The Talon Zipper Company

The Talon zipper factory in the city of Erie was located in the 900 block of West 26th Street, between Plum and Cascade streets. The factory was at its height of production during World War II manufacturing zippers for flight suits worn by the pilots who served during the war. The factory in Erie was a branch of the main factory that was located in the city of Meadville, in Crawford county. After the war, as business declined, the factory was closed in 1960, following the closing of the main factory in Meadville.

Though Talon survived, as a result of a merger with foreign interests, the business no longer exists in Erie or Crawford county.

Talon Zipper was company founded in 1893, originally as the Universal Fastener Company in Chicago, Illinois. Later, they moved to Hoboken, New Jersey, before finally settling in Meadville, Pennsylvania. It was in Meadville that the zipper as we know it was invented, until then they were producing hookless fasteners for boots and shoes. Meadville is where the zipper was mass-produced beginning in the 1920s. The high demand for zippers created favorable conditions for the Talon Company; thus, became Meadville’s most crucial industry.

The issue of where, how, and when the zipper was first invented has been steeped in controversy. Whitcomb Judson was the first to come up with the idea of a metal zipper in 1893, which he referred to as a clasp locker. Judson’s clasp locker consisted of a complicated hook-and-eye fastener that was used to open shoes. Judson designed this device for the Automatic Hook and Eye Company, but his design could not be mass produced easily and had the unfortunate habit of popping open unexpectedly. Swedish inventor Gideon Sundback created a design that used a slider and two rows of metal teeth. Sundback’s creation was more durable than Judson’s, and was much cheaper to produce. Because of these improvements, Gideon Sundback holds the patent for the zip fastener. As the patent holder, Sundback is commonly acknowledged as the inventor of the zipper. In 1906 Lewis Walker, who was excited about Sundback’s new design, took over control of the Automatic Hook and Eye Company, renaming it the Hookless Fastener Company.

Gideon Sundback was the first person to invent a relatively cheap, easy to produce zipper. Walker made the crucial decision to move manufacturing operations to Meadville, citing a wish to locate in a community where there is a minimum of labor troubles, where there are ample express facilities, and where the members of the concern and its employees may enjoy the comforts and advantages of pure air and water, good schools and wholesome influences. By November 1913 the newly named company was producing a thousand zip fasteners a day.

Although Hookless was capable of producing mass quantities of the fasteners they initially lacked the outlets to sell their product. In 1921 B.F. Goodrich Rubber designed galoshes that would use Sundback’s fasteners. The boots, which were originally going to be named the Mystik Boot, were renamed the Zipper when Goodrich employees reported that the company’s president showed boundless enthusiasm for the new design. The term zipper, initially the name of just the boot, eventually came to signify Sundback’s invention as well. Even though the boots were popular and helped Hookless turn a profit they were the only major product affiliated with the fastener company.

In 1937 some major changes took place. First, the Hookless Fastener Company changed its name to Talon, Inc. The name change was advantageous because it could be printed on the zipper tab itself, and it was easier for potential buyers to remember. In the same year, the zipper began to gain notoriety for its use on clothing. The Prince of Wales notably wore a suit with a zipper and more clothing designers began to incorporate zippers into their fashions. With new colors available, zippers became a must-have item on clothing of all types.

Fortunately, for the clothing industry, Talon was located in an ideal city to meet the demands of the newest fashion fad. In a decade when most other companies were firing workers and struggling to survive, Talon’s Meadville factories had to go to twenty-four hour production to meet demand. At the height of the zipper’s popularity the Meadville zipper factories employed 5,000 workers — out of a town with fewer than 19,000 people.

Talon had its best year ever in 1941, when demand for the zipper earned the company thirty-one million dollars in sales. Months later, wartime shortages dried up the supplies of copper alloy that the Meadville factories needed for their machines. For Meadville, the boom was over. Talon’s Meadville operations never recovered. Shortly after 1960 the struggling company was purchased by Textron, Inc., but then was re-sold in 1968. The Meadville managers, who tried to turn the company around, eventually were forced to sell the zipper company to the British textile company Coats Viyella PLC in 1991.

While Talon fruitlessly attempted to revive its pre-war boom Japanese manufacturer YKK capitalized on a worldwide demand for zippers. YKK opened a plant in New Zealand in 1959, followed in successive years by plants in the U.S., Malaysia, Thailand, Costa Rica and other textile-producing countries, taking full advantage of the cheaper labor offered by many of these nations. By constructing plants closer to areas of consumption, YKK provided itself with a more responsive distribution network guaranteeing timelier product delivery. By 1991 YKK had an international presence in forty-two countries with a mere thirty-percent of its 1.25 million miles of zippers being produced for domestic consumers. YKK surpassed Talon for the American market sometime in the 1980s, forcing Talon at the time to forgo the zipper business.

Talon’s rise and fall mirrored that of Meadville as well. The loss of manufacturing during the late 1970s and early 1980s created an unemployment rate just under twenty percent. The loss of Talon for good in 1993 left deep economic wounds. Today, nothing remains of Talon in Meadville. However, as a result of the need in manufacturing for the close tolerances, extant in tool and die making, a cottage industry of tool and die shops was established, which resulted in Meadville being nicknamed Tool City, with more tool shops per capita than any place else in the United States.

Gideon Sundback was the first person to invent a relatively cheap, easy to produce zipper.

Gideon Sundback’s patent drawings for the modern zipper.

Talon Zipper Factory in the City of Erie (year unknown)

George C. Blickensderfer

Born in Erie, October 13, 1850, George Canfield Blickensderfer, early in his life, at the age of 10, showed himself to be an inventor by nature when he attempted to build a flying machine, but like most childhood projects his efforts were unsuccessful. George spent his childhood on his father's farm near Erie, and was educated at the Home Academy. His first business training was obtained in the dry goods business in Erie, where he remained six years.

When George left Erie, he became a traveling salesman for a large New York firm, his trips took him through the middle and western states. Through his visits to the large department and dry goods stores his attention was directed to the somewhat crude systems of cash and package carriers then in use. Seeing room for plenty of improvement, George began developing his first invention — a store carrier service that could transport packages and money from different store counters to a central packing station and back.

His invention succeeded so well that in 1884 he resigned his position as a traveling salesman in order to devote his entire time to it. Patents were obtained, and a company was organized known as the United Store Service Company, with George as general manager. He was able to install his system in many of the largest stores in the country, and the enterprise proved a decided success.

George spent much of his time traveling by train while pursuing his conveyor business. It was during his travels that he realized the need for a portable typewriter so that businessmen could type letters and invoices while traveling on the train or while in their hotel.

In order to give his undivided attention to the typewriter business he offered for sale his interest in the store service system. The negotiations finally resulted in a consolidation of companies, which purchased all his interest. The sale made George a rich man, and he was thus enabled to carry out his plans for the development of the portable typewriter.

Now in his 30s, George and his first wife, Nellie, moved to Stamford, Connecticut, where he built his first typewriter in a little workshop behind their house on 88 Bedford Street. George's first patent for a typewriter, in 1889, was his basic invention for a type-wheel machine operated from a keyboard. Such a design eliminated the numerous type-bars and their mechanisms that connected them to each key — the first portable typewriter, weighing about one-fifth the weight of contemporary typewriters, with only 250 parts: one 10th of the number used in other machines.

To manufacture and sale his new typewriter a company was formed, the Blickensderfer Manufacturing Company, of which George was made President and Manager. The company continued to improve and experiment on his new typewriter for four years, during which time $250,000 was spent in building and equipping the plant for the manufacture of the different models.

George developed several models of his typewriter before he considered it ready for production. No examples of the first four models are known to exist, but Model 5 was built by the thousands. The machine was presented in public for the first time at the 1893 Columbian Exhibition in Chicago, where George's attractive red-headed secretary, May Munson, drew large crowds as she typed away at great speed on this wonderful little machine with its fascinating type-wheel. Other typewriters companies were reported to have closed their booths early, as George brought in hundreds of orders, including his first export deals.

At the World's Fair in 1895 the Judges gave his typewriter in their award, the strongest endorsement of any exhibit, characterizing it as "an extraordinary advancement in the act, scope, speed, operation and manufacture of typewriting machines."

The Model 5, remains without doubt the most remarkable typewriter ever built. Among its many virtues were that one could actually see what one was writing. It employed an innovatory DHIATENSOR keyboard format, titled by Blickensderfer Scientific and Ideal. The model 5, was so good that 35 years after it first appeared, Remington bought the tools and dies and marketed through Sears an exact replica. Think of any other machine to which that sort of tribute has ever been made.

The export market was important for the Blickensderfer typewriter company from the very beginning. The machine was sold to England, Germany, France, New Zealand, and Canada to begin with. One of the strong points was the interchangeable type-wheel that was produced for many different languages, including Slovak, Armenian, and Hebrew. By 1896 he was producing some 10,000 machines per year.

When World War I begun it was a heavy blow for the Blickensderfer export market and the company almost went under. However, George invented a device to feed cartridges into machine guns along a belt. Again, he signed a tremendous export order and sold the device to the French government for several years.

In 1901 George invented the first electric typewriter, a breathtaking electric typewriter, that in functionality and speed was not matched until IBM introduced the famous typeball (golf ball model) half a century later. Although the machine was advertised, sales never got off the ground and only three samples of the Electric are known to exist today.

During his life, George married, Nellie Irene Smith in 1879, they had one child, Elsie Canfield Blickensderfer (1882-1897). Nellie died in 1915. A year later, in 1916, George married his second wife, Katherine, who was soon to be widowed when George, a year later, died after a lengthy illness in August 15, 1917.

George is buried in the Blickensderfer Mausoleum, which sets on a knoll at the southwestern end of Woodland Cemetery in Stamford, Connecticut. It is an impressive structure of gray granite, with two richly decorated cast bronze entrance doors that are flanked by large support columns. At one time, leaded stain glass adorned the doors and rear window, but this had been broken out by vandals. There is a thirty-foot walkway leading up to the mausoleum.

A piece of interesting trivia: Mark Twain purchased a Remington and became the first author to submit a typewritten book manuscript.

George C. Blickensderfer.

May Munson.

The first portable typewriter.

The first electric typewriter.

A Blickensderfer advertisement.

Blickensderfer stock certificate.

Dr. Carter: Pharmacist and Physician

When it was a small town, in the middle of the nineteenth century, Dr. John Samuel Carter, a graduate of Scotland’s University of Edinburgh, was engaged in the practice of medicine in Erie, after serving in the Union Army’s medical Corps during the Civil War. He was the proprietor of a pharmacy, at 21 North Park Row, while maintaining his physician office within the building next door, where he would see his patients. Like nearly all general practitioners of his time, he had his favorite prescriptions, which he had found effective, and which he prescribed when the occasion required it — Dr. Carter was one of the first Doctors in the country to hold a pharmacological patent. Many of his patients suffered from the results of imprudent eating and the accompanying disarrangement of the working of the alimentary canal: which was polite society’s description of constipation, the common national ailment at the time.

Carter's Little Liver Pills was the Doctor’s creation and prescription for constipation, a laxative that predated other forms of bisacodyl that would be available later. For these sufferers he prescribed, a simple formula composed of efficacious vegetable drugs, and directed that it should be prepared in the form of pills. The patients then would leave the doctor's office into the adjoining pharmacy, where the clerk in charge filled the prescriptions in the old-fashioned way, rolling the pills by hand. Gradually the fame of Dr. Carter's remedy became widespread. People who had obtained relief recommended the treatment to their friends, who came to the drugstore and asked for some of Dr. Carter's little liver pills. Hence the origin of this famous remedy’s name, which was given by its users.

Carter's Little Liver Pills were first advertised by a sign placed in Dr. John Samuel Carter's pharmacy window, which displayed the now famous Black Crow trademark. The pills' popularity soon spread beyond the capacity of the pharmacy's back room; and by 1859, the building housing the pharmacy was expanded to a four-floor plant to produce the liver pills. In 1880 Brent Good & Company, manufacturers of proprietary medicines, purchased the rights of Carter's Little Liver Pills from Dr. Carter, and subsequently the Carter Medicine Company was founded, with Mr. Brent Good as its head. Although Dr. Carter also had developed other products, it was the sales of the liver pills that led New York businessman Brent Good to suggest a merger that created a nationwide business. Carter Medicine Company in its first year of business spent a third of its revenues on advertising, and along with all the other start-up expenses, moved the business to New York. Dr. John Samuel Carter died in 1884, and his son, Samuel Carter, took over his position with the newly founded company; Erie’s relationship and connection to the original business faded into history.

Among Dr. Carter’s other creations was Carter’s Smart Weed. It was a tincture of a plant named Smartweed, which despite modern rumors have absolutely nothing to do with marijuana, the plant is also known by the name Bloodwort. The plant is a Stimulant and a diuretic, and in combination with tonics and gum myrrh, it was said to have cured epilepsy. It was more commonly used to treat dysentery, gout, sore mouths, colds and coughs, and when mixed with wheat bran, bowel complaints. It also was used a general antiseptic.

Like most Doctors and Druggist of his time, he most likely had many more creations, but his original Carter's Little Liver Pills still remains his most well known, and in its time, the mostly widely used drug ever created, sold to millions of people throughout America and the world.
 

The second building west of State Street, 21 North Park Row (1890)

Carter’s Liver Pills Advertisement.

Carter’s Liver Pills.

Carter’s Tincture of Smartweed Medicine Bottle.

Fleming Mail Catcher and Deliverer

Invented by Erie native Hugh Neely Fleming, the Fleming Mail Catcher and Deliverer was a much-improved mail catcher used by the railroads to pickup and/or deliver bundles of mail without the need for the train to stop.

Hugh Neely Fleming was the secretary of the Perry Iron Works of Erie.

There were 10,520 railroad stations in the United States at which mails was taken onto the trains by means of mail catchers and cranes while the train was in motion, the bag of mail to be delivered, thrown from the car to the ground or platform. By this method the mail was often damaged or destroyed, and the safety of persons standing near was endangered. The need of some better system of exchanging mails at such points was apparent. In 1895 the Department advertised for devices for this purpose. Of the thirty-five models submitted, four were selected as the most meritorious, and in 1896 the various railroad companies were requested to adopt some one of the four. Subsequently questions arose as to the validity of certain patents involved and delays occurred. After additional tests, the Department selected two of the four devices as being satisfactory and presented to the railroad companies the choice of adopting either of them.

The two devices which had proven themselves — after additional tests — to be satisfactory to the Department to be adopted with the least possible delay were the Fleming mail catcher and deliverer — Erie, Pa.; and the Ayars mail catcher and deliverer — Chester, Pa. The railway companies were free to select either device or a combination of the two devices, as they preferred. By 1897, the Fleming Mail Catcher and Deliverer had outsold its competitor, replacing every mail catcher and crane in the United States.

The photo is one of Fleming's Mail Catchers used by the railroad.

John Hicks

John S. Hicks was a local businessman and inventor who lived in Erie. He was born in Virginia on February 14, 1845. He came to Erie around 1878, and operated a business at 1406 Turnpike Street for about three years. John later purchased a three-story building at 1216 State Street, which housed his ice cream manufacturing business and retail store in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

During the summer season his specialty was the furnishing of ice cream for his parlors, and for supplying orders for private families, parties, picnic and church festivals. Hicks was granted a U.S. patent, number 801,379 on October 10, 1905, for an Ice-cream Mold.

Hicks was chosen by the Governor of Pennsylvania to be a delegate to the Illinois National Half-Century Exposition held in Chicago in 1915 to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation.

After retiring from the ice cream business around 1910 he passed away on November 13, 1933. He is buried in Erie Cemetery. His building at 1216 State Street was demolished about thirty years after he died.

John Hicks.