Question: What was the zipper originally created for?
Answer: The “clasp-locker,” as the zipper was originally called when patented in 1893, was designed to replace the lengthy shoelaces men and women used in their boots. Inventor Whitcomb Judson displayed his clasp-locker at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893 as a way to zip-up boots—and the public largely ignored it. Refined decades later into the more streamlined zipper we know today, the U.S. army used it in its gear and clothing during World War I, and it became commonplace by the 1920s.
