1: stuff stuff for our our various listener mail and I, um,
Speaker 1: like I said, I am now hitting things that are
Speaker 1: very old, but uh, some of them are very charming.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to talk about in this case too,
Speaker 1: that are from our same listener who has sent us
Speaker 1: many cards and notes over the years, and that is
Speaker 1: our listener Chip. But Chip at Halloween and uh, you'll
Speaker 1: forgive me. I honestly am not sure which Halloween this was,
Speaker 1: if this one, but sent us in a May saying
Speaker 1: Haunted mansion pop up Halloween card cool, which is like
Speaker 1: dreamy That's great, Um, very very much in my Raby
Speaker 1: Zone uh and Chipwrights, Deer, Holly and Tracy. Happy October
Speaker 1: and happy Halloween. Pandemic or no pandemic. My Halloween spirits
Speaker 1: are high, and I know yours are to. Your episodes
Speaker 1: about people of the Spiritualist movement are my favorite. So
Speaker 1: I loved your Madame Blovotsky episode. I too love a
Speaker 1: good seance. Rumor has it that she knew or at
Speaker 1: least met past episode subject, the Count of Saint Germain.
Speaker 1: True or not? The idea that the Count is connected
Speaker 1: to yet another episode subject is a hoot. As for
Speaker 1: this Haunted Mansion pop up card, as soon as I
Speaker 1: saw it, I knew it was a perfect card for
Speaker 1: the two of you. I hoped you're able to enjoy
Speaker 1: the changing of the leaves, cider, spooky stories, and everything
Speaker 1: else about this time of year that brings a smile
Speaker 1: to your faces. And in case no one has actually
Speaker 1: said it, thank you for staying on the air despite
Speaker 1: the challenges of the times we are in. Stay safe
Speaker 1: and have a very happy Halloween. I will say this,
Speaker 1: I enjoy all those things you around. It's always Halloween
Speaker 1: time for me. As we record this, it's the middle
Speaker 1: of July, which means I am ramping up my Halloween
Speaker 1: rabies for thee because it is my very favorite. And
Speaker 1: then I also have another card from CHIP that's a
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving card, and he wrote, Dear Holly and Tracy, congratulations
Speaker 1: we've made it this far. I know you probably won't
Speaker 1: get this for a while because you weren't in the
Speaker 1: office due to the pandemic, and I could send an
Speaker 1: email instead, but I just love taking the time to
Speaker 1: send something tangible. Somehow, your episodes have only gotten more
Speaker 1: exciting and interesting during the pandemic. Your Halloween episodes are
Speaker 1: a highlight of my October, and your Helen von Tassig
Speaker 1: and Vivian Thomas, where every bit is captivating. I'm a
Speaker 1: registered nurse and have worked in cardiac care units for
Speaker 1: ten years around the country. I've had many a patient
Speaker 1: who were born with congenital cardiac conditions, and your episodes
Speaker 1: on the Pioneers of Infant Cardiac Surgery touched me greatly.
Speaker 1: And this is a Thanksgiving cards, so it's kind of
Speaker 1: a double We're getting some bookends of CHIP cards, but
Speaker 1: I wanted to make sure we read that since it
Speaker 1: talked at an episode you did the primary research on
Speaker 1: and also I want to say thank you to Chip
Speaker 1: for working in medicine because it's hard and nurses are
Speaker 1: miracles in my book. Um, and also more, Halloween is
Speaker 1: coming very soon and very excited if you would like
Speaker 1: to write to us. As Chip mentioned, we're not in
Speaker 1: the office and our office is moving, so don't send
Speaker 1: us anything physical because I don't even know if the
Speaker 1: new office can handle it. We're getting into a much
Speaker 1: smaller space, so I'm thinking we might have to cut
Speaker 1: off those. As much as I love getting treats from people, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it will probably never arrive if you send us something
Speaker 1: and I don't even have an address for it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We've had a couple of people asked recently like, hey,
Speaker 1: I can't find your address, and we are literally in
Speaker 1: between spaces right now, like Holly and I aren't really
Speaker 1: working in the office at all, but like the the
Speaker 1: office has moved out of the old space. New space
Speaker 1: is not ready for us yet, so there's not an
Speaker 1: address at this moment. It we don't exist in physical space. Uh,
Speaker 1: so yes, just keep that in mind. Uh, if you
Speaker 1: had intention to send us something, you might want to
Speaker 1: direct that energy elsewhere because I don't want it to
Speaker 1: go to waste, but you can email us at History
Speaker 1: podcast at i heeart radio dot com. You can also
Speaker 1: find us on social media as missed in History And
Speaker 1: if you have not subscribed to the podcast yet, now
Speaker 1: it's a great time to do so. You could do
Speaker 1: that on the iHeart radio app or wherever it is
Speaker 1: that you're listening to your favorite podcasts. Stuff you Missed
Speaker 1: in History Class is a production of I heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.