Zip fastener
In 1851, Elias Howe received a patent for an "Automatic, Continuous Clothing Closure", a type of drawstring which used some of the "zip" principle, and in 1893 Whitcomb Judson invented and manufactured a hook-and-eye shoe fastener with a system even more similar in idea to a zip. The zip in its current form was developed from that by Gideon Sundback, a Swedish-American electrical engineer. Sundback then devised the machinery to manufacture the device efficiently, and went on to base zip production in his factory in Ontario, Canada. Sundback is said to have referred to himself as Swedish by birth, American by adoption, and Canadian by preference.
