Scotch Tape

When he was just 26 years old, an inventor at the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company (now 3M) named Richard Drew found out that car companies were having a tough time making two-tone cars that were popular at the time. The problem was coming up with a clean border between the colors. His answer was to invent the first masking tape. But there was a problem. In order to cut costs, the adhesive was only placed on the edges of the tape, and not in the middle. During its first trial, the tape fell right off the car, causing the St. Paul auto detailer to deride Drew's "Scotch" bosses, meaning he thought they were cheap.

Unlike that tape, the name stuck, not only to that early masking tape, but more importantly to the new transparent cellophone based tape Drew invented in 1930. During the Great Depression, people began to fix things with Scotch tape, rather than throw them out, and the company prospered. Today, although Scotch Tape is a trademarked brand name, it is also a generic term meaning any transparent adhesive tape. Richard Drew passed away 28 years ago.

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