One of the most successful inventions of the 20th century was actually patented in 1851. It was the “Automatic Continuous Clothing Closure,” made by the inventor of the sewing machine, Elias Howe.

I doubt that you’ve heard of it, since the device was never really marketed under that catchy title. Forty-four years later, Whitcomb Judson, a successful inventor with a dozen patents to his name, marketed a slightly different version, with the equally the riveting designation, the “Clasp Locker Device.” Judson and his business partner, attached the invention to their boots and took it to the Chicago Worlds Fair in 1893, where they sold twenty pairs, about one pair per million visitors. Their Universal Fastener Company was never to be much of a success.

However, fifteen years later, the Swedish engineer, Gideon Sundback made the invention smaller, lighter, and more reliable. In a brilliant marketing ploy, he re-christened the “Automatic Continuous Clothing Closure/Clasp Locking Device” with the trendy appellation “The Hookless Fastener”. The product may have been brilliant, but it dragged its name around like a ball and chain.

Nevertheless, despite a less than inspired marketing campaign, the new and improved fastener began to sell. It was attached to purses and other items, and was sold to the Army, and applied to the clothing and gear of the United States soldiers in World War I. Strange as it seems now, the new invention came with instructions

The story goes that Mr. B. F. Goodrich, of the B. F. Goodrich Company, marketing the fasteners on his galoshes, coined the term “zipper,” for the sound made when the fastener slid its way along the parallel metal tracks. After that, the invention was a sure-fire winner. It was not the brilliant, inarticulate engineers, but the smooth-talking salesman and hard-headed businessman who introduced the onomatopoeic term “zip” to the English language.