(bright piano tone)
(upbeat music)
(bell dings)
- [Announcer] Behold, tape.
Yes, tape.
But where did it come from?
Meet Richard Drew, born
in Minnesota in 1899.
Before he found work with 3M, in 1923,
Richard was best known as a banjo player.
Back in those days,
3M wasn't the giant
corporation it is today,
it only manufactured sandpaper.
While testing a new brand of sand paper
at a local autobody shop,
Richard noticed something interesting.
The auto painting crew had a tough time
making a clean dividing line
between two color paint schemes.
This gave Richard an idea.
And in 1925, he invented the
world's first masking tape.
But masking tape wasn't an immediate hit.
The auto painters were disappointed
by his first prototype.
In fact, they told him
to send the product back
to his bosses, whom they
said were too scotch,
or cheap, to add enough adhesive.
Yet Richard persisted, and masking tape
was eventually a success.
And he didn't stop there.
In 1930, Richard invented a
waterproof transparent tape
used to seal insulation bags
in railway refrigerator cars
which were used to transport food.
As the Great Depression set in,
people quickly found that
this clear tape could be used
for many other purposes,
including temporarily mending clothes.
Nowadays, Richard's tapes
are commonplace in homes
and businesses around the world.
That joke about the
scotch stuck around too,
and today we know this
brand as Scotch Tape.
(bright piano tone)
