Zippers: A story for the history

By: Sandra Lizette Franco.
His guys I'm so happy to write again, this time I'm gonig to tell you about the zeppers, everyone know this simple object taht madeo of our lives easier.
Hook and eye model

An early device superficially similar to the zipper, "an Automatic, Continuous Clothing Closure", was patented in the United States by Elias Howe in 1851. Unlike the zipper, Howe's invention had no slider; instead a series of clasps slid freely along both edges to be joined, with each clasp holding the two sides together at whichever pair of points along them it was located. The clasps were joined together by a string, which, when pulled taut, caused the clasps to be evenly spaced along the closure, thus holding the two edges together. Pulling in the other direction caused the clasps to become bunched up at one end, by which means the device was opened.

The true zipper was the product of a series of incremental improvements over more than twenty years, by inventors and engineers associated with a sequence of companies that were the progenitors of Talon, Inc. This process began with a version called the "clasp locker", invented by American born inventor Whitcomb L. Judson of Chicago (previously of Minneapolis and New York City) in Akron, Ohio, and for which a patent (No. 504,038) was first applied on Nov. 7, 1891. It culminated in 1914 with Gideon Sundbäck's invention of the "Hookless Fastener No. 2", the first version of the zipper without any major design flaws and essentially indistinguishable from modern zippers.

Initial versions of the zipper were based on the "hook and eye" principle, rather than on interlocking teeth, and tended to come apart easily. Some versions depended on constant pressure from one side of the joined fabric in order to hold together at all, which limited applications. In the 1891 version, the slider detached entirely from the zipper when not being used to open or close.

Judson, together with business partner Harry Earle, founded the first incarnation of what was to eventually become Talon Inc., in Chicago in 1894, as the Universal Fastener Company. The design deficiencies, combined with difficulties in getting the machinery needed for mass production to work, prevented the early devices from reaching market, which led to financial hardships for the company. This in turn led to a series of reorganizations and name changes, as well as relocations, first to Catasauqua, Pennsylvania; then to Elyria, Ohio; Hoboken, New Jersey; and finally Meadville, Pennsylvania.

Now we can see them in any sort of clothes, purses, shoes, trainers, headbands, etc.