Photo Credit: slayerphoto
The thumbtack was originally discovered by Gulliver during his stay in Lilliput during August of 1706. A Lilliputian blacksmith, who fancied himself as an inventor and entrepreneur; as blacksmiths tend to do; had decided to create an umbrella that could withstand the bombardment of the spring hail storms. You can image, being so small, that Lilliputians dreaded going outside if inclement weather was in the forecast. One hail stone could kill someone of such small size.
The blacksmith, who’s name was Edward Thumb, had built his umbrella from iron, a quite heavy metal. As you can imagine this “Hailbrella”, as Mr. Thumb called it, got quite heavy and there was no convenient place to put it since it couldn’t close like a normal umbrella. After only selling 2 hailbrellas, both to his grandmother, bless her heart, Edward gave up on the idea. He still had 18 left (he was optimistic in the beginning as most inventors/entrepreneurs tend to be) and had them laying around his shop.
One day, while walking through town looking for something he could use to hang pictures in his apartment, Gulliver happened upon the blacksmith’s shop. The blacksmith didn’t have any nails large enough to tack a picture into place but it was apparent to Gulliver that the hailbrellas laying in the corner would work quite well. As you can imagine it took several minutes to agree upon a price with the blacksmith. You know how entrepreneurs are, even after an idea has failed it’s hard for them to let go. Anyway, a price was agreed upon and Gulliver left town carrying 20 hailbrellas (he snuck by grandmas house and got her’s for free but she denies the whole thing).
Upon returning to Nottinghamshire Gulliver renamed the hailbrellas, “Thumbtacks” after their inventor and the rest, as they say, is history, really.
Some [mostly] unknown facts about the thumbtack.
The original Declaration of Independence actually has a hole in the top where a thumbtack was used to hold it in place on the wall while the single hand written copy was made (by a slave of course).
The thumbtack was inducted into the Office Supply Hall Of fame in 2002. Bill Gates stated: “What a load of crap! The thumbtack was never even made into an animated word processing assistant!” Steve Jobs said: “Bill Gates is an idiot,” and Linus Torvalds didn’t say anything.
Before becoming famous Bojangles Robinson applied thumbtacks to his dress shoes to make tap dancing shoes. He made three movies before the producers figured it out.
The thumbtack wasn’t allowed in public schools till 1949. Too many of the teachers were worried someone would put an eye out.
In the 1950′s Rich Williams of the rock group Kansas lost his eye in a thumbtack ‘incident’.
The moral of this story?
Never research yourself out of a good (or bad) blog post.
There has got to be a “most clever” badge that the letsblogoff team can award you for this one. Holy Smokes, Batman. You are truly gifted.
Thanks!
I was a little nervous about this one. This is my first ever attempt at fiction writing.
I’m glad you liked it.
Also, I like your “Would you consider subscribing” language. I think I may use that.
It seems to have helped.
Loved it.
Thanks for reading, Welshcakes.
Somehow your comment ended up in my spam. Sorry about that.
I have to admit this is a very clever blog on today’s subject.
Thanks Joe. There is a long list to read today.
I’m still trying to figure out how Chris Brogan got involved in today’s topic.
Yes it is a long list, but so far your’s takes the cake – love it. As for Mr. Brogan, now that he has flushed his Twitter list, he actually catches more (i.e. DogWalkBlog), & is a great guy willing to help charities and others
Sean, thanks for reading and the compliment!
I’m already showing up on google for ‘the history of the thumbtack’ lol.
That was creative and hysterical!
It’s such an honor that you read and commented. Thank you.
OK… you’re talking about Jane! I got your comment in my inbox just now and thought, “no way is he talking about me!” And sure enough… you weren’t! What is very slick, though, is that this Blog Off has gotten a bigger response than anything else we’ve done, and it helps raise money for a good cause. Plus, I bought her book, and several of the people who commented on my blog on this subject (couldn’t bring myself to do the thumbtack thing, but I did write about Jane) bought her book. So, it all helps. And I frankly hope it helps a lot.
This is the second book in my life I’ve actually rooted for, the first being “Roots” by Alex Haley. I first heard of the latter on Black Omnibus which was a program that came out of Los Angeles (I was in the Long Beach area at the time) in the early 1970s. From that date forward I haunted the bookstores until it was published in 1976. Haley kept running out of money to continue his research as he neared the end of the project, so he started going on TV to talk about the book to raise more money. It turned out to be the publicity effort of all time, though, because so many people became fascinated with a black man who had actually traced his family tree all the way back to a great, great grandfather brought to this country in chains.
So, who knows? We talked about thumbtacks today; well, not me, but everyone else did! But maybe we can get a lot of people talking about the book itself. And buying a copy every now and again, that would be nice!
Sorry, Joe. I forget to be sure to mention the person I am replying to.
I’m slapping myself for not mentioning the cause in my post.
I will be doing a review of the book once I get my copy. That won’t help with the fundraising but it will help get the word out.