Vesta Stoudt


Vesta Oral Stoudt was the woman who had the seminal idea for duct tape.
Stoudt worked at the Green River Ordnance Plant in Dixon, Illinois packing ammunition boxes. She recognized that the way ammunition boxes were sealed made them difficult for soldiers to open in a hurry. She suggested this idea to her bosses at work who didn't implement the change. On February 10, 1943, she wrote a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt explaining the problem and offering a solution. Her idea was to seal boxes with a waterproof, tearable cloth tape which she created and tested at her job.
Roosevelt approved of the idea which he sent to the War Production Board who wrote back to Stoudt.
They tasked the Revolite Corporation to create the product. Stoudt received Chicago Tribune's War Worker Award for her idea, and her persistence with it.