How Clumsiness and Boy Scouts made the Band-Aid

Blogger: Amber Lemus

Earle Dickson as a young man
Johnson & Johnson Archives
Used under Fair Use

I love reading about inventions because the stories are always entertaining. Either it was a funny accident, an inspirational story of perseverance, or an ingenious solution to a problem most people skim over. For example, did you know the Band-Aid was invented for a woman who was clumsy, especially in the kitchen?

Earle Dickson was born October 10, 1892 in Grandview, Tennessee. In 1917, Earle married Josephine Frances Knight. He was working at the Johnson and Johnson company as a cotton buyer, while his wife stayed at home keeping house. However, he quickly discovered that dear Josephine was constantly burning her fingers, nicking them with knives, or having some type of mishap around the house. She must have complained to him about the difficulty of bandaging up those minor wounds by herself while she was at home alone everyday, because he quickly came up with a solution.

Earle took a patch of gauze and affixed it to the center of surgical tape. He then used a band of crinoline to keep the tape from sticking to itself. What resulted was an easy-to-use bandage that his wife could easily use by herself to cover those injuries and prevent infection or further tearing of the skin. It worked wonderfully.

When Earle went back to work at Johnson and Johnson, he mentioned his solution to a coworker, who thought it was genius. The coworker encouraged him to take the idea to management and see if they would be interested in it. Initially, the managers at J&J were not impressed, but when Earle demonstrated that he could apply the bandage by himself to his own wounds, they saw that as a great feature. His supervisor told one of the Johnson brothers about the idea, who decided to adopt it and released the product to the public in 1921 under the brand of the Band-Aid. 

Early Ad for the Band-Aid
Johnson & Johnson Archives
Used under Fair Use

During this time, Johnson and Johnson were already successful producers of gauze and bandages for hospitals as well as military installations, so they had a built in market for this new product. Still, the first launch of the product was mostly a flop. Only $3,000 worth of the product was sold during the first year of production. Some believe that the reason it didn't initially take off was because the first versions of the Band-Aid were 2.5 inches wide by 18 inches long. The idea was that you could cut off whatever length of bandage you required for your injury.

Sales remained low, until someone came up with the idea of providing free, unlimited Band-Aids to the Boy Scout troops across the country. With the Boy Scouts using them, they became widely known and the demand for the Band-Aid soared.

In 1924, the Johnson and Johnson company started pre-cutting the Band-Aids into select sizes. Then in 1939, they began producing them as fully-sterilized bandages, just in time for WWII.

As for Earle Dickson, he was promoted for his invention and climbed to the rank of Vice President of the Johnson and Johnson company. He also became a member of the board, where he remained until his death in 1961, at which time the company was producing more than 30 million dollars worth of Band-Aids per year.

Today, more than 100 Billion Band-Aides have been produced and they have become one of the worlds most iconic and innovative products.

In recognition of his invention, Earle Dickson was inducted into the Inventor's Hall of Fame in 2017.

*****

Two-time winner of the Christian Indie Award for historical fiction, Amber Lemus inspires hearts through enthralling tales She has a passion for travel, history, books and her Savior. This combination results in what her readers call "historical fiction at its finest".

She lives near the Ozarks in her "casita" with her prince charming. Between enjoying life as a boy mom, and spinning stories out of soap bubbles, Amber loves to connect with readers and hang out on Goodreads with other bookish peoples.

Amber is a proud member of the American Christian Fiction Writers Association. Visit her online at http://www.amberlemus.com/ and download a FREE story by subscribing to her Newsletter!

Lester Wire and Garrett Morgan: Inventors of the Traffic Light System

Blogger: Amber Lemus

Traffic light in Sweden 1953. Photo by Olle Karlsson
Public Domain

Yet another common item that we rarely think about is the three signal traffic light. Fellow blogger Nancy J. Ferrier did a fantastic post on the general history of traffic lights a few years ago, (you can read that here.) but today I want to focus on two of the inventors specifically, Lester Wire and Garrett Morgan.

First, a little background. In the early days of the automobile, driving was a precarious activity. The streets were filled with horses, carriages, bicycles, pedestrians, and even streetcars in some cases, all competing for a spot on the road and the right of way. It soon became obvious that we needed some sort of regulation.

Before traffic lights were invented, police men would stand at the major intersections and direct traffic. As you can imagine, this was a dangerous job, and the traffic officers were always searching for ways to make their job safer and easier.
 

December 10, 1868 was the official birth of the first traffic signal, which was installed in London's Parliament Square. However it ended only two months later in a horrible tragedy. The signal was composed of two mobile signs attached to arms that were pivoted by using a lever. The traffic officer would operate it, and blow his whistle before changing the signal. At the top of the post was a gas-lit semaphore to make the signal visible in the dark. Only two months after it was installed, it exploded, killing the traffic officer who was operating it at the time. 

An early traffic light in New York with only two lights.
Photo credit: New York World-Telegram and the Sun staff photographer: Twachtman, Phyllis

Lester Wire

 

Thus, it was a traffic officer, Lester Wire, who invented the first electric signal in 1912. Lester was a 24-year-old who had been named the head of the traffic squad in Salt Lake City, but he was intent on finding a better way for his squad to control the traffic without having to stand for long hours, subjected to all kinds of weather. As the story goes, he used Matthew 5:15 as his inspiration to create the first electric traffic signal. "Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all."

 

His first prototype consisted of a small wooden box with a pitched roof that had red and green lights on all four sides of the box. He then put it on top of a 10 foot pole and wired into the trolley lines. Once installed, it would be manually operated by the traffic officer in a booth on the side of the road. Because of the birdhouse shape of the light, many people mocked its design and nicknamed it Wire's birdcage. Pedestrians would taunt drivers by yelling remarks like, "Are you waiting to see if the birdies will come out?" 

 

Wire later developed a more durable metal design, but he never patented any of his designs. Some believe that was because he was drafted into WWI and didn't have time to finish the process. Nevertheless, his designs were first installed in August of 1914 in Cleveland, OH on the corner of East 105th and Euclid Avenue.

These early models worked much better than the gas-lit ones, however, they had only two lights, red and green, and they were manually operated. This gave drivers no time to react when the light changed from "go" to "stop."

 

There's so much more that could be said about Lester, but we don't have room for all of it in this post. You can read his biography here.

Garrett Morgan

Garrett Morgan
Photo Public Domain

In 1923, a man by the name of Garrett Morgan was living in Cleveland. He was the first African American citizen in the city to own a car. One day, Garrett witnessed a horrible accident between an automobile and a horse-drawn carriage. This accident spurred him to invent a traffic signal that would create a safer intersection for the various vehicles and pedestrians traveling together in the streets. 

 

Garrett designed a T-shaped automated system with a warning light (predecessor to our modern day yellow light) in between the red and green lights so that vehicles had time to clear the intersection before the next flow of traffic began romping into the intersection. Garrett was granted a patent in November of 1923. 

 

There are a few other inventors who had experimented with the third light before Garrett, but he was the one to combine the three light system with automation.

Garrett is a fascinating character who invented several other things, including a gas mask that saved many lives. He was also highly influential in the city of Cleveland. He founded a newspaper, the Cleveland Call, which became one of the most important Black American newspapers in the nation. I highly recommend reading his full biography here.

Once the traffic lights were switched to automatic timers, it saved cities unbelievable amounts of money, while also making the intersections safer. In 1922, the city of New York was able to reassign all but 500 of its 6,000 officers working on the traffic squad, which saved the city over twelve and a half million dollars, and instead freed the police officers up to fight crime and keep the peace in neighborhoods. That's a win that we owe in huge part to Garrett Morgan and other inventors like him.

Of course, with the rise of computers, traffic lights made huge improvements and are part of what make our traffic systems as good as they are now.

In the course of writing this blog post, I learned a lot about the traffic lights, how important the automation is. I now hold a greater appreciation for that yellow light too!

How about you? Have you ever considered the importance of that yellow light? Did you ever play "one, two, three, green!" as a kid in the car?

*****

Two-time winner of the Christian Indie Award for historical fiction, Amber Lemus inspires hearts through enthralling tales She has a passion for travel, history, books and her Savior. This combination results in what her readers call "historical fiction at its finest".

She lives near the Ozarks in her "casita" with her prince charming. Between enjoying life as a boy mom, and spinning stories out of soap bubbles, Amber loves to connect with readers and hang out on Goodreads with other bookish peoples.

Amber is a proud member of the American Christian Fiction Writers Association. Visit her online at http://www.amberlemus.com/ and download a FREE story by subscribing to her Newsletter!

Bobby Pins, Plumbing, and Other Challenges of Writing about the 1920s

The 1920s can be a real puzzlement for writers. In some ways, there were so many modern changes taking hold that it was hard to keep up with for people who lived through them, and in other ways, for many, life hadn't changed much from the 1800s. Region had a lot to do with this. City and rural living made a difference. In the 1920s, many people still hadn't even enjoyed the modern conveniences that some of the rich did during the gilded age 20, 30, or 40 years previously. In other ways, the new era ushered in changes with the speed of a telephone call.

Take plumbing for instance. Very wealthy people and even some hotels enjoyed some manner of indoor plumbing in the late 1800s, but by 1920, only one percent of American households enjoyed such. One percent! That means that even in cities during the roaring twenties, people were still hand-pumping their water and taking late-night treks to the outhouse or sliding a bedpan out from beneath their bed. They may have used a water closet or had a bathroom, but all the after-effects had to be carried away.

Some homes may have had a system for dispensing, but we've all seen or heard of people in large cities pouring their "slops" out the window into the gutters below, and woe to anyone who happened to be passing nearby!

When I'm writing about that period, I always have to pause and ask, "Would this family have been part of that one percent or not? What kind of system did their town have?" It's easier to answer if they lived rurally. Then, as I've mentioned in previous posts, I have to ask about electricity. Some had it in 1920, but most did not. They still used gas lighting or oil lamps.

Image by munik manalo from Pixabay

Now let me direct your attention to a odd detail that also effected the period. I'm currently finishing a book set in 1920 about a young woman named Polly who has very fine hair. She has trouble keeping her hair pins in place. Of course, I first imagined slipping bobby pins, because that's what I'm familiar with. But did you know that bobby pins weren't invented yet?

Bobby pins as we know and refer to them were invented during the twenties. Their creator was Luis Marcus, a San Francisco cosmetics manufacturer. After WWI, as women began bobbing their hair and the flapper era swept in, he started hand-making the pins and selling them in sets of two for thirty-five cents. He considered calling them "Marcus pins", but chose instead to name them after the new, bobbed hairstyles, deciding on the simple "bobby pins" we know today. Interestingly, Marcus never got rich on the invention, and didn't even care to talk much about them, even though they changed a part of women's worlds.

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

Hair pins were the ancestors to bobby pins. Either long and straight or U-shaped, hair pins could be jabbed into the hair to hold styles in place or to keep a hat where it belonged. Barrettes, on the other hand, have been worn for centuries.

Image by Briam Cute from Pixabay

Frankly, I'd never given a lot of thought to bobby pins until my current heroine started having trouble keeping her thin hair in place. Suddenly I found myself wondering, gee, did they even have bobby pins then? Just another conundrum about the little details we face when we write historical stories.

I'll be excited to introduce my post-WWI heroine to you with the thin and newly bobbed hair. Her story will release next January (2024) in a novel titled Polly. She is the first in the Apron Strings series of heroines connected together over the decades by a single recipe book.

In the meantime, I hope you'll add my other 1920s series, Echoes of the Heart, to your book list beginning with The Deepest Sigh. Below are the opening lines. 

God bless, and happy reading!

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WHY COULD HOUSEWIVES OF THE 1920S BEGIN TO WORK OUTSIDE THE HOME?

ANNE GREENE here. I’m writing a book with the working title DESPITE ALL ODDS set in the 1920s. I think you will be as interested as I am in life during the 1920s. So, here are some of the modern new inventions that made life easier for the housewife and gave her the ability to leave backbreaking chores inside the home to find a career outside.

 

Win a book: see below.

 

The 1920s was a decade of inventions. 

With electricity now available, inventors introduced new machines to the US. The electric washing machine saved hours of work for the housewife.

 

The electric refrigerator made food preparation so much easier.

 

The pop-up toaster, invented in the 1920s, was too expensive until the 1930s when sliced bread sold in grocery stores. Sliced bread in wrappers finally appeared in 1928.

 

In 1924 people went to stores and movie theaters to cool off with the new air-conditioners.

 

The hair dryer became available in beauty shops.

In 1927 the refrigerator, though expensive and dangerous because of the type of coolant used grew popular.

 

With the new bobs, bob pins came on the market.

 

The Band-aid appeared and the Boy Scouts made them popular.

 

Insulin started saving lives. Diabetes was no longer a death sentence. Penicillin was discovered and used as a cure for eye infections.

 

Radio was introduced and instantly became a necessity.  Car Radio for the dashboard was invented.

The Traffic Signal, looking exactly as it does today, made an appearance.

 

The Electric vacuum cleaner saved the housewife hours of hard labor. 

 

 

What invention do you think helped the housewife the most?

 

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Leave a comment below and win an autographed copy of Anne's latest book, MARRIAGE BY ARRANGEMENT

 

 

ANNE GREENE delights in writing about wounded heroes and gutsy heroines. Her second novel, a Scottish historical, Masquerade Marriage, won three prestigious book awards. The sequel Marriage By Arrangement released November, 2013.  A Texas Christmas Mystery also won awards. Anne’s highest hope is that her stories transport the reader to awesome new worlds and touch hearts to seek a deeper spiritual relationship with the Lord Jesus. Anne makes her home in McKinney, Texas. She loves to talk with her readers. Buy Anne’s books at http://www.Amazon.com. Talk with Anne on twitter at @TheAnneGreene. View Anne’s books, travel pictures and art work at http://www.AnneGreeneAuthor.com.

Learn more about Anne as well as get tips on writing award-winning books at http://www.anneswritingupdates.blogspot.com. Every two weeks prizes awarded.