Whitcomb L. Judson Whitcomb L. Judson Whitcomb L. Judson (March 7, 1846 – December 7, 1909) was an American machine salesman, mechanical engineer and inventor. Judson invented the zipper in the 1890s. Judson was born in Chicago, Illinois. According to the 1860 census, he lived in Illinois, and served in the Union army. He enlisted in 1861 at Oneida, Illinois in the Forty-Second Illinois Cavalry. Judson attended Knox College in his hometown Galesburg, Illinois. He was found in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1886. In 1886 and 1887 the Minneapolis city directory identifies Judson as a "traveling agent" — a traveling salesman working probably for
Bruce Judson the Yale Publishing Course and as the first entrepreneur-in-residence at the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute. In 1999, Scribner published, "HyperWars" which Judson co-authored. The book asserted that significant changes in corporate strategies would be required for success in the coming Internet era. In 2004, HarperBusiness published Judson’s book, "Go it Alone!" which argued that the combination of software-as-a-service, automation, and outsourcing, enabled by the Internet would fundamentally alter the nature of entrepreneurship and small business success. In the book, Judson also asserted that as a result of automated leverage created by the Internet, small groups of people or individuals, working on