Did you know President Roosevelt had a role in developing duct tape?

It’s well-known that modern duct tape, the supremely useful roll of adhesive tape that’s used everywhere from your home to the Apollo moon missions, was invented during World War II. But did you know that President F. D. Roosevelt played a personal role in its creation?
 
The story of duct tape begins with cotton duck (also known as duck cloth), a heavy, plain woven cotton fabric. (It has nothing to do with the waterfowl, “duck” comes from the doek, the Dutch word for “cloth.”)

“Duck tape” has already been used in the late 19th and early 20th century, but the phrase meant a non-adhesive strip of cotton duck that was used to decorate clothes, reinforce shoes and cover steel cables and electrical conductors to protect them from corrosion.
 
Various types of tapes impregnated with adhesives or backed with glue had already appeared in the early 20th century, including paper-based masking tape and cellophane-based Scotch Tape, but these didn’t have a cloth base.

During World War II, Ms. Vesta Oral Stoudt was working at the Green River Ordnance Plant in Illinois packing ammunition boxes. At the time, ammo boxes were sealed with paper tape that had a tab that had to be pulled to open them, and were then dipped in wax to waterproof them. Stoudt noticed that the tabs were very thin and could easily rip off, leaving a soldier unable to open the box in a hurry. She came up with the idea of using stronger fabric tape which was also waterproof, thus eliminating the need for wax, but her supervisors were not interested.
 
Stoudt wrote a letter directly to President Roosevelt explaining the problem and the solution, and even including helpful diagrams. Roosevelt was so impressed he passed her letter on to the War Production Board, who then contacted her to let her know her idea was adopted – and the modern duct tape, cotton duck coat in waterproof polyethylene with a layer of rubber-based adhesive was born.