It’s amazing how a person can change the climate of a town or city forever. When Gideon Sundback was brought into the fold at what would become Talon, the Swedish born and German trained electrical engineer may have seen a challenge he couldn’t pass up, but by no means could have dreamed his work would change Meadville forever. After finding two chairs at the museum donated by Marguerite Titus Sundback, wife of zipper fame, we’d like to share a small taste of their lives.

 

Gideon Sundback moved to the United States from Sweden at the age of 24, almost immediately taking a job at Westinghouse in Pittsburgh. He was quickly sought out by the Automatic Hook and Eye Company (predecessor to Talon) in Hoboken, New Jersey. He took on the project of trying to improve upon existing zipper designs in 1906, giving speculation as to the reason for his interest a mix between the desire of a challenge and the appeal of his employer’s daughter, Elvira Aronson. Sundback and Aronson were married in 1909. Sundback moved to New Jersey and began work on improving the C-curity which after a year on the market was beginning to reveal problems already.

 

Sundback was determined and with new interest from Lewis Walker who had began to drift from the failing company, in 1913 Walker purchased the company and assets for $50,000 and tied his fate to it completely- moving it to Meadville Pennsylvania.

 

Upon the design of Sundback’s Hookless #2, the zipper in Meadville became a permanent staple and with it the fame of Walker, Sundback, and the rest of the Hookless Fastener Company in Meadville, PA. The company was eventually renamed Talon and its fame continued for decades- locally to this day.

 

Many of our readers may have worked for Talon Zipper and some may have been fortunate enough to know Sundback, who remarried Marguerite in 1916 after his first wife’s death in 1911. Their legacy lives on at the museum in the form of Marguerite’s leadership there in the Baldwin-Reynolds House’s early years as well as two French styled chairs in the library. Those chairs are permanent fixtures in our exhibits, just as their former owners will forever remain permanent fixtures in our fair city.