Who Invented The Coat Hanger? : Design Mysteries Series

Was it the shakers? Thomas Jefferson? Or O. A. North?

There seems to be evidence that all of the above could be accused of creating the coat hanger, but perhaps in different forms and materials.

O. A North gets the credit for the wire hanger, created when he arrived at work one day in 1869, only to discover that all the coat hooks were occupied and simply fashioned the present day wire coat hanger on the spot, hanging his coat on it and proceeding to work. The Timberlake Wire & Novelty of New Britain Connecticut went on to profit mightily from his “brainstorm.”

This is one of those ICONIC designs that just seem to spring from the imagination in a form that is unique, efficient and useful and impossible to better, no matter who tries. Maybe there is something to my idea that FORM FOLLOWS FACILITY? That forms are created with the materials and the facility to manipulate them that the designer understands completely and instinctively. That FORM follows the designer’s ability to manipulate materials, not from some ABSTRACT idea onto which materials are piled.

The shakers had a wooden hanger that worked well with their peg wall system, brilliantly allowing multiple coats to be hung from the same peg.

Thomas Jefferson’s coat hanger was also wooden but was more of clothes “horse.” Resembling a pole with many clothes hooks that could be turned to present all one’s clothes. So technically not a “coat Hanger,’ as we define it.

As a designer, I’ve often taken wire coat hangers apart and used the wire to fashion quick mock-ups of ideas. Recently I used wire from coat hangers to fashion a quick study of an outdoor grill cover. Coat hangers are not only useful but a wonderful cheap source of modeling materials.

Just a thought!

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Design Mysteries Series
Bruce Hannah 2018©

Rozensztroch, D. Cintres Hangers. Le Passage. Paris, 2002