1507 Messer Gherardini commissioned a painting of his wife. It’s still not done. The painter was an inveterate revisor and carried it around for nineteen years daubing at it now and again, and then watching the paint dry. It was in his possession when he died in France as a guest of the King and it passed into the patrimony of that nation. Gherardini never got back the deposit he had paid.
1892 The first automatic telephone exchange went into service in La Porte, Indiana. The public demonstration was greeted with much fanfare, including a brass band and a special train run from Chicago. Guests included power company executives, journalists, entrepreneurs, inventors, and two representatives of the Russian czar. Almon B. Strowger, a local undertaker, conceived and built it. The Strowger switch remains vital to the inner workings of many a telephone. For years afterward some people preferred to call an operator rather than use this new fangled iPhone.
1913 First modern elastic brassiere was patented by wealthy New York socialite born Mary Phelps Jacob. When dressing for yet another ball she rejected the proffered whale bone corset and told her maid, ‘Bring me two of my pocket handkerchiefs and some pink ribbon … and a needle and thread and some pins.’ Together they fashioned the handkerchiefs and ribbon into a simple bra. The elastic came in the next iteration. After the dance she was besieged by other women who wanted to do likewise. She founded the Fashion Form Brassière Company but had little interest in running it and sold it for a pittance. She was already wealthy and stayed that way.
1930 The mile long Detroit-Windsor tunnel opened. An engineering wonder at the time because it had to be very deep to get under the lake bed. At four dollars the toll was about half the cost of using a ferry to transport an automobile across the lake.
1953 Clarence Birdseye marketed frozen peas, heralding the frozen foods advent. The first test marketing was in Springfield Massachusetts as pictured below. Birdseye was an entrepreneur as a child and naturalist from birth. His family and friends called him Bugs because of his fascination with creatures great and small. When he left college he worked for the United States Department of Agriculture where he saw great bounty in food go to waste, and in the west and northwest he experienced freezing temperatures. These two came together in his mind. In time he sold the company for a mint and used the money to continue experimenting on food preservation to the end of his days.
Skip to content