Brannock Device
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The Brannock Device™ is a measuring instrument invented by Charles F. Brannock for computing a person's shoe size. The son of a shoe industry entrepreneur, Brannock spent two years developing a simple means of measuring the human foot. He eventually improved on the wooden RITZ Stick, the industry standard of the day, and patented his first prototype in 1926. Brannock later formed the Brannock Device Company to manufacture and sell the product, and headed the company until 1992 when he died at age 89. Today the Brannock Device is an international standard of the footwear industry, and the Smithsonian Institution houses samples of some of the first Brannock Devices.
The Brannock Device Company was headquartered in Syracuse, New York until shortly after Charles Brannock's death. Salvatore Leonardi purchased the company from the Brannock Estate in 1993, and moved manufacturing to a small factory in Liverpool, New York. The company continues to manufacture several models of the device for determining the shoe sizes of men, women, and children; they also produce specialized models for fitting other types of footwear.
In fair use of the trademark, a jazz band from Toronto and an alternative rock band from Kansas City, Missouri both call themselves The Brannock Device.
[edit] Sources
- Craig, Berry. "Why the Shoe Fits." American Heritage of Invention & Technology 16, no. 1. (Summer 2000): 64.
- Davidson, Martha. "A Fitting Place for the Brannock Device Company Records." 2001.
- Lukas, Paul. Inconspicuous Consumption: An Obsessive Look at the Stuff We Take for Granted, from the Everyday to the Obscure. Three Rivers Press, 1997. ISBN 0-517-88668-5
- Brannock Device Company Records, 1925–1998
