The Surprising Origins of 6 Everyday Objects

Air Conditioning Came From a New York Printing Press

Air conditioning has become a necessity for living and working comfortably in increasingly hot temperatures, but the AC unit actually originated as a way to fix a faltering printing press. In 1902, an engineer named Willis Carrier was working at Buffalo, New York’s Sackett-Wilhelms Lithographing and Publishing Company. He was tasked with finding a solution to control the humidity levels in the plant, which were wreaking havoc on paper and ink quality. His solution, known as the Apparatus for Treating Air, marked the birth of modern air conditioning.

Carrier's system consisted of steam coils and an industrial fan. The cold water in the coils produced excess condensation, which would be blown out of the room to lower humidity and cool the air. It not only solved the printing problem, but also inadvertently introduced a revolutionary technology with wide-ranging applications. While other people had experimented with cooling technology before Carrier, his pioneering work impacted architecture, engineering, and everyday life for generations to come.

Early Toothbrushes Were Made With Hog Hair

If there’s one item most people use every single day, it’s a toothbrush. While the humble oral hygiene tool dates back to ancient civilizations, when frayed twigs were used to scrub teeth, the model for bristle brushes as we know them today didn’t emerge until the late 15th century. According to the American Dental Association, a Chinese emperor patented a brush made of stiff, coarse hog hairs set into a handle made of bone or bamboo.

Hog or horse hair toothbrushes continued to be used for hundreds of years; by the late 1700s, they were even being mass-produced. It wasn’t until nylon was invented by a team at DuPont in 1935 that the material — the world’s first fully synthetic fiber — was put into toothbrushes. By 1938, the revolutionary product hit the market. Called Dr. West’s Miracle-Tuft Toothbrush, it wasn’t initially a hit, since early nylon was still far too stiff and abrasive, and brushing one’s teeth still wasn't considered a daily necessity. By the end of World War II, Americans were influenced by the hygiene habits of returning soldiers, and by the time DuPont introduced softer bristles in 1950, a booming industry was born.

The First Barcode Was Drawn in the Sand on Miami Beach

In 1948, Joseph Woodland, an inventor and grad student at the Drexel Institute in Philadelphia, was posed a challenge by a local grocer who wanted to speed up his checkouts. Given the limited technology at the time, how could they automate the process? Woodland was keen on the challenge, and pondered the problem while visiting family in Miami Beach. One day, inspiration struck on the beach. As Woodland drew in the sand with his fingertips, a vision of elongated bars, inspired by Morse code, came to him. Using a black-and-white bull's-eye design, he created a code that machines could decipher, pulling both the product information and its price. While early experiments were successful, it took several more decades of work from many thinkers before an IBM engineer designed the rectangle-shaped barcode we know and use regularly today.

While the barcode was originally created to answer supermarkets’ need for a faster checkout process, its true significance ended up being its ability to offer statistical insight into product sales. This innovation revolutionized market research, offering more detailed insights into consumer preferences, while also making manufacturing more efficient. In 1992, President George H.W. Bush presented Woodland with a National Medal of Technology and Innovation for his contributions to American retail and beyond.

The First Disposable Diapers Were Handmade by a Mom

Baby diapers may not be an everyday object for everyone, but anyone who has used them is keenly aware of their indispensability. While disposable diapers are now a multibillion-dollar global business, they began as a humble homemade project. In 1947, Valerie Hunter Gordon was just about to welcome her third child when she decided she’d had enough of washing soiled cloth diapers. She went on the hunt for single-use options; to her surprise, there were none available, so she sat down and made them herself.

Using her Singer sewing machine at her kitchen table, Gordon fashioned the “Paddi” out of gauze, for absorption, and with an outer nylon layer to hold the absorbent pad in place. (The nylon was actually a piece of parachute she got from her husband’s army base.) Snap closures were added for additional ease. As soon as her friends saw what she was making, they wanted some of their own; Gordon figures she handmade more than 600 of them at that time. The Gordons applied for a patent, and by 1949, they were producing the diapers in partnership with a U.K. company. By the 1960s, an American brand known as Pampers came along, and the Paddis business dwindled.

Kleenex Started as Wartime Gas Mask Filters

Kleenex tissues, like many other new products during the 1920s, were a wartime innovation. With an increased demand for cotton supplies on the battlefield, American paper company Kimberly-Clark developed a cotton substitute made from wood pulp. The company called it cellucotton, and sent it overseas to use as bandages and as filters in gas masks. Following the war, Kimberly-Clark sought civilian applications for its abundance of cellucotton. One employee, Walter Luecke, was inspired by Army nurses who used it as makeshift disposable sanitary napkins. The company initially pushed back, claiming sanitary napkins were “too personal” to produce and market, but it eventually relented, and in 1920, released its first consumer product, the revolutionary Kotex sanitary pads. Shortly after the success of Kotex, the surplus of cellucotton was further adapted into a thinner, softer product that was released in 1924 and marketed as a cold cream and makeup remover: Kleenex.  

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