Who invented the zip fastener, and when?
• TRAVELLING salesman and part-time inventor Whitcomb L. Judson lodged his patent for “shoe fasteners” in 1893. Truly a revolutionary form of fastening, and it was recognised as such by the Patent Office examiner. But despite that, patent number 504,038 was hardly contested ground. Had it not been for the magnificent sales pitch of Judson’s fellow commercial traveller Harry Earle (of the Osborne Machine Co., New York), Judson’s early zippers would have vanished into obscurity. But it was the involvement of Lewis Walker, a lawyer and businessman from Meadville, Pennsylvania, that galvanised the development of the zipper. By 1905 he had renamed his company “The Automatic Hook and Eye Company,” and introduced the “C-Curity Fastner” to a feminine market Judson had not considered. In 1906, a Swede named Peter Aronson took over the operation, and the “C-Curity” became “The Plako” (as in placket). Aronson attempted to market the Plako in France (as “le Ferme Tout”), and another Swede, Gideon
