“The military called the waterproof, cloth-backed, green tape 100-mile-per-hour tape because they could use it to fix anything, from fenders on jeeps to boots.” — Margaret Gurowitz, Chief Historian, Johnson & Johnson
“The iconic tape was invented by an Illinois mom named Vesta Stoudt who wanted to save soldiers’ lives in World War II. The year was 1943 and Stoudt, who had two sons serving in the U.S. Navy, was working at the Green River Ordnance Plant near Amboy, Illinois.” – jnj.com/our-heritage/vesta-stoudt-the-woman-who-invented-duct-tape
Stoudt was working at Johnson & Johnson where she was packing boxes and boxes of ammunition that would be sent to soldiers around the world during WWII. She realized that far from paper covering with wax coating, soldiers needed ammunition that was more easily accessible and in reliable condition. Duct Tape has been with us ever since.
The number of uses for duct tape are phenomenal. Duct work itself, in houses and buildings, is built around holding things together for years and years. Duct tape is used to keep cars with broken windows secure, torn or tattered clothing together and signs for local yard and garage sales. It’s nice to have around for many sticky situations.
In video production, duct tape is essential. It’s used to keep cables together and often throw rugs of different kinds get used to cover the cables and electrical lines . . . and they need to be taped down as well so people don’t trip over them. Rolls of duct tape are always part of the equipment for almost any video production from weddings to funerals.
We’ve seen duct tape keeping both hard and soft covers on books and magazines, keeping worn out shoes together, plugging leaks in boats and innertubes, wrapped around gun stocks to keep rifles together, and if you’re going camping, you’ll find many different ways to use it from repairing tents to securing sticks and tree limbs together for marshmallow roasting over a camp fire.
“Consumers buy an estimated $100 million of it a year, and use it for purposes never foreseen by its creators.” – money.cnn.com/2003/02/12/news/companies/ducttape/
Lovely article, Don and Peg! I never knew the story behind, but it is obviously one of those wonderful inventions that come from dreadful events. I came across the term duct tape at a trade fair for craft supplies in Europe in the early 2000s for the first time. It was very decorative and also called “duck tape”. Of course, we had had similar over there long before that – but it never occurred to me to look into the story. The history of why was invented what is such an interesting and exciting field. It makes one more mindful of what we are taking for granted …