Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Examining The Zipper (Encore)

Starting point is 00:00:00 The following is an encore presentation of Everything Everywhere Daily. I'm guessing that almost everyone listening to this podcast has, within the last 24 hours, used a zipper. They are ubiquitous at this point, and most people have never given them much thought. Yet its invention was a rather inspired leap of creativity and required the development of several other technologies before it could even become a thing. Learn more about the zipper and how it was invented and how it's used today on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night.

Starting point is 00:01:00 And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. The zipper is an odd invention in that it really didn't solve a problem per se. It's a fastening device, and we already had fastening devices for clothing before the invention of the zipper. There were buttons, hooks, and ribbons, and they all did basically the same thing that zippers do. Moreover, the zipper really couldn't have been invented any earlier than it was. As you'll see, an ancient Chinese or Roman zipper really wasn't something that could have happened, given the state of technology at the time. The very first attempt at creating something close to a zipper was invented by American Elijah Howe in 1850.

Starting point is 00:01:47 Howe is better known as being the inventor of the lock stitch sewing machine, which was the precursor to the modern sewing machine. His patent for the zipper was for an automatic continuous clothing closure. It was the first real attempt at what we would now call a zipper. However, Howe's sewing machines were so successful that he never bothered to pursue his clothing closure patent. He died a multimillionaire, but isn't credited with being the father of the zipper. His invention didn't have teeth and was probably closer to something like the seal on a Ziplock bag than it was a modern zipper. The person who is usually credited with inventing the zipper is Whitcomb Judson. Like how, Judson had many other patents.

Starting point is 00:02:30 However, unlike how, none of his other inventions really made him any money. Judson called his device the Clasp Locker, and it used a hook-and-eye system which was different from the modern zipper, which uses interlocking teeth, with a guide that would interlock the two sides. He applied for the patent in 1891, and its original intent was to be used with boots and shoes. He also noted in the patent application that it could be used for, quote, generally, wherever it is desired to detachably connect a pair of adjacent, flexible parts, unquote. Even before his patent was approved, he submitted another patent, which was far closer to what we know today as a zipper. His description of the device, as he put it in the patent application, was as follows. Quote,

Starting point is 00:03:16 Each link of each chain is provided both with a male and female coupling part, and when the chains are coupled together, the female part of each link on one chain is engaged by the male part of the link on the other chain, unquote. Basically, pretty close to the modern zipper. In 1893, Jutson created the Universal Fassener Company in Chicago, which was the first company dedicated to the production of zippers. except they weren't yet called zippers.

Starting point is 00:03:45 Before, I said that the ancient Chinese and Romans couldn't have developed the zipper. The reason had to do with manufacturing techniques. Zippers require very precisely manufactured parts that are identical and small. The techniques used to mass produce such parts didn't exist until the 19th century. To produce a zipper before these techniques were developed would have required a master clockmaker or a metal smith, and even then they would have had to have crafted each piece by hand. Judson's fastener was given many awards, but it never really caught on during his lifetime. His universal fastener company eventually moved to New Jersey and then to Meadville, Pennsylvania,

Starting point is 00:04:24 where they changed their name to the Talon Company. More on them in a bit. If Whitcomb Judson was the father of the zipper, then a talon employed by the name of Gideon's sunback really refined the product. He increased the number of teeth per inch. inch, improved the locking mechanism, created a better machine for producing teeth, and also personally got the license to create the device outside of the United States. The word zipper finally entered the lexicon in 1923. The rubber company B.F. Goodrich introduced a pair of rubber boots with the name, zipper. The name was originally used for the brand of boot, but the word eventually became associated with the fastening mechanism instead.

Starting point is 00:05:05 In the 1920s, zippers still weren't widely used. Their primary use was on shoes and tobacco pouches. It wasn't until 1925 that a zipper was first used on a jacket. Zipper usage on clothing didn't really take off until 1937, when French fashion designers discovered the zipper and began using it as the fly on men's trousers. Levi's didn't come out with their first pair of blue jeans with a zipper until 1947. Zippers are not. and have never been something that clothing manufacturers created themselves. It's a metallic product that requires specialized machinery. Third-party manufacturers have always specialized in zippers ever since the Universal Fastener Company was created. That company, which eventually became the Talon Company,

Starting point is 00:05:53 was by far the largest zipper manufacturer until the 1960s. Seventy percent of zippers used in the United States were manufactured by Talon. However, like many market leaders, they were late. lazy and sloppy. They had high prices, and they didn't innovate. Moreover, as the textile industry began moving overseas, Talon kept focusing on the U.S. market. The company which took over their market dominance is one whose initials you might have seen on your zipper. YKK. YKK stands for Yoshida Kogio Kabushiki Gaisha, which basically means the Yoshida manufacturing company. Today, they simply go by YKK.

Starting point is 00:06:33 YKK really had their act together and competed against talent at almost every level. They invested in their own manufacturing equipment. In fact, they built their own equipment. They innovated in manufacturing processes and design. They also opened manufacturing facilities around the world, including the United States. When NASA needed zippers for their spacesuits for the Apollo program, they went with the Japanese YKK rather than the American Talent Corporation. By the 1970s, they were in the 1970s.

Starting point is 00:07:03 making a superior product to Talon at a cheaper price. YKK grew to be the global leader in Zippers by the 1980s, and today, Talon's percentage of the global market is in the low single digits. The threat to YKK today is primarily coming from China. There are a bunch of very small companies which are competing with YKK on price. Many of them have names like YQQ or YCC, and try to leach off the YKK brand. Today, you can find zippers in a dizzying array of sizes, colors, and materials. They are in almost everything which requires joining cloth or flexible materials. In 2017, the above-mentioned Talon Corporation created the world's longest zipper,

Starting point is 00:07:45 which was 3.1 miles long. There are still innovations being made in the world of zippers. Under Armour, for example, has developed a zipper where the two sides at the bottom are joined by a magnet, making it easier to zip up a jacket using only a single hand. The zipper is an incredible invention that is simple and ubiquitous. You can appreciate how such a simple device is a wonder of engineering the next time you examine your zipper. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Peter Bennett and Cameron Kiever.

Starting point is 00:08:20 I wanted to give a big thanks to everyone who supports the show on Patreon. Your support helps me put out a new show every day. And if you're interested in Everything Everywhere Daily merchandise, Patreon is currently the only place where it's available. And if you'd like to talk to other listeners of the show and get notified to future episodes and projects, please join my Facebook group or Discord server. Links to everything are in the show notes.

Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Examining The Zipper (Encore)

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