Casimir Zeglen
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The Rev. Casimir Zeglen invented a bullet resistant cloth at the end of the 19th century. He was a Polish Catholic priest of St. Stanislaus' Roman Catholic Church in Chicago, then the largest Polish church in the country, with 40,000 in the parish. In his early 20's he began experimenting with the cloth, using steel shavings, moss, hair, etc. but nothing stood the test until he made use of silk. All early experiments produced an inflexible cloth which was more in the nature of a coat of chainmail. After the assassination of Mayor Carter Harrison in Chicago, Mr. Zeglen renewed his efforts to find a bullet proof material and determined to use silk. In his mid 30s he discovered a way to weave the silk, to enable it to capture the bullet, while visiting weaving mills in Vienna, Austria and Aachen, Germany.
A one-eighth inch thick, four ply bulletproof vest produced there was able to protect the wearer from the lower velocity pistol bullets of that era. The Rev. Zeglen himself submitted to a test in Chicago. He put on a vest of the material and an expert revolver shot fired at the vest at eight paces and not one of the bullets disturbed Mr. Zeglen. The weight of the fabric was 1/2 lb per sqr/ft.
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[edit] References
- "Three Grades of Fabric", Brooklyn Eagle, October 9, 1902
