Whitcomb L. Judson

Whitcomb L. Judson ( born March 7, 1846 in Chicago, Illinois, † December 7, 1909 ) was the inventor of the zipper.

End of the 19th century he was already a successful inventor with a dozen patents. By 1890 he had patented the Pneumatic Railway system. To 1888/89 he was a traveling salesman for the Harry L. Earle Manufacturing Company. Harry Earl was also one of his first partner, who provided him with investors.

Judson was looking for a replacement for the long laces of boots. On August 29, 1893 he received a patent on his zipper, " clasp -locker " called. Although the prototype jammed something, it worked. The lawyer and businessman Colonel Lewis Walker from Meadville (Pennsylvania) was another partner. With him, he put his zipper in the same year at the World Exhibition in Chicago. He was ignored by the public and their company, founded in 1894 Universal Fastener failed to market it. The zipper and the machines were too complicated.

1904 Judson simplified the design, called him C- curity fastener, which should be marketed from the following year by the Automatic Hook and Eye Company newly established. When that failed, Judson Walker gave up and took over the management of the company. Walker appointed his brother (Peter Aronson ) General Manager and hired the Swedish mechanical engineer Gideon Sundback, Elvira Aronson († 1911), married ( other information showing that Gideon Sundback Judson was son in law, are probably wrong ), rising to senior designer and a new model, the Plako designed Fastener. After Judson's death, the zipper was a success slowly. During World War I, the U.S. Army turned him in to the equipment of the troops.

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