Who invented zipper? No ... no..not Zippo the lighter, zipper the one on your cloth/pants, bags etc. The answer is Gideon Sundback who was born today 24 April 1880. He was a Swedish-American electrical engineer. Gideon Sundback is most commonly associated with his work in the development of the zipper. So today, Google's latest doodle, a giant zipper running down the centre of the
search engine's homepage, marks the birthday of Gideon Sundback, the
Swedish-American electrical engineer most commonly associated with the
development of the fastening device that revolutionised the clothing
industry.
Before Sundback's intervention, the idea for a fastener
based on interlocking teeth had circulated among engineers for more than
20 years but no one had perfected it.
His innovation was to place
a dimple on the underside of each tooth and a nib on the top that would
sit securely within the dimple of the tooth above it.
As a
result, the join between two rows of teeth was then strong because no
single tooth has enough room to move up or down and come apart. He also
created the manufacturing machine for the new zipper.
Born on
April 24, 1880, in Småland, Sweden, he moved to Germany following his
studies and emigrated in 1905 to the US, where he started to work at
Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania.
A year later, he was hired to work for the Universal
Fastener Company in Hoboken, New Jersey, and became its head designer
in 1909.
Sundback initially proposed the new zipper as a
replacement for hook-and-eye fasteners on women's boots but it had
become a regular feature for the flies of trousers and on dresses by the
1930s.
Sundback died of a heart condition in 1954 and was interred at Greendale cemetery in Meadville, Pennsylvania.
Imagine your life without zipper...
[Source: Guardian , Wikipedia ]
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