1892 Proof IHC Giveaway Raw

Ever wonder where the name Diesel came from?

Rudolf Diesel designed many heat engines, including a solar-powered air engine. In 1892 he applied for a patent and received a development patent for his diesel engine. In 1893 he published a paper describing an engine with combustion within a cylinder, the internal combustion engine. In Augsburg, Germany, on August 10, 1893, Rudolf Diesel's prime model, a single 10-foot iron cylinder with a flywheel at its base, ran on its own power for the first time. He received a patent there for the engine that same year and a patent for an improvement.

Do you know where the modern "zipper" came from?

The story begins when Elias Howe, Jr. (1819-1867), inventor of the sewing machine, who received a patent in 1851 for an "Automatic, Continuous Clothing Closure." It didn't go much further beyond that, though. Perhaps it was the success of the sewing machine, that caused Elias not to pursue marketing his clothing closure system. As a result, Howe missed his chance to become the recognized "Father of the Zip."

Forty-four years later, inventor Whitcomb Judson (1846-1909) marketed a "Clasp Locker" device similar to system described in the 1851 Howe patent. Being first to market, Whitcomb got credit for being the "inventor of the zipper." However, his 1893 patent did not use the word zipper.

The Chicago inventor's "Clasp Locker" was a complicated hook-and-eye shoe fastener. Together with businessman Colonel Lewis Walker, Whitcomb launched the Universal Fastener Company to manufacture the new device. The clasp locker debuted at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and was met with little commercial success.

t was a Swedish-born electrical engineer named Gideon Sundback (1880-1954) whose work helped make the zipper the hit it is today. Originally hired to work for the Universal Fastener Company, his design skills and a marriage to the plant-manager's daughter Elvira Aronson led to a position as head designer at Universal. In his position, he improved the far from perfect "Judson C-curity Fastener." When Sundback's wife died in 1911, the grieving husband busied himself at the design table. By December of 1913, he came up with what would become the modern zipper.

Gideon Sundback's new-and-improved system increased the number of fastening elements from four per inch to 10 or 11, had two facing-rows of teeth that pulled into a single piece by the slider and increased the opening for the teeth guided by the slider. His patent for the "Separable Fastener" was issued in 1917.

Sundback also created the manufacturing machine for the new zipper. The "S-L" or scrapless machine took a special Y-shaped wire and cut scoops from it, then punched the scoop dimple and nib and clamped each scoop on a cloth tape to produce a continuous zipper chain. Within the first year of operation, Sundback's zipper-making machine was producing a few hundred feet of fastener per day.

The first edition of Arthur Doyle's Sherlock Holmes was published in 1892.

@Joshu-a Your entry for the invention of Basketball is a duplicate entry that has already been submitted by another.

A cautionary tale of going back to an old love
Life had been difficult for Jack McKenna. His wife had left for California with his best friend. Jack was left to raise their only child. A while later, Jack's daughter was dying of influenza. Eventually, Jack also contracted the flu. Only a few shillings stood between them and starvation.

Even when fate finally smiled on Jack McKenna, it was more of a devilish grin. In January 1892, a well-dressed woman breezed up to the poor workhouse in Deptford, London where they lived and asked for Jack by name. The Leeds Mercury newspaper reported that when shown to his room she fell to her knees and begged his forgiveness. It was his estranged wife, back from California, where his ex-best friend had made a fortune in the goldfields. The friend was now dead, and his wife wanted to pick up where they'd left off. But in a plot twist worthy of Thomas Hardy, she caught influenza while nursing her husband back to health. McKenna's wife died of pneumonia, leaving him £62,000 in her will.

On May 28th, 1892, John Muir founded the Sierra Club. Being a fan of National Parks myself, I find this to be particularly interesting. Muir, along with Teddy Roosevelt were early proponents for the national park system. So, I guess we have John Muir to thank for our America the Beautiful Quarter program!

Muir co-founds the Sierra Club ; serves as its President for the rest of his life. Samuel Merrill reported that "I had never seen Mr. Muir so animated and happy before... the happiest day in his life, I venture to say, was the day in San Francisco in the summer of 1892, when he found himself the centre of a devoted and loyal group of citizens who organised themselves into the Sierra Club and made him President." See Personal Recollections of John Muir by Samuel Merrill (1928)

A short article appeared in
The Galveston Daily News
(Galveston Texas)
on February 10th 1892 on page 1.



An unrelated 1902 image I found of Annie Edson Taylor, a 63-year-old retired teacher. She was the First Woman to Survive Niagara Falls in a barrel. I thought it could have looked a little like this.

@Bump1111 The only thing that has changed is the cost...way way up...for getting the chance to be taught by grad students. Lol But in reading that it is good to know some things remain the same.