Good morning,
Whitewater’s forecast for today calls for a partly sunny day with a high temperature of seventy-degrees.
Whitewater’s Landmarks Commission meets today from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. The agenda is available online.
Yesterday was a great day for American ingenuity: Sept. 8, 1930: Scotch Tape Starts Sticking. Wired recalls the product’s introduction —
3M begins marketing the first waterproof, transparent, pressure-sensitive tape after employee Richard Drew figures out how to coat strips of cellophane with adhesive.
Initially sold by the St. Paul, Minnesota, company as a moisture-proof seal for bakers, grocers and meatpackers, the product quickly got repurposed during the Depression by money-strapped consumers who used the tape as a cheap home-repair tool.
“Cellophane Tape” picked up the “Scotch” tag, according to legend, when a St. Paul car dealer became annoyed because the cellulose ribbons originally only had adhesive on the borders. Slagging 3M (known in those days as the Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Co.) for being stingy, he invoked Scotland’s penny-pinching reputation and dubbed the product “Scotch tape.”
The name stuck.
