Vesta Stoudt

Last updated • 1 min readFrom Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia
Vesta Stoudt
BornApril 13, 1891
Prophetstown, Illinois, US
DiedMay 9, 1966
Prophetstown, Illinois, US
OccupationFactory worker
Known for Duct tape invention

Vesta Oral Stoudt (April 13, 1891 – May 9, 1966) was a factory worker during the Second World War famous for her letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt suggesting the use of adhesive tape to improve ammunition boxes.

Contents

Invention of modern duct tape

During the Second World War, Stoudt worked at the Green River Ordnance Plant in Amboy, Illinois packing ammunition boxes. [1] She recognized that the way ammunition boxes were sealed made them difficult for soldiers to open in a hurry. [2] [3] She suggested this idea to her bosses at work, who did not implement the change. [4] On February 10, 1943, she wrote a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt explaining the problem and offering a solution:

I suggested we use a strong cloth tape to close seams, and make tab of same. It worked fine, I showed it to different government inspectors they said it was all right, but I could never get them to change tape.

Vesta Stoudt to President Roosevelt, February 10, 1943 [4]

Roosevelt approved of the idea which he sent to the War Production Board, who wrote back to Stoudt:

The Ordnance Department has not only pressed this idea...but has now informed us that the change you have recommended has been approved with the comment that the idea is of exceptional merit.

War Production Board's Ordnance Department to Vesta Stoudt, March 26, 1943, [5]

They tasked the Revolite Corporation to create the product. Stoudt received the Chicago Tribune 's War Worker Award for her idea and for her persistence with it. She is credited by Johnson and Johnson (the parent company of Revolite Corporation at the time) for the invention of duct tape. [6]

Personal life

Vesta Wildman married Harry Issac Stoudt on 19 October 1910 in Morgan, Illinois. They went on to have eight children.

Vesta O. Stoudt died age 75 at the Whiteside County Nursing Home in Prophetstown, on May 9, 1966, following a long illness.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Franklin D. Roosevelt</span> President of the United States from 1933 to 1945

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, commonly known by his initials FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. The longest-serving U.S. president, he is the only president to have served more than two terms. His initial two terms were centered on combating the Great Depression, while his third and fourth saw him shift his focus to America's involvement in World War II.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Duct tape</span> Type of adhesive tape

Duct tape is cloth- or scrim-backed pressure-sensitive tape, often coated with polyethylene. There are a variety of constructions using different backings and adhesives, and the term "duct tape" has been genericized to refer to different cloth tapes with differing purposes. A variation is heat-resistant foil tape useful for sealing heating and cooling ducts, produced because the adhesive on standard duct tape fails and the synthetic fabric reinforcement mesh deteriorates when used on heating ducts.

Vesta may refer to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amboy, Illinois</span> City in Illinois, United States

Amboy is a city in Lee County, Illinois, United States, along the Green River. The population was 2,500 at the 2010 census. The chain of Carson Pirie Scott & Co. began in Amboy when Samuel Carson opened his first dry goods store there in 1854. The Christian denomination Community of Christ, formerly the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, had a general conference in Amboy on April 6, 1860, at which time Joseph Smith III reorganized the church founded by his father Joseph Smith, Jr.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">White House Chief of Staff</span> U.S. presidential appointee

The White House Chief of Staff is the head of the Executive Office of the President of the United States, a cabinet position in the federal government of the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anna Roosevelt Halsted</span> American writer and socialite (1906–1975)

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt Halsted was an American writer who worked as a newspaper editor and in public relations. Halsted also wrote two children's books published in the 1930s. She was the eldest child and only daughter of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Halsted assisted her father as his advisor during World War II.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frances Perkins</span> American politician and workers rights advocate (1880–1965)

Frances Perkins was an American workers-rights advocate who served as the fourth United States Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945, the longest serving in that position. A member of the Democratic Party, Perkins was the first woman ever to serve in a presidential cabinet. As a loyal supporter of her longtime friend, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, she helped make labor issues important in the emerging New Deal coalition. She was one of two Roosevelt cabinet members to remain in office for his entire presidency.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">First Quebec Conference</span> 1943 Allied conference during World War II

The First Quebec Conference, codenamed Quadrant, was a highly secret military conference held during World War II by the governments of the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States. It took place in Quebec City on August 17–24, 1943, at both the Citadelle and the Château Frontenac. The chief representatives were Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt, hosted by the Canadian prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Wood Johnson II</span> American politician

Robert Wood "General" Johnson II was an American businessman. He was one of the sons of Robert Wood Johnson I, the co-founder of Johnson & Johnson. He turned the family business into one of the world's largest healthcare corporations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd</span> American socialite (1891–1948)

Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd was an American woman who sustained a long affair with US president Franklin D. Roosevelt.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WAVES</span> Womens branch of the United States Naval Reserve during World War II

United States Naval Reserve (Women's Reserve), better known as the WAVES (for Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service), was the women's branch of the United States Naval Reserve during World War II. It was established on July 21, 1942, by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on July 30. This authorized the U.S. Navy to accept women into the Naval Reserve as commissioned officers and at the enlisted level, effective for the duration of the war plus six months. The purpose of the law was to release officers and men for sea duty and replace them with women in shore establishments. Mildred H. McAfee, on leave as president of Wellesley College, became the first director of the WAVES. She was commissioned a lieutenant commander on August 3, 1942, and later promoted to commander and then to captain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Doris Kearns Goodwin</span> American biographer and historian (born 1943)

Doris Helen Kearns Goodwin is an American biographer, historian, former sports journalist, and political commentator. She has written biographies of numerous U.S. presidents. Goodwin's book No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1995. Goodwin produced the American television miniseries Washington. She was also executive producer of "Abraham Lincoln,” a 2022 docudrama on the History Channel. This latter series was based on Goodwin's Leadership in Turbulent Times.

The Green River Ordnance Plant, also known as the Green River Arsenal, was a large munitions factory complex between Dixon and Amboy in Lee County, Illinois.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sara Roosevelt</span> Mother of Franklin D. Roosevelt (1854–1941)

Sara Ann Roosevelt was the second wife of James Roosevelt I, the mother of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32nd President of the United States and her only child, and subsequently the mother-in-law of Eleanor Roosevelt.

In the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the Foreign Economic Administration (FEA) was formed on September 25, 1943 to relieve friction between US agencies operating abroad.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anna Rosenberg</span> American public servant (1899–1983)

Anna Marie Rosenberg, later Anna Rosenberg Hoffman, was an American public official, advisor to four presidents, and businesswoman. During the early 1950s, she served as an Assistant Secretary of Defense, becoming the then-highest ranking woman in the history of the Department of Defense. Among the landmark initiatives she was involved in during her public service career were the GI Bill and the desegregation of the U.S. military. Upon her death, The New York Times called Rosenberg "one of the most influential women in the country's public affairs for a quarter of a century."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Western Cartridge Company</span> Manufacturer of ammunition

The Western Cartridge Company was an American manufacturer of small arms and ammunition formerly based in East Alton, Illinois. Founded in 1898, it was the forerunner of the Olin Corporation, formed in 1944, of which Western was absorbed into. Prior to that, Western acquired the Winchester Repeating Arms Company after Winchester went into receivership in 1931. The two would merge in 1935 to form Winchester-Western.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Margaret Suckley</span> American archivist

Margaret Lynch Suckley was a sixth cousin, intimate friend, and confidante of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, as well as an archivist for the first American presidential library. She was one of four women at the Little White House with Roosevelt in Warm Springs, Georgia, when he died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1945.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eleanor Roosevelt</span> American diplomat and activist (1884–1962)

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was an American political figure, diplomat, and activist. She was the first lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945, during her husband Franklin D. Roosevelt's four terms as president, making her the longest-serving first lady of the United States. Through her travels, public engagement, and advocacy, she largely redefined the role of first lady. Roosevelt then served as a United States Delegate to the United Nations General Assembly from 1945 to 1952, and took a leading role in designing the text and gaining international support for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In 1948, she was given a standing ovation by the assembly upon their adoption of the declaration. President Harry S. Truman later called her the "First Lady of the World" in tribute to her human rights achievements.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">February 1943</span> Month of 1943

The following events occurred in February 1943:

References

  1. "The Rad Scientist – Duct Tape". Madison and Cathedral. 2014-12-13. Retrieved 2019-01-20.
  2. "SPECIAL EXTRA HISTORY OF DUCT TAPE UPDATE Issue". The Duct Tape Guys. 1943-10-24. Retrieved 2019-01-20.
  3. Steven, Emma (2018-02-09). "Meet the Determined Woman Who Invented Duct Tape". Content Lab - U.S. Retrieved 2019-01-20.
  4. 1 2 Gurowitz, Margaret (Jun 21, 2012). "The Woman Who Invented Duct Tape". Kilmer House. Retrieved 2019-01-20.
  5. GIULIANI, DAVID (2014-04-21). "Sterling woman credited with idea for stronger tape". SaukValley.com. Retrieved 2019-01-20.
  6. "Meet the determined woman who invented duct tape". 9 February 2018.