Getting dressed in the morning will likely mean encountering one of the most baffling devices ever invented and produced — the zipper.

Zippers in clothes, purses or briefcases usually work smoothly, but an occasional struggle with a zipper is miniscule compared to the difficulties that plagued Whitcomb Judson, Lewis Walker and Gideon Sundback as they tried to first manufacture and then mass-produce zippers. It took nearly a half-century for zippers to go from “drawing board,” to “will these things ever work,” to “take-them-for-granted” status.

A zipper is essentially a string of tiny, precision made hooks and eyes that are squeezed tightly into one another by means of a sliding clasp.

Whitcomb Judson invented the zipper in 1891. He tired of tying shoelaces, and he envisioned zippers replacing laces. He patented the zipper in 1893, and took crude samples of zippers to the Columbia Exposition in Chicago that year, hoping to attract investors.

Lewis Walker, an attorney from Meadville, Pennsylvania liked the zipper and foresaw its potential. He and Judson struck a bargain: Walker would finance the zipper-making business, and Judson would develop machinery to mass-produce them. They fancied immense profits from the sale of zippers, and they would share the profits equally.

Judson laboured two years as he tried to devise a technique to quickly and cheaply produce zippers. The best he could do was to create some excellent handmade examples, which worked splendidly in shoes. A means to fabricate zippers in quantity, however, eluded him.

The partners turned to engineers and machinists to create the machine they needed. A decade of experiments and dozens of false starts yielded the machine they sought — or so they thought. It produced just one zipper, however, then failed, and never made another again.

Judson gave up. The false starts, the broken hopes were just too much. As far as he was concerned, the zipper was a lost cause. Walker, on the other hand, was as optimistic about zippers as Judson was frustrated. He was convinced success was just around the corner. Neither Judson nor Walker’s feelings accurately reflected what would prove to be reality.

After Judson bailed out, Walker hired a Swedish engineer, Gideon Sundback to run the plant. A mechanical genius, Sundback needed just a year to build a machine that could make zippers. He even improved the sliding clasp.

Despite mass production, or perhaps because of it, the zippers the machinery produced were unreliable. They jammed easily, and popped open with embarrassing frequency. Garment and shoe manufacturers virtually ignored zippers.

On the verge of bankruptcy, Walker fired all of his employees except Sundback. He went back to practising law to support his family and bolster his business. He managed to hold off creditors, and even convinced a bank to loan him $400 for wire so Sundback could continue the effort to develop a reliable machine-made zipper.

In 1912, Sundback came up with a design improvement for the zipper — fabric flaps on each side of the zipper so it could easily be sewn into garments. The mechanical operation of the new zippers was greatly improved.

Still, there was no overwhelming demand for the new zipper. Garment manufacturers weren't convinced the new zippers were more reliable than previous designs. Zippers were interesting, they conceded, but buttons were surer and safer.

Judson did find a few markets for zippers. In 1917, for instance, a Brooklyn, New York tailor started using them in money belts he made and sold to sailors about to ship out from the nearby naval shipyard.

Navy officials became intrigued with the zipper. Some new flying suits for navy pilots were made with zippers replacing buttons. The pilots liked them. Goodyear Rubber in 1921 came out with new galoshes that used zippers in them. The public loved them. By the mid-1930s, zippers were being sewn into dresses, jackets, pants and evening gowns. Everybody loved them.

The zippers worked smoothly and quickly without binding. They didn’t accidentally pop open. For Walker and Sundback, the zipper drought finally ended.

Millions of miles of zippers are produced annually. Most of them are still used in clothing, but they are used elsewhere, too. Some of the world's largest zippers, for instance, hold together the artificial turf of football and baseball fields. Gigantic zippers are used in the fabric dome of some stadiums. They have been used in aircraft fuel cells, and even huge balloons.

Because zippers are so commonplace, it’s hard to imagine a world sans zippers.

OCTOBER 2011 SENIOR LIVING MAGAZINE VANCOUVER ISLAND