Inventors
Drinking
Straws
By
Mary
Bellis
In 1888, Marvin Stone patented the
spiral winding process to manufacture the first paper drinking straws.
Stone was already a manufacturer of paper cigarette holders. His idea was
to make paper drinking straws. Before his straws, beverage drinkers were
using the natural rye grass straws.
Stone made his prototype straw by
winding strips of paper around a pencil and gluing it together. He then
experimented with paraffin-coated manila paper, so the straws would not
become soggy while someone was drinking. Marvin Stone decided the ideal
straw was 8 1/2-inches long with a diameter just wide enough to prevent
things like lemon seeds from being lodged in the tube.
The product was patented on January
the 3rd, 1888. By 1890, his factory was producing more straws than
cigarette holders. In 1906, the first machine was invented by the Stone's
"Stone Straw Corporation" to machine-wind straws, ending the hand-winding
process. Later other kinds of spiral-wound paper and non-paper products
were made.
In 1928, electrical engineers began
to use spiral-wound tubes in the first mass produced radios. All made by
the same process invented by Stone. Spiral-wound tubing is now found everywhere
-- in electric motors, electrical apparatus, electronic devices, electronic
components, aerospace, textile, automotive, fuses, batteries, transformers,
pyrotechnics, medical packaging, product protection, and packaging applications.
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