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Sanford Lockwood Cluett Edit Profile

Industrialist inventor

Sanford Lockwood Cluett was an American inventor and industrialist known for developing Sanforization, a process to pre-shrink woven fabrics, and Clupak paper used in stretchable shopping bags and wrapping paper.

Background

Sanford Lockwood Cluett was born on June 6, 1874 in Troy, New York, United States. He was the son of Edmund Cluett, who sold musical instruments, and Mary Alice Stone.

Education

Cluett, who grew up in economically comfortable circumstances, attended the Troy Academy, from which he graduated in 1894. He continued his studies at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy during the next four years and received a degree in civil engineering in 1898.

Career

In 1897 he joined the New York National Guard as a private. Soon thereafter he participated in the Spanish-American War as a member of the New York Volunteer Infantry. In June 1898 he was transferred to the First United States Volunteer Engineers, where he was ultimately promoted to captain. He also served in the Puerto Rican campaign in July 1898. From 1904 he served in the New York National Guard, advancing to major before his retirement in 1917. Always full of curiosity and with an inventive mind, Cluett was awarded more than 200 patents, the first in 1900, when he designed a self-operating valve for the locks in the Big Sandy River Dam in Kentucky. In 1901 he joined the Walter A. Wood Company of Hoosick Falls, which produced mowers, reapers, and other farm machines used in the agricultural region of upper New York State. There Cluett developed one-horse and two-horse mowers with a vertical lift on the cutting bar, operable from the driver's seat. Another of his inventions was Clupak, a stretchable paper, difficult to tear. It found extensive use in shopping bags and as wrapping paper for magazines, catalogs, tires, meat, and furniture. At first, Cluett found no manufacturers who were interested in such a paper, but after he was turned down by four companies, the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company began production. Clupak was later manufactured by many American and foreign companies. In 1919 Cluett became a member of Cluett, Peabody and Company, a textile firm that had been started by three of his uncles and that produced men's clothing and accessories, including Arrow shirts. He was in charge of manufacturing and research for more than two decades, and became a director in 1921 and a vice-president in 1927. His business was in a critical period around 1928, when the detachable shirt collar was going out of fashion. Shirts with permanently attached collars suffered in appearance after shrinkage from washing. Cluett studied the manufacture of cloth and recognized that it was stretched lengthwise while moving through the spinning and finishing mills. He believed that the pulling action during manufacturing had to be adjusted by a pushing counteraction. If he laid a piece of cloth on his knee and pressed a stretched rubber band against it while slowly letting the rubber band contract against the cloth, the cloth returned to an unstretched condition without being wrinkled. The resulting preshrinking of the cloth was developed on a manufacturing scale by designing a high-speed machine in which the cloth was passed over a contracting elastic felt blanket. This process was designated by the use of Cluett's first name with the d dropped.

Achievements

  • Cluett's most significant invention was the processing of cloth to reduce shrinkage. At the time of his death, Sanforized cloth was licensed for manufacture by 448 mills operating in fifty-eight countries, and 3 billion yards of treated cloth were being produced annually. Shrinkage was less than 1 percent. The National Association of Manufacturers awarded Cluett its Modern Pioneer Award in 1940, and he received the Edward Longstretch Award from the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia in 1945. The American Institute of Mechanical Engineers conferred on him the Holley Medal in 1952. He held directorships in several railroad companies, was a trustee of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and was a member of the Sons of the Revolution and the Society of Colonial Wars.

Membership

Sons of the Revolution, Society of Colonial Wars

Connections

On February 2, 1916, he married Camilla E. Rising; they had four children.

Father:
Edmund Cluett

He sold musical instruments

Mother:
Mary Alice Stone

Spouse:
Camilla E. Rising