Gideon Sundback

Gideon Sundback (April 24, 1880 – June 21, 1954) was a Swedish-American electrical engineer, who is most commonly associated with his work in the development of the zipper.[1]

Gideon Sundback
Gideon Sundback
Born
Otto Fredrik Gideon Sundback

(1880-04-24)April 24, 1880
Ödestugu Parish, Jönköping County, Småland, Sweden
DiedJune 21, 1954(1954-06-21) (aged 74)
Meadville, Pennsylvania, United States
Resting placeGreendale Cemetery
NationalitySwedish-American
OccupationElectrical engineer
Known forInvention of the zipper

Background

Otto Fredrik Gideon Sundback was born on Sonarp farm in Ödestugu Parish, in Jönköping County, Småland, Sweden. He was the son of Jonas Otto Magnusson Sundback, a prosperous farmer, and his wife Kristina Karolina Klasdotter. After his studies in Sweden, Sundback moved to (Germany), where he studied at the polytechnic school in Bingen am Rhein. In 1903, Sundback took his engineer exam. In 1905, he emigrated to the United States.[2][3][4]

Career

In 1905, Gideon Sundback started to work at Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1906, Sundback was hired to work for the Universal Fastener Company of Hoboken, New Jersey. Subsequently, in 1909,[5] Sundback was promoted to the position of head designer at Universal Fastener.

Sundback made several advances in the development of the zipper between 1906 and 1914, while working for companies that later evolved into Talon, Inc. He built upon the previous work of other engineers such as Elias Howe, Max Wolff, and Whitcomb L. Judson. [6]

He was responsible for improving the "Judson C-curity Fastener". At that time the company's product was still based on hooks and eyes. Sundback developed an improved version of the C-curity, called the "Plako", but it too had a strong tendency to pull apart, and was not any more successful than the previous versions. Sundback finally solved the pulling-apart problem in 1913, with his invention of the first version not based on the hook-and-eye principle, the "Hookless Fastener No. 1". He increased the number of fastening elements from four per inch to ten or eleven. His invention 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.[7]

The patent for the "Separable Fastener" was issued in 1917. Gideon Sundback also created the manufacturing machine for the new device. The "S-L" or "scrapless" machine took a special Y-shaped wire and cut scoops from it, then punched the scoop dimple and nib, and clamped each scoop on a cloth tape to produce a continuous zipper chain. Within the first year of operation, Sundback's machinery was producing a few hundred feet (around 100 meters) of fastener per day.

Drawing of the 1914 patent filing

In 1914, Sundback developed a version based on interlocking teeth, the "Hookless No. 2", which was the modern metal zipper in all its essentials. In this fastener each tooth is punched to have a dimple on its bottom and a nib or conical projection on its top. The nib atop one tooth engages in the matching dimple in the bottom of the tooth that follows it on the other side as the two strips of teeth are brought together through the two Y channels of the slider. The teeth are crimped tightly to a strong fabric cord that is the selvage edge of the cloth tape that attaches the zipper to the garment, with the teeth on one side offset by half a tooth's height from those on the other side's tape. They are held so tightly to the cord and tape that once meshed there is not enough play to let them pull apart. A tooth cannot rise up off the nib below it enough to break free, and its nib on top cannot drop out of the dimple in the tooth above it. U.S. Patent 1,219,881 for the "Separable Fastener" was issued in 1917.[8]

The name zipper was created in 1923 by B.F. Goodrich, who used the device on their new boots. Initially, boots and tobacco pouches were the primary use for zippers; it took another twenty years before they caught on in the fashion industry. About the time of World War II the zipper achieved wide acceptance for the flies of trousers and the plackets of skirts and dresses.[9]

Sundback also created the manufacturing machine for the new zipper.[1] Lightning Fastener Company, one early manufacturer of the zipper, was based in St. Catharines, Ontario.[1] Although Sundback frequently visited the Canadian factory as president of the company, he resided in Meadville, Pennsylvania and remained an American citizen.[10] Sundback was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences in 1951.[11] Sundback died of a heart condition in 1954 and was interred at Greendale Cemetery in Meadville, Pennsylvania.[12][11]

Personal

On June 5, 1909, Sundback married (Naomi) Elvira Aronson, daughter of the Swedish born plant manager Peter Aron Aronson (Aronsson), in Hoboken, New Jersey.[13]

Legacy

In 2006, Sundback was honored by inclusion in the National Inventors Hall of Fame for his work on the development of the zipper.[9][14] On April 24, 2012, the 132nd anniversary of Sundback's birth, Google changed the Google logo on its homepage to a Google Doodle of the zipper, which when opened revealed the results of a search for Gideon Sundback.[15]

1917 patent

Sundback's U.S. Patent 1,219,881 (filed in 1914, issued in 1917):

References
  1. Gideon Sundback (National Inventors Hall of Fame Archived July 9, 2010, at the Wayback Machine)
  2. Inventing the 20th century: 100 inventions that shaped the world: from the airplane to the zipper. NYU Press. May 2002. ISBN 9780814788127.
  3. Petroski, Henry The Evolution of Useful Things (Random House of Canada, 1994) ISBN 0-679-74039-2 page 103
  4. Biographical Dictionary of the History of Technology. Taylor & Francis. September 2003. p. 1181. ISBN 9780203028292.
  5. DeMara, Bruce (April 24, 2012). "Gideon Sundback, inventor of the zipper, honoured by today's Google Doodle". The Star. Toronto.
  6. "The History of the Zipper". Thomas Publishing Company. Retrieved September 1, 2016.
  7. "History of the Zipper (Thomas Publishing Company)". Thomasnet.com. Retrieved April 23, 2012.
  8. "Gideon Sundback (Inventors & Inventions)". Design-technology.info. July 26, 2008. Retrieved April 23, 2012.
  9. Zipper: An exploration in novelty (Robert Friedel, author. W. W. Norton and Company, New York, 1996) ISBN 0-393-31365-4
  10. Hendrickson III, Kenneth E. (November 25, 2014). The Encyclopedia of the Industrial Revolution in World History. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. pp. 922–923. ISBN 9780810888883. Retrieved June 19, 2018.
  11. Gray, James (1963). Talon, inc: a romance of achievement. Rand McNally. p. 104. Retrieved June 19, 2018.
  12. "Tour Greendale". Greendale Cemetery. Retrieved June 19, 2018.
  13. Zipper: An Exploration in Novelty. W. W. Norton & Company. 1996. p. 74. ISBN 9780393313659.
  14. Lightning Fastener Company Limited (Brock University)
  15. "Gideon Sundback celebrated in a Google doodle". The Guardian. London. April 24, 2012. Retrieved April 24, 2012.

Other sources
  • Petroski, Henry (1992) The Evolution of Useful Things (Vintage Books) ISBN 0-679-74039-2
  • Friedel, Robert (1996) Zipper: An Exploration in Novelty (W. W. Norton and Company) ISBN 0-393-31365-4
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