Otto Fredrik Gideon Sundbäck was born on April 24, 1880, and died on June 21, 1954. He was a Swedish-American electrical engineer who is best known for inventing the zipper.
Background
Otto Fredrik Gideon Sundbäck was born on Sonarp farm in Ödestugu Parish, Jönköping County, Småland, Sweden. He was the son of Jonas Otto Magnusson Sundbäck, a successful farmer, and his wife Kristina Karolina Klasdotter. After completing his studies in Sweden, Sundbäck moved to Germany, where he attended a technical school in Bingen am Rhein and graduated in engineering in 1903. In 1905, he moved to the United States.
Personal
On June 5, 1909, Sundbäck married (Naomi) Elvira Aronson, the daughter of Peter Aron Aronsson, a mechanic and inventor from Sweden, in Hoboken, New Jersey. [sv]
Legacy
In 2006, Sundbäck was honored by the National Inventors Hall of Fame for his work on creating the zipper. On April 24, 2012, which was the 132nd anniversary of his birth, Google changed its homepage logo to a Google Doodle of a zipper. When opened, the doodle showed the results of a search for Gideon Sundbäck.
Other sources
- Henry Petroski (1992) authored The Evolution of Useful Things (Vintage Books) ISBN 0-679-74039-2
- Robert Friedel (1996) authored Zipper: An Exploration in Novelty (W. W. Norton and Company) ISBN 0-393-31365-4