New Episode: Zippers

Perhaps the least-likely invention

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This was a fun one. And honestly, one that I am surprised I didn’t do a while ago.

I’d actually like to give a shout out to a kind listener named Izabella who wrote me a very sweet and lovely note and mentioned that “My mom frequently tells people I’m ‘listening to podcasts about zippers’ anytime I have my headphones on.” Izabella, your mom is actually going to be right this time! (Also thank you for writing in, you made my day)

You know I hate to give away the whole episode in the substack (sorrrrrryyyyy you have to listen to the podcasts please! I put entirely too much love into them), but very long story short, the invention that we now know as the zipper spent most of its life as a gimmick novelty device that didn’t work at all. Really, for 20 years, the zipper was mostly an expensive silly scam. Think about it- you don’t need a zipper. Buttons and snaps work just fine. Why would you opt for an expensive and terrifying device that looked like THIS:

CUE THE SCARY VIOLINS

I don’t know about you, but I don’t really want those hooks anywhere near my skin. When Whitcomb Judson invented this device, the precurosor to the zipper, he wasn’t exactly problem solving. He was, in the words of my new favorite academic Robert Friedel, “problem seeking.” He just kind of wanted to be an inventor and invent something.

This “automatic hook and eye” device sort of chugs along for 20 years(!!!) until a love story changes everything. An engineer named Gideon Sundback gets roped into the automatic hook and eye business only because he falls in love with the factory manager’s daughter.

Gideon Sundback and Elvira Aronson in 1909, shortly after their marriage

Sundback cracks this device by getting rid of the hooks, and through trial and error gets to something that looks… a lot like the modern zipper.

He calls it… The Hookless Hooker. That is the name of the device. It doesn’t get the nickname “the zipper” until the fastener gets put on rubber boots in 1923.

B.F Goodrich calls the boots themselves “the zipper.”

“Stir some woman’s heart!”

When the boots themselves go out of style, the name of the fastener sticks. To the point where the Hookless Fastener Company starts to call its own products “Zippers.” They eventually change their own name to Talon Inc.

Talon’s zippers slowly (slooooowly) starting to become trusted, by means of various different campaigns like this one, where Talon promised that zippers would make your children more independent and healthier.

Zippers were finally taking off through the 1930s into the 1940s. As evidenced by this completely awesome chart of what different classes at the Princeton reunion were wearing in the flies of their pants. The older they got, the more buttons they wore:

Zippers became the most ubiquitous little machines in modernity.  They became part and parcel of clothes that pull on and rip off, and boots that don't need time to lace. Bags that need to zip open to get through security and zip closed to get back on the plane. Cases that quickly release computers and then secure them back.

Just look at all the movie scenes where a woman asks for help getting zipped up. There are currently 42 of them, collected by @zipmeuptrope, bless their heart.

And yet. If you look down at your zipper pulls, you probably won’t see the name TALON embossed in the brass. Unless you’re wearing something vintage, in which case I would like to see a picture of it. More likely, you might see three little letters on your zipper: YKK.

So how did YKK rise in the zipper business? And intriguing, for my purposes, why has this Japanese company kept a factory in the United States?

The answer is a hint for the next season of Articles of Interest.

Coming this fall.

Stay tuned.

All images taken from Zipper: An Exploration in Novelty by Robert Friedel, except for the YKK image, which is from YKK’s self-published Manga called The Secrets of Zippers

Zipper track by the genius YATTA

Special thanks this episode to Stacy Hoover- if you are looking for a beautiful and unusual place to stay in New Orleans, definitely look at her cottage called Wonderland. It really is a wonder.

And I mention this in the credits, but my editor on this story, Allison Behringer, and I (along with my fellow Radiotopians Song Exploder, The Memory Palace, Everything Is Alive, and Normal Gossip) were all named some of the best podcasts of all time by TIME. I’m chuffed! And it makes me so proud to be a part of a network that believes in independent makers. Like, Radiotopia doesn’t own our shows or employ us, they just help us run our own businesses. It’s incredibly cool.

Also, I don’t believe in making a paywall to my content, since I want it to be available to everyone. But.

Hrishikesh Hirway

(of Song Exploder, Home Cooking, One AM Radio, and too many other projects to name) and I are brewing up a semi regular chit chat kind of show, as bonus content. Hrishi and I are going to debut it on the 20th— this Wednesday— and you can watch if you’d like to become a paid subscriber.