Talk:Gideon Sundback
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A Swedish immigrant to Canada, Sundback, an electrical engineer, was hired as a designer at the Universal Fastener Company. Because he was married to the daughter of the plant’s manager as well as being a talented designer, he was able to secure the position of head designer. One of the main components of this job was to find ways to improve the pre-existing Judson C-curity Fastener developed by Whitcomb L. Judson which had many flaws in its design. The original “Clasp-Locker” was developed when one of Judson’s friends with a sore back was having difficulties doing up his boots, so he developed a simpler hook-an-eye fastener that was easier to close than laces. With the death of his beloved wife in the year 1911, Sundback dedicated a larger amount of time to redeveloping the Judson C-curity Fastener and thus the zipper was born. His patent was filed in the year of 1917, describing the new zipper with features such as an increased number of teeth from four per inch to approximately 10 per square inch. It was easy to fasten as the two opposing sets of teeth were clasped together by a slider that could attach and detach the teeth with a simple up or down movement. In addition to this, Sundback also developed the machinery called the Scrapless (S-L) that was used to produce the zipper on a massive scale. The machine crafted the teeth of the zipper, and attached them onto long strips of fabric allowing a couple hundred feet of zipper to be manufactured on a daily basis. “Zipper was not the original name that the fastener was patented under. It was termed the “Separable Fastener” by Sundback. The actual name “Zipper” was not thought of by the inventor, but was rather coined by one of his first customers: The B.F. Goodrich company who used the fastener on a new pair of boots. The name Zipper was chosen because it was an easy to use and fast fastener to use as it could be easily used with one hand. The Zipper was originally only used on items such as boots and tobacco pouches. It was not until thirty years after this that the fashion industry finally decided to allow the Zipper to make its debut in the world of fashion clothing. When they did enter the clothing industry, it was in the form of the zippered fly on men’s trousers. The French designers who used it first claimed that it was a new sensation that would prevent “the possibility of unintentional and embarrassing disarray." Today, Zippers are used for a multitude of applications anywhere from luggage to the latest in clothing to footwear. The options for Zippers are truly limitless and this has never been as obvious as it is now with thousands of miles of zippers being manufactured daily that we are dependant upon this simple machine for completing the simplest daily tasks in our lives that we take for granted on a daily basis. Could you imagine life without the Zipper? Sorces: http://www.coolquiz.com/trivia/explain/docs/zipper.asp http://inventors.about.com//library/weekly/aa082497.htm
[edit] Sundback's nationality
Do you have any reliable sources that in any way justify describing Sundback as "Canadian"? He lived in Hoboken, NJ and Meadville, PA when he made his improvements to the zipper. He was living in Meadville when he died. (And I can give you as many reliable sources for those as you like.) The only connection to Canada that I've been able to find is that for a while he was the president of Talon Zipper's Canadian subsidiary in St. Catherines, Ontario. I can't even find anything that unequivocally states that he lived in Canada while he was president of the subsidiary. And even if he did, I don't think that qualifies him as "Canadian" unless he actually became a Canadian citizen, or at least at some point was living there with the intention of staying permanently, neither of which I can find any evidence for. He was also the president of Talon's subsidiary in Mexico; should we call him Mexican on the basis of that?
If he really did become a Canadian citizen or something, then at most he was Swedish/American/Canadian. But without a source I don't see any jusification for mentioning Canada at all. And there's certainly no justification for *deleting* the fact that he was American. Reverting. Anonymous55 00:24, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Sundback was a naturalized US citizen
G. Sundback was born in Sweden and became a naturalized US citizen. He was never a citizen of Canada.
The authoritative history of the early development of the slide fastener (and Sundback's contribution) is Robert Friedel, Zipper, An Exploration in Novelty, W. W. Norton & Company, ISBN 0-393-03599-9 hardcover). The article would benefit from an edit to correct information that is inconsistent with Friedel.
Sundback had sold non-US rights to his patents to the Brits, and, in 1924, the Brits founded Lightning Fastener Company in Quebec. In 1925 Sundback took back non-US Western Hemisphere rights, took control of the Canadian company, and moved it to St Catherines Ontario. He was President until he died in 1954. In that time, he traveled to St. Catherines weekly from his home in Meadville, Pennsylvania.
QuatSkinner 16:54, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Sundback didn't marry Whitcomb Judson's daughter
Gideon Sundback indeed married his boss' daughter, but another boss -- fellow Swede Peter Aronson. Aronson was also taking part in the numerous improvments of the zipper, although Sundback was the genius.
Comment by Mats Karlsson, Stockholm, Sweden Journalist who has made extensive research on Sundback and Aronson for article published by historical magazine Popular Historia.
