Zipper: An Exploration in Novelty [Hardcover]

Robert D. Friedel (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1994

The zip-fastener was invented by Whitcomb Judson, a frustrated man with a penchant for complexity. It didn't work and wasn't wanted. This book tells the fascinating story of how a useless technological novelty worked its way into daily life and took its place as one of the defining artefacts of the 20th century. The cast of characters might well have come from a novel: the brilliant engineer who took 20 years to make the zip-fastener work; the small-town lawyer whose blind faith in Judson's invention sustained him for 40 lean years; the flamboyant Paris designer who made zip-fasteners the height of fashion; and the Japanese entrepreneur whose dedication to simple ideas made him the "Zipper King" of the world.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

How the ingenious zipper, a newfangled, unwanted novelty, became a ubiquitous part of daily life is the story told in this engaging chronicle peopled by a colorful cast of characters. The zipper can be traced to oddball Chicago inventor Whitcomb Judson, whose awkward shoe fastener, patented in 1893, never quite caught on. Col. Lewis Walker, a suave Pennsylvania lawyer and investor, made the hookless fastener his mission, enlisting the help of Otto Gideon Sundbach, a Swedish immigrant engineer who improved on Judson's invention with a 1917 patent that revolutionized the modern zipper. Friedel, a historian of technology at the University of Maryland, ably explores the advent of the zipper as adornment on trousers and purses in America's flapper decade, as a badge of modernity in Hitler's mechanized Third Reich and as a sexual, social and political symbol appropriated by Aldous Huxley, Marlon Brando, the anti-Nazi satirist Kurt Tucholsky, the Rolling Stones and Erica Jong. Photos not seen by PW .
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Today the zipper seems a commonplace if not insignificant piece of our lives. Behind this tiny piece of technology, however, lies a story rich in manufacturing, economics, fashion, engineering, and , most importantly , personalities. Friedel, a historian of technology, examines all these topics in this tale of the "hookless fastener" (a.k.a., the zipper) from its 1890s origin through the 40 years of refinement and eventual acceptance in the 1930s and up to the present day. Enjoyable and readable, Friedel's saga of the zipper provides him with the perfect means to peer inside technology's origin, revealing its capacity to fill needs and showing how novelty pushes us to the future. Recommended for all collections.
- Michael D. Cramer, Virginia Polytechnic & State Univ. Libs., Blacksburg
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc; 1st edition (April 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393035999
• ISBN-13: 978-0393035995
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,143,771 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Very Interesting Read, February 27, 2000

By 

S. Robertson (Tucson, Arizona USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Zipper: An Exploration in Novelty (Hardcover)

This is the history of the zipper's evolution from unwanted gizmo to ubiquitous tool. The story of the tinkerers who invented it, the hucksters who sold it, and the businessmen who persevered and - at last - succeeded with it is not very different from those of many 19th-century inventions. This is one of the most interesting to read about. The emphasis is more on the early "hookless fastener" devices than on the zipper we know today.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating, February 1, 2003

By 

Jean-Claude Balland (Beaverton, OR United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Zipper: An Exploration in Novelty (Reprint) (Paperback)

This is the fascinating story of this marvel of "ingenious and effective design" that everybody today takes for granted. From the late 19th century invention of the hookless (but bugfull) fastener that was sold door to door by peddlers to today's ubiquitous zipper, it is the story of the Hookless Fastener Company's and others' decades-long search for mass volume consumer applications and how it eluded them one after another until Goodrich introduced its Zipper boots.

It is the story of how and why the design evolved over time. It is the story of the people behind this innovation, and it is the story of how a little company grew to become a 5000 employee leading company in 1937 and then lost its grip on the market as its innovation got universally adopted.

R. Friedel illustrates in the most interesting and convincing way how a discontinuous innovation like the zipper gets accepted: one successful application at a time. There is much to be learned in this fascinating story for impatient entrepreneurs and whoever wonders how to bring innovative products to mainstream markets.

A great read. Highly recommended.

5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book!, October 29, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Zipper: An Exploration in Novelty (Reprint) (Paperback)

The above reviewer (atlanta) does the book a disservice. Zipper is a wonderful read, from top to bottom,a nd I have even re-read the book. I don't usually re-read anything! In fact, I gave a copy to a business colleague since it is exactly such an interesting confluence of industrial and business history!

Buy the book. It's highly enjoyable reading. Not technical, not threatening, but a wonderful romp through the difficulties and challenges of building the common everyday object, the Zipper. Esp3ecially noteworth is the author's research into the zipper's international marketing and the zipper's socio-cultural impacts.