The encyclopedia · R&D & Science · Technical decision · 1913–1917
Sundback's zipper uses interlocking scoops that a slider locks together.
Gideon Sundback replaced hooks with interlocking scoops on a tape, so a slider could join and part them cleanly.
Gideon Sundback
the move
Buttons, hooks, and laces were slow; mid-19th-century inventors tried a slide fastener, but the hook-and-eye designs jammed or popped. Whitcomb Judson's 1893 clasp-locker never caught on for clothing.
Gideon Sundback, a Swedish-American engineer who joined Judson's Universal Fastener Company in 1905, spent years improving it. By the end of 1913 he had the mechanism that became the modern zipper.
His key was the scoop: rather than a hook meeting an eye on the opposite side, both tape edges carried identical metal scoops with a small depression, so a slider moved along and forced each scoop to interlock with its neighbor. He filed for the patent in 1914 and received it as US 1,219,881 on March 20, 1917.
The design made clothing fast and reliable, and by the 1930s the zipper had moved from boots and tobacco pouches onto dresses, jackets, and trousers, becoming the fastener of the century.
why it works
- Identical scoops mean either side can meet either, so nothing needs to be aimed
- A slider drives the scoops into a flush interlocked row in one continuous motion
- The mechanism improved on the jam-prone hook-and-eye of earlier fasteners
- One slide replaces a row of individual closures, making dressing faster
what transfers
An asymmetric pair (hook and eye) is hard to align at speed; make the two halves identical so either one can meet either, and the mechanics become much simpler to operate.
what came after
Sundback's zipper became a ubiquitous fastener, used in clothing, luggage, and equipment, and the word zipper is still associated with his machine. Sundback was later honored as the father of the modern zipper, and his design dominated for a century.
references
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