Cork has been around for millennia. In ancient Egyptian tombs corks for bottles were found. In ancient Greece, many items, such as fishing floats, sandals and bottle caps, were made of cork. However, it was only at the end of the 19th century that a cork shield was made.
For centuries, cork was made the same way as ever, with most of the cork disappears. In 1890, a German company began to collect test sample particles and use a clay binder to create a lining sheet from the sinter. The following year, an American named John T. Smith improved this process. Instead of using a clay binder, Smith’s method used heat and pressure to combine the sample plug together to create a clean, agglomerated cork sheet.
Originally corkboard was used primarily as insulation. That all changed in 1924, when George Brooks, a resident of Topeka, Kansas, patented a new use for corkboard: as a bulletin board you could insert sleeves. A simple but brilliant idea that influenced how we post messages to this day. Also known as tongs, bulletin boards and, of course, cork boards, George Brooks & Invention is the basis in homes and offices around the world.
Unfortunately, little is known about these early boards from a patent issued by Brooks. Most likely, he manufactured and sold it on a small scale for the Topeka area. However, history tells us that the word word has ever spread to other parts of the country, and today corkboards are a universal phenomenon all over the world.
In those days, the patent was only 17 years old. Thus, the patent for George Brooks invention ended in 1941. From this point on, everyone will be able to create and sell their own versions of the product.
In 1940, the first major innovation in the concept of traffic jams. Another George, George E. Fox, received a patent for a similar design that could hang against a wall. However, instead of using corkboard, his tweezers used foam rubber with a cardboard base.
The popularity of cork boards and tweezers grew rapidly. By the mid-1950s, the use of broadband bulletin boards was quite common among enterprises throughout most of the United States, whether it be traffic jams or the George Fox version of foam rubber. In 1956, a new design update was developed. Earl Knudson with Modern Display Co. I took the design of Fox and replaced the foam rubber on fiberboard.
As the popularity at workplaces increased, the cork board soon became the usual fixture in the house. Spouses can easily post notes to each other or keep notes for children. Today, as technologies continue to evolve using computers, the Internet, etc., Bulletin boards are becoming less common, although they remain the foundation in offices and many homes around the world.
Copyright (c) 2008 Wes Fernley
