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
Sylvia Shaw Judson demolish the house and subdivide the land. In 1975 Judson gave nearly half of her land (more than 20 acres) to the Nature Conservancy. In 1976, when Ragdale house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, she deeded it to Alice, who proceeded to establish the Ragdale Foundation as a retreat for artists and writers. Judson died at Ragdale on August 31, 1978. Three years earlier she arranged for her plaster models and casting molds to be destroyed after her death to prevent unauthorized copies from being made. What she evidently forgot is that she had given some