Silk Purse from a Sow's Ear

In the midst of new, necessary and often impossible discoveries, common sense can lose it's persuasive power, at least that's what Arthur D. Little believed.  He was irritated by folk wisdom sayings like "you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear."  So he set out to prove how wrong that was and that in America anything was possible.  

In 1921, he secured 10 lbs of gelatin from Wilson and Company, Chicago meat packers.  The was accompanied by an affidavit that stated it was indeed 100% sow's ears.  From this he spun artificial silk thread, wove that into a fabric and produced a purse.  The elegant purse was described as "the sort which ladies of great estate carried in medieval days, their gold coin in one end and their silver coin in the other."

Little's point was to show that the astonishing and unusual were becoming the normal and expected and the definition was becoming blurred.  "New impressions so crowd upon us," he said, "that the miracles of yesterday are common place today."  When invention became the mother of industry, it soon became the mother of necessity in Little's eyes.  

Americans were finding solutions for that which they had not yet even discovered the problem for.  Inventors and Research labs had opened America's eyes and minds to novelty - for thinking outside the box, at things never thought of before.  It hasn't changed since Little's days.  Where would we be without research and development labs like Edison's and Little's?  

Next time...a whole new subject

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Today in Pioneer History: "On June 11, 1776, a committee of five are appointed to draft the Declaration of Independence.  Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman and Robert R. Livingston made up the famous document that would change the history of the United States of America."  

Little's Research Palace

Arthur D. Little, pioneer of the private consulting lab, moved into one of the first buildings specifically designed for industrial research in the United States in 1916.  It wasn't long until it was known as Little's Research Palace.  Within those walls he and his team experimented with such things as petro-chemicals, glass containers, stencil paper and battery boxes.  During WW I they improved airplane glue and designed better gas mask filters.

Little left the ownership of his company to MIT upon his death in 1935.  In 1942 the company helped the government carry out the program Operation Bootstrap which promoted Puerto Rico's industrialization and improvement of economy.  During WW II the company developed the Kleinschmidt method for making drinking water from sea water.  

Other projects conceived in Little's Research Palace included techniques for liquefying oxygen, cryogenics, and the hydrogen bomb.  In 1966, along with Model Cities Program, the company devised a plan for East Cleveland that improved everything from the city government, transportation, schools, child care, garbage removal - even the color of lampposts.  

"Research is the mother of industry," Little said.  "The United States is an aggregation of undeveloped empires, sparsely occupied by the most wasteful people in the world."  If Little was anything, he was a man of strong opinions.  Today his company is still one of the leaders in management research.

Next time - making a silk purse from a sow's ear

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Today in Pioneer History: "On June 8, 1913, the century's first 'Quincy', used forensic medicine to solve a two year old crime and became the father of forensic medicine."

Arthur D Little

The pioneer of the private consulting laboratory was Arthur D. Little.  Little, like Wallis Whitney, studied chemistry at MIT.  In 1886 he and another chemist started their own Chemical Laboratory at 103 Milk Street in Boston,  Unfortunately, his partner died from a laboratory experiment but Little went on alone. 

In Paris at the Exposition in 1889, Little observe artificial silk made from nitrocellulose and became interest in artificial fibers.  He secured an American license for the "viscose process" - using natural sources like wood or agricultural products to make artificial fibers that can imitate silk, wool, cotton or linen depending on the type. 

Few businessmen were interested in backing Little's ideas until the Cellulose Products Company.  The company itself was a financial failure, but before that it had opened up a new world of cellulose products.  Eastman Kodak bought the firm's patent for the first nonflammable motion picture film.  Lustron Company bought the patents for "artificial silk" which pioneered the American manufacture of acetate silk.

Little wrote a textbook on paper manufacturing and in 1911, the United Fruit Company hired him to find a way to make paper from "bagasse" -  the waste fiber by-product from making sugar from cane.  Little first devised an experimental paper machine, becoming one of the earliest "pilot plants" in the U.S. and helping to establish the practice of building factories expressly to test new technologies.  This was far less risky that large scale production and these pilot plants stimulated the search for new innovative ideas and products.

Next time...Little Builds a Palace

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Today in Pioneer History: "On June 1, 1967, the Beatles release Sgt Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band, turning the critical corner in the band's history.  Paul is recorded as saying that they were not boys anymore and they didn't want the screaming.  It went on to be one of the iconic albums of all time."  I was never a screamer but I love this album!