Talon Zippers

[Dinerman]

Below you can read news stories on the birth and history of the zipper, told over the years. While the basic story is consistent from one to the next, they all manage to add their own embellishments to make their word count. Depending on the source and the opinion of the author, the zipper was invented in 1891, 1893, 1912 or 1913. There were news stories celebrating the 100th anniversary of the zipper in 1991. Just last month, there was another batch of 100 years of the zipper stories. The earlier the news story is, the more likely it is to credit Hookless/Talon as the inventor of the zipper. More modern stories give all the credit to Gideon Sundback, ignoring the role of Col. Lewis Walker, or of Whitcomb .L. Judson. As each history of the zipper published in newspapers (and later online) seems to draw most of their information from previous news stories on the same topic, and not on any new research, I'm just going to transcribe some of the more detailed accounts for you to read.

C-Curity - Introduced in 1905
Recognizable as a zipper, but was difficult to use and had a tendency to pop open

Plako - Introduced 1908
Improved from the C-Curity, but had a number of problems of its own.

 

[Dinerman]

Obituary, Jan 24, 1938

Col. Lewis Walker, Who Amassed Fortune in Hookless Fastener Industry, Dies

Meadville, Pa., Jan. 24 - Col. Lewis Walker, who rose from comparative obscurity as a lawyer to wealth as the head of a vast industrial concern which manufactures hookless fasteners, died today at his home here after a long illness. He was 82.
Colonel Walker developed the hookless fastener, used in virtually every article of wearing apparel from overshoes to lingerie, into a product which has a world-wide market after discovering the invention at the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893.
The inventor was W.L. Judson of Chicago, who had been unable to market his product but was demonstrating it at the World's Fair in hope of finding a financial backer.
Marks Turning Point
Interest in the invention marked the turning point in the financial career of Col. Walker, then a practicing lawyer.
Col. Walker's efforts to find backing for the invention was no immediate success story, however.
It required 20 years of constant endeavor to find the necessary funds needed to market the product.
During that time, according to favorite legends in Northwestern Pennsylvania, many wealthy men turned down chances to interest themselves in an industry which developed into a rich trade.
The first manufacture of the slide fastener began in Meadville in 1913 after efforts to locate factories in other cities met with little success. Only 20 persons were employed in the first factory, located in a rented building.
Since 1913, the company has grown so rapidly it now employs more than 4,000 and owns three factories in Meadville, another in Erie and operates branches in leading cities.
A recent reorganization plan changed the corporate name from Hookless Fastener Co. to Talon, Inc.
Reclassification of 3908 no-par shares of stock into 976,000 shares of $5 par value stock was approved at the same time and increase of 23,500 additional shares was authorized.
Stricken Last Fall
Col. Walker remained president of the concern until his death and was active until he became ill last fall.
Born in Wellsville, O., June 4, 1855, Col. Walker was the son of Nathan Updegraff and Malvina Brown Walker and a member of a pioneer family. His father operated a clay products company.
Col. Walker was graduated from Allegheny College, Meadville, and was a trustee of the school many years. He was a member of the Rolling Rock Country Club of Pittsburgh, a charter member of the Park Avenue Congregational Church, a member and life long leader of the Delta Tau fraternity and a trustee of the Meadville City Hospital. He also was active in civic affairs in Meadville.
On Governor's Staff
Col. Walker's military title come through his appointment to the staff of the late Gov. James Beaver about 1890.
His personal wealth never was estimated but he gave freely to charitable institutions.
He leaves his widow, one son, Wallace D. Walker, vice president of Talon, Inc., and a daughter, Mrs. Alice Walker Soles of Santa Barbara, Cal.
Funeral services will be held in Meadville at 2:30 p.m. tomorrow.

Obituary, June 22, 1954

Slide Fastener Inventor Dies
Meadville, PA - Dr. Gideon Sundback, perfector of the first workable slide fastener or "zipper" died Monday in Meadville City Hospital of a heart ailment. He was 74.
Sundback, a native of Sweden, entered this country in 1903. He resigned from a position with Westinghouse Electric Corp in 1906 and collaborated with the late Col. Lewis Walker of Meadville on the first sucessful slide fastener.
Sundback's first "zipper" was turned out in 1912. It was put into mass production the following year by the Hookless Fastener Co. The firm eventually became Talon, Inc., of which Sundback was a memeber of the board of directors.

Press Release, April 30, 1957
44 Years Old - Success Story Of The Zipper Has Catch In It
By John Mosedale
New York - While lesser occasions are solemnly noted, there will pass unheralded next Monday the anniversary of an invention which has simplified the daily life of almost every living American.
On that date 44 years ago, the zipper was perfected, not by a Russian but by Dr. Gideon Sundback, a Swedish-born electrical engineer. A 100-million-dollar business today, zippers are regarded hoperully by would-be inventors of the "Now why didn't I think of that?" school. But, as is the case with all great business enterprises, this is a story with a catch in it. Zippers ran into snags even before they became a big business.

Their principle was known to the ancient Chinese, who thought of just about everything before anybody else did. But the world for centuries struggled along with buttons, and worse, button hooks. Then, in 1891, Whitcomb L. Judson, a prolific Chicago inventor, muttered along with other men about the difficulty in buttoning his shoes. Unlike other men, he did something about it.
He patented a "clasp locket or locket for shoes." The U.S. Patent Office could see no future in this mechanism which, all unknown, mankind cried for.
Destiny turned up in the person of Lewis Walker, a colonel in the Pennsylvania National Guard, an attourney and a man who, at the age of 31, already was connected with 16 corporations. The colonel saw the Judson device at the Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago.
He - Pardon the expression - buttonholed the inventor, and they went into business. Their device was regarded as a novelty. In 1905, they emerged with something called "The C-Curity Placket Fastener," designed to be a boon to ladies with bustles.
"Just pull and it's done," the advertisements promised. It was not quite a boon. The C-Curity" had an embarassing habit of popping open when flexed.
The colonel called on Sundback, who had come to this country earlier in the century. For seven years the engineer labored. Then in 1913, he perfected what was to all purposes both the contemporary zipper and the machine which could manufacture it.
Business was slow. In 1917, when a Brooklyn manufacturer used zippers in money belts, only 24,000 were sold. Three years later, the annual income was $26,000.
But then the Navy decreed zippers would go into all flying suits. Household uses turned up. Mothers found that tads too young to manage buttons could zip themselves up or in.
Mother herself suffered a temporary setback when the first manufacturer to install hookless fasteners on girdles forgot to protect the inside of the mechanism. Early models not only felt the cold touch of a railroad on their sides but were nipped painfully.
The name itself did not come along until 1923, despite the obviousness of the "zzzzip!" sound. A forgotten neologist with the Goodrich Rubber Co. decided to popularize galoshes with hookless fasteners. He called such overshoes "zippers," and the public mistook the part for the whole.
None of the zipper pioneers remain. Judson, about whom little is known, died before his most popular invention became profitable. Walker died at 82 in 1938 president of the Talon Co., of Meadville, Pa., one of the few concerns which was not affected by the depression of 1929.

Press release, February, 13, 1963

The zipper is about to observe its 50th birthday. There are some who will doubt this fastener has been around that long but Talon, Inc., the Meadville manufacturer, said the official date of its formation in 1913 is May 15.
While the zipper as such dates back 50 years, the people who founded Talon were interested in fasteners as far back as 1891.
Lewis Walker, who had the title of colonel, and who lived in Meadville, had an acquaintance named Whitcomb L. Judson. Mr. Mr. Judson invented a fastener composed of a series of hooks and eyes, and Mr. Walker formed a company in 1894 to develop it. This was called the Universal Fastener Company. The Fastener Manufacturing Machine Company later came into being to improve the original fastener and develop machinery to produce it. This latter company was reorganized as Automatic Hook and Eye Company.
In 1906, the Automatic concern employed Gideon Sundback as its engineer to redesign the fastener. In 1912, he came up with a fastener which is the basis of the present day zipper.
There was a need for new capital to make it, and Mr. Walker again formed a new company called Hookless Fastener Company. This name wasn't exactly suitable but it wasn't until 1928 that the product was changed from Hookless to Talon, and not until 1937 that the corporate name was changed to Talon, Inc.
The present company's first plant was a barn in Meadville where the company struggled to meet its payroll of approximately 20.
Today Talon employs 4200 in assorted locations, but it has also diversified since 1955 to other products.
Thus, when a sales peak of $54,000,000 was attained last year, it wasn't due entirely to zippers. Nevertheless, Talon's zipper sales last year set a record and exceeded 500,000,000 units.

 

[Dinerman]

1893


1904


1908


1914. Recognizable as a modern zipper. Teeth are still made to roughly the same design.

 

[Dinerman]

Here is an unfortunately incomplete file of Talon zip designs. Hookless/Talon produced a staggering variety of designs, with a variety of stopboxes, sliders and pulls over the years. The design depended on the application as well as the year produced. As I say, the ones below are just to give you an idea, and do not even begin to represent all the styles produced by Talon.

Early 1930s Hookless


Hookless, showing early pre-stopper-box design, and grommets


Unfortunately, I don't have examples in my collection of the transitional zippers with the puller marked both Hookless and Talon, nor do I have any of the fantail examples of this era.

Late 1930s Talon


1937 Talon with snap on puller. Deco stopbox.

 

[Dinerman]

Off a c.1943 Colvinex electrically heated USN flight-suit. "Deco" rays on stopbox run vertically, not diagonally. No Talon name on stopbox.


No talon script on the stopbox, or on the component which attaches the puller to the slider. "Deco" rays on stopbox run vertically, not diagonally. Back of zipper stopbox marked :3:

 

[Dinerman]

Postwar: Stopbox has moved from the "deco" design to a U-shaped one.Talon name appears on both front and back of stopbox. As with the wartime and pre-war examples, this one has diagonal corners and a rectangular hole on the puller. Back of slider has been simplified from "Made in U.S.A. Talon" to "USA Talon"


Zipper off 1950s USN deck jacket. Back of stopbox reads :5: Back of slider simplified from "USA Talon" to "Talon". Puller design with round hole an update of those used in late 1930s.


New puller design with square corners and larger square hole. This puller design was in use by 1949, if not earlier. Back of slider reads "USA".


Different stopbox design, used for decades, starting around the late 1950s.

 

[Dinerman]

Large zipper pull on a larger scale zipper (10 vs. 5) on a jacket from the 1970s.


Similar pull, different slider design.


Zipper from the early 1980s.


Two-way large size Talon zip with plastic reinforcements to tape.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

Great posts and photos Dinerman! Very informative.
Thank you!
HD

 

[Dinerman]

One piece combination/coverall garments were early adopters of the zipper.

1922 - The Jiffy Knock About Suit


1928 - Airzipons


1930 - Life Buoy


1930 - Ute

 

[Dinerman]

The Zipper name came from Goodrich's "Zipper" line of Galoshes.

1927


1930


Even by the late 1920s, people had started calling "slide fasteners" by the zipper name, much to the annoyance of Goodrich, who wished to protect their trademark, and to Talon, who were trying to establish their brand name as the trade-name for their product. By the late 1940s, Talon gave up, and started calling their product a "zipper" in their ads.
1938


Goodrich also had a line of sports shoes equipped with zippers, called "Zipps"


LL Bean introduced a zipper equipped "Canoe Shoe" in 1935.

 

[Dinerman]

Zippers were also adopted by children's clothing earlier than their mainstream adoption in men's and women's clothing. Zippers were easier and quicker than buttons or laces.

1929. Zip-Knick Gym Trunks were brought onto the market in 1925, and were named for their "slide fastener". These Zip-knicks not only featured a zipper, but knit cuffs in the legs so as to protect the wearer's modesty.

B.F. Goodrich brought suit over the "zip" name in 1930, claiming that it infringed on their trademark of the name of their slide-fastener-featuring "zipper" overshoes. As early as 1925, "zipper" was starting to be associated more with the slide fastener than the footwear.


The hip-zip. 1932. A relatively early usage of the "zip" name for what was called still by the companies which made them a "slide fastener". As with the zip-knick gym trunks, these zip on the hip, not down the front.


Hip Zip 1934


Hip Zip 1934

 

[Dinerman]

1931. Sportsmen


1932. Aviators and children.


1932. Aviators and children.


1932. Aviators and children.


1932. Aviators and children.

 

[schitzo]

that's interesting. For some reason I'd always assumed zips had been around a lot longer than this

On this subject, does anyone know anything about the merit of riri zips?

I've noticed AL have them as a custom option
http://www.alexanderleathers.com/custom/riri-zip.html

 

[Otter]

Swiss made, very high quality. They used to use them on Rohan stuff back when Paul Howcroft ran it, I never had one fail on me.

 

[Dinerman]

Here's a variant I had not seen before. Blank back side to pull; pull has square edges and a small hole. Slider has "deco" sunburst, as does stopbox. Back of slider is completely blank. Probably from around '36 or '37.

 

[Baron Kurtz]

Yes, that's an ineresting one, isn't it. I've seen a few around, but they're quite a rare variant.

 

[Dinerman]

It amazes me how many variants were produced by Talon in the '30s-'50s for the same size of zipper. So many versions of each component, the stopbox, the slider, the tab, and each was used in combinations with the others.

 

[Alice Blue]

Good stuff. Robert Friedel's book Zipper: An Exploration in Novelty has a lot of interesting technological and social history, and centers largely on Talon and its predecessors.

 

[Baron Kurtz]

Also, Talon Inc.: A Romance of Achievement is a very good book.

It amazes me how many variants were produced by Talon in the '30s-'50s for the same size of zipper. So many versions of each component, the stopbox, the slider, the tab, and each was used in combinations with the others.

It's remarkable isn't it. They're to zippers what van Heusen were to collar varieties, like the Heinz soup of zippers. 57 different kinds.

 

[B-24J]

Great stuff! Thanks for posting.

John