On this day in 1943, Michigan’s Hurley Smith patented the pocket protector—creating a simple, smart fix for ink stains and worn-out shirts.
TRANSCRIPT
Nerds of the world unite! Today in 1943, Hurley Smith, a native of Bellaire, Michigan, just a bit south of Petosky, patented the pocket protector.
Hurley was as an engineer and concerned about staining his white shirts with ink and pencil marks when he carried around his writing utensils. But he also noticed shirt pockets fray and get worn out faster than the rest of the shirt. Smith experimented with materials for solving the fraying-ink-stained shirt problem, but in the 40’s, plastics had become quite an exciting manufacturing development.
He first made stiff clear colorless plastic in tall, thin rectangles, used a mechanical letter folder to fold the plastic twice, once approximately in half and once on one end to produce a flap that would extend over the top edge of the shirt pocket. A practical invention that would become a geeky stereotype by the 1980s.
And that is your Michigan Minute.