U.S. Census Bureau Daily Feature for April 28

News provided by

Apr 28, 2015, 12:01 ET

WASHINGTON, April 28, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Following is the daily "Profile America" feature from the U.S. Census Bureau:

ZIPPERS

Profile America — Tuesday, April 28th. Tomorrow marks the 102nd anniversary of an invention many — if not most — of us use every day without a second thought. In April 1913, Hoboken, New Jersey resident Gideon Sundbach patented the zipper. He called his invention the "hookless fastener." Improved and patented again in 1917 as the "separable fastener," for many years the invention was used mainly on rubber boots. Such was the use by the B.F. Goodrich Company, which gave the fastener the now familiar name "zipper." But in 1930, fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli became the first to display them on clothing. Manufacturing zippers and other slide fasteners is a $190 million a year business in the U.S. You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau online at www.census.gov.

Sources:
Sundbach & zipper: http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/zipper.htm
Development and naming: http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa082497.htm
Schiaparelli designs: http://web.archive.org/web/20080518043537/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2003/10/24/baschiap20.xml

Zipper manufacturing/NAICS 1399933: http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ASM_2013_31VS101&prodType=table

Profile America is produced by the Center for New Media and Promotions of the U.S. Census Bureau. These daily features are available as produced segments, ready to air, on the Internet at http://www.census.gov (look for "Multimedia Gallery" by the "Newsroom" button).

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110428/DC91889LOGO

SOURCE U.S. Census Bureau