|
|
|
|
Ear Muffs
Mon Mar 10, 2003
Listen in RealAudio 
Hi, I'm Bryan Yeaton for The Weather Notebook. Our story starts one cold December day in 1873.
A young Farmington, Maine lad is skating on the local pond. But, there's a problem: his ears
are freezing!
Unfortunately, Chester Greenwood's ears itched fiercely under the everyday wool muffler most
kids wrapped about their heads. But, Chester had an idea.
It required bending thin wire into loops and cutting soft, insulating pads -- combining beaver
fur outside with black velvet inside -- to cover the ears. He then got his grandmother to
stitch it together.
Other skaters teased Chester when he returned to the pond with the strange device but his ears
were warm! Chester called his invention "The Greenwood Champion Ear Protector."
After the initial snickering subsided, earmuffs became a hit all over the Farmington area, and
kids pestered their folks to make them. The following winter, at the tender age of 16, Chester
Greenwood began mass producing his ear protectors.
Despite consumer enthusiasm over the initial design, Chester himself wasn't satisfied. He
changed the headband wire to a flat, narrow piece of spring steel to which he added a tiny
hinge to each side. Now, the muffs fit snugly against the ears. Using the springy steel also
allowed the earmuffs to coil flat, easily fitting into a pocket. In 1877, the US Patent Office
awarded a patent for "Ear Mufflers" to the 18-year-old Greenwood.
With those improvements, the invention born of necessity took off. To meet the demand, Chester
opened Greenwood's Ear Protector Factory, which made Farmington, Maine, "Earmuff Capital of
the World."
The Weather Notebook is funded by grants from Subaru of America and The National Science
Foundation.
|
|
