Invented by Gideon Sundback and named by the B.F. Goodrich Company, the modern zipper came into existence in the year 1917. The history of the zipper dates back to 1851 when Elias Howe created the Automatic, Continuous Clothing Closure, which he did not market. So in 1893, Whitcomb actually invented the zipper that looked like a hook and eye shoe fastener. Whitcomb and Colonel Lewis Walker launched the Universal Fastener Company to produce this fastener. When Gideon Sundback joined the company and was appointed head designer, he set down to improvise the mechanism and created the modern zipper. In this improvised version, the number of fastening elements went on from four per inch to around eleven per inch. They had two rows of teeth facing each other and were pulled together by a slider. The name zipper was introduced by the B.F. Goodrich Company when they used the mechanism on rubber boots.
Zipper/Zip-fastener
