- Clothes Hanger
- Rotary Can Opener
- Mail Order Catalog
- Earmuffs
Clothes Hanger
Until the 1800’s, clothes were always stored in chests or drawers. O.A. North invented the clothes hanger in 1869 to store clothes without getting them wrinkled. Clothes can be stored in small spaces without being wrinkled. There is not much space in an apartment building, so the clothes hanger became helpful there. Chests, if not chests of drawers as well, are becoming obsolete due to the rise of the clothes hanger. Walk-in closets are becoming more common to middle class people these days.
Rotary Can Opener
After canning was invented by Nicholas Appert, the tin can came along to store the food in. The only problem was that the tin can was hard to open. At first a hammer and chisel was required. Then can openers like the one in the picture below began to appear.
Out of this, William Lyman invented the popular rotary can opener, pictured below:
You clamp the can opener on the can, turn the handle, and the blade does the rest. It makes it very simple to open the can. Canned goods became more popular. People eat canned goods more.
Mail Order Catalog
If you were far away from the city, you didn’t have much choice of where you bought your items. There was a general store in town, but not much other choice. General stores typically had high prices and low quality. But it was the only place to get what you couldn’t make yourself. Montgomery Ward invented t he mail-order catalog to solve this problem. The mail order catalog provides a large selection, and Ward offered a money-back guarantee. The prices were typically cheaper than at the general store. Eventually, the mail order catalog would give rise to the mall, department stores, discount stores, and Amazon. Amazon is really an online mail-order catalog. The mail order catalog was my favorite invention this week because it brought good quality items to rural and farming communities.
Earmuffs
Chester Greenwood lived in Maine at age 15. He loved to ice skate. The trouble was, he couldn’t wear a wool hat, because of some allergy or something like that. He took wire, coiled it up, and had his grandma sew on some beaver fur on. There are two kinds of earmuffs nowadays. Noise protection earmuffs, and the cold protection earmuffs Greenwood originally invented. Greenwood set up a factory and produced them. They became popular. Today they are very popular in both noise muffling and heat-trapping.