Business Opportunities Weblog

December 16, 2010 by Rich Whittle | 1 Comment

Among mankind’s greatest inventions or discoveries: the automobile, airplane, baseball, light bulb, jazz, telephone, radio, penicillin, motion pictures, television, rock ‘n’ roll, computers and, of course, the squeegee.

Hey, don’t laugh. Where would we be without the squeegee? We need sparkling windows to look more clearly at the muddled outside world.

According to The Oakland Tribune, the squeegee was invented in 1936 by the late Ettore Steccone, an Italian immigrant and window washer. Tired of using old tools and rags to wipe glass clean, he came up with the rubber-tip squeegee and changed window washing forever.

He started his own company in Oakland in 1936, the same year he conceived of the squeegee, and received a patent for his invention two years later. Then he lost the patent because of a scheming former employer.

“I don’t think most people would have gone through what he went through, a lot of ups and downs,” said his daughter. “During World War II and Korea, he couldn’t get brass for his product. But through a friend in the military, he was allocated enough brass to continue his business.”

Today, Ettore Products produces 6 million miles of squeegees annually.

Photo by windowcleaninghalloffame.com.

In History, Inventions | 1 Comment