This picture is taken from the website about.com and shows the front page of Gideon Sundback’s “separable fastener” (later the zipper) patent from March 20, 1917. The article on this website talks about the inventions of the first “continuous clothing closure” to the modern zipper and the different inventors involved in this small, yet significant, invention we still use today. The illustrations seen on the front page of the patent are very similar, if not exact, to the zipper used today. I chose this invention because it is interesting to see that such a small and simple devise can be so important to everyday life. It is also interesting that even though it is so simple to make it has only been around for about 100 years.
There were a couple of “continuous clothing closure” devises invented before Sundback got the patent on his “separable fastener” which is identical to the modern zipper we use today. The first one was invented by Elias Howe, who also invented the sewing machine, and patented in 1851. It has similarities to Sundback’s zipper but was not as effective. Howe’s devise did not reach the market since he was too preoccupied with his other inventions.
The next devise was Whitcomb L. Judson’s “claps locker” as he called it. Judson came up with the idea because his friend had a hard time undoing his shoes due to back pain, he wanted a device that would work by using just one hand. In 1893 he got his patent and in the early 1900th hundreds it was used in the clothing industry, although this devise was not considered practical.
(Illustration: Whitcomb Judson’s clasp locker)
Gideon Sundback, a Swedish born electrical engineer and employee of Judson came up with the modern zipper we use today. In 1913 he patented the “hookless fastener” which was a remodeled version of Judson’s claps locker but “increased the number of fastening elements from four per inch to ten or eleven, had two facing-rows of teeth that pulled into a single piece by the slider, and increased the opening for the teeth guided by the slider” (about.com). In 1917 he patented the final “separable fastener” which had improvements of his earlier devise and this is the one we use today. The major difference between Judson’s and Sundback’s inventions is that Sundback’s had no hooks but was instead based on interlocking teeth on both sides.
The B.F. Goodrich Company decided to market Sundback’s separable fastener idea and it was first used by the military in World War I as they applied it to their clothing and gear. It quickly became popular and in the 1930s they started promoting it for children’s clothing to make it easier for the children to dress themselves. The word “zipper” comes from the zip-sound that the device makes when being used. Today we are using the zipper in everything from shoes, clothing, gear and many other areas.
- As the technology of warfare developed so did the clothing for the American troops. The zipper was a great invention for the military because it made it easier to do and undo their uniforms faster that if they had to tie or bottom them. The use of zippers was also more reliable than the use of bottoms because it made the uniforms less likely to break when crawling around in the dirt. It wasn’t just in the military that this devise made life easier for but also for children and disabled people. Instead of needing to bend down and tie your shoes you could used just one hand to zip them up, so easy that even children could get dressed by themselves.
- In the beginning this device was first purchased by the army to make life easier for the troops during war, although it was not made for them. It quickly became popular among common people, especially for children. The only social impact I could say it had was that women should buy their children clothes with zippers to make life easier for them and to teach their kids to get dressed themselves.
- Since the device is fairly simple in its design it didn’t have a huge impact on the science or technology of its time, and even though it has been remodeled three-four times its design has stayed about the same for about one hundred years. I would say that the invention of the zipper was a huge success because we use it in everything and in different types of materials (metal, plastic, etc.) today, and it has even been “modernized” to zip-lock bags. There are no real negative impacts that this invention has had on humans or the environment, maybe just that we are now using more plastic bags and discarding them faulty into the environment. Sundback’s machines made a few hundred feet of zippers everyday in 1914, and today YKK – the world’s largest zipper manufacturer – produces 2000 miles of zipper each day.
Primary source:
http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa082597.htm (front page of patent)
Facts:
Picture: http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa082497.htm (Illustration: Whitcomb Judson’s clasp locker)
http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/zipper.htm
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