History - Inventions and discoveries - Zippers - Fasteners - Sweden - History of inventions
Which inventor developed the modern zipper with interlocking fastening elements?
Correct!
At the beginning of the 20th century, the Swedish-born engineer Gideon Sundback significantly developed earlier locking systems. His system used two rows of small, interlocking elements that were connected and separated by a movable slider - the basic principle of the modern zipper. On August 27, 1914, Gideon Sundback filed a patent for his improved “Separable Fastener” in the United States. U.S. Patent No. 1,219,881 was issued to him on March 20, 1917. The construction consisted of flexible straps with numerous individual closure elements. A slider brought these together as they moved and ensured that they interlocked; in the opposite direction they were separated again. Sundback's patent describes exactly this functional principle. However, Gideon Sundback was not the first person to work on such a closure. His achievement was to improve existing concepts so significantly that it resulted in a design that is very close to today's zipper. The National Inventors Hall of Fame describes him as the engineer who made Whitcomb Judson's preliminary work practical and commercially successful. Incidentally, the English term “zipper” only came into being later: the B. F. Goodrich Company used Sundback’s fastener on a rubber boot and coined the name for it, which subsequently became common use.
Gideon Sundback developed the modern zipper with interlocking fastening elements.
