Products
The messages in this area focus on the products which make up modern life. While there could be thousands of these stories, the focus here are products which have meaning beyond the product itself.
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The Steel Guitar
Joseph Kekuku, a native of Hawaii, was a student in a boarding school in Honolulu. He was walking along the road one day with his old Spanish guitar. Seeing a rusty bolt on the ground, he reached down to pick it up. The bolt accidentally hit one of the strings on his...
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Jell-O: Recycled Food
We don’t think of food as being recycled, but that’s the story of one of America’s iconic food products. Gelatin is a protein produced from boiled bones and other animal products left over from other higher-value meat servings. While we might think of gelatin as...
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The Disposable Diaper: A Bottom-Up Solution
Marion Donovan was born in Indiana in 1917. Her mother passed away when she was seven, and she spent much of her young years at the manufacturing plant her father ran. Her father was an inventor and encouraged Marion’s curiosity. Her first invention was a tooth...
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The Death of a Child
Walter Hunt was born in the state of New York in 1796. He had 11 siblings and was educated in a one-room classroom. At the age of 21, he graduated from college with a master’s degree in masonry. Walter was one of the nation’s top inventors, and some of those...
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Bumper Stickers – A Souvenir of Self Expression
Prior to the invention of the automobile, people would attach advertisements to their buggies using notes. When cars came around, the advertisements continued even though cars didn’t have bumpers. It wasn’t until 1927 that bumpers were added to cars to make them...
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Cup Holders
Tort reform advocates often site a lawsuit by Stella Liebeck against McDonalds as an example of a frivolous lawsuit. She suffered third-degree burns when a cup of coffee spilled on her while she was driving. Her car had no cup holders. Stella’s lawsuit was the subject...
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The Ketchup Bottle
Ketchup has long been one of our most popular condiments. The H.J. Heinz Company made ketchup the success it is today, but it was an inventor by the name of Paul Brown who also had a role in making ketchup popular. When Heinz first started producing ketchup, it was...
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The Steel Drum
When French colonialists came to Trinidad and Tobago, they brought with them African slaves. The slaves had used materials available to them as percussion instruments in Africa and continued that practice in the Caribbean. The French were alarmed that the percussion...
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The Electric Guitar
Clarence was born in 1909 in California. He became blind in one eye when he developed a tumor and had his eye removed. He had an early interest in music but switched his interests to electronics. He became a tinkerer when his uncle sent him a box of discarded...
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