Zipper: An Exploration in Novelty

by Robert Friedel

It is almost impossible to imagine modern life without this device; yet for the first thirty years or so, from its patent in the late nineteenth century, it represented no real advantage over traditional fasteners like the hook-and-eye or the old-fashioned button. The zipper was mechanically awkward, liable to rust, liable to fail (i.e., snag or burst open), and so expensive that it doubled the retail price of a skirt or a pair of pants. But from the beginning the zipper had an allure, a mystery, a kind of sex appeal that would be echoed in songs, poems, and popular novels.


Robert Friedel has written a fascinating history—full of strange twists, paradoxes, and interesting characters—of this signature gadget of the twentieth century. Inventor Whitcomb Judson (whose efforts lay mostly in patenting a doomed undertaking known as the Pneumatic Streetcar) gave the zipper life; businessman Colonel Lewis Walker had the capital and the faith to back it for forty years; and cultural icons such as Marlon Brando, Erica Jong, and the Rolling Stones helped to turn it into a symbol for sexuality and style.


Not just the story of a distinctive technology, Zipper is an entertaining, informative examination of how new things become part of our daily lives, shaping how we think and act.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Microhistory

306 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1994

About the author

Robert is a professor at the University of Maryland. His latest book is a wide ranging survey of Western Technology since the Middle Ages, A Culture of Improvement: Technology and the Western Millenium. Before going to the University of Maryland, he was a historian at the Smithsonian Institution and at the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers. He collaborated on projects for museums and agencies in Calcutta, Dheli, Stockholm, Munich and Pittsburgh. Robert held fellowships at the Smithsonian, the Hagley Museum, The American Antiquarian Society, the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business, and the Dibner Institute for the History of Science.

Reviews

[Kristin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this up at random from a Little Free Library, expecting nothing. It was unexpectedly engaging and entertaining! The question of why so many people, for so many decades, kept working on an invention that was so impracticable and unwanted - and today, so common as to be beyond comment - is an endlessly fascinating question. Highly recommended.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's pretty safe to say that this book will tell you far more than you could ever want to know about the history of the zipper. At close to 300 pages, you might reasonably ask "How could any book on such a specific topic run to such length?"

The answer is pretty straightforward: Robert Friedel is the kind of writer who never met a fact or anecdote he didn't consider indispensable. Normally, this would lead to a 2-star review at best. But he regains major points for the awesome Chapter 8 ("Alligators of Ecstasy"), an exploration of the semiotics of the zipper in popular culture during the century since its invention.

[Christine]

I finished this on vacation in Puerto Rico - then amazingly I turned on the Discovery channel during a rainy spell and there was a "how it's made" on the zipper! We really take this invention for granted, I had no idea that it wasn't a normal notion on clothing until the late 1930's. The most interesting part of this book, for me, was seeing how the invention process worked - the frustration, the redesign, the relaunch of the product - trying to convince people that it was something they needed. I admire people who can keep going despite all the road blocks that are placed in their way.