September 26, 2023 • 10 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, the differing fates of the Robertson and the Phillips head screwdrivers demonstrate that innovation is intimately tied to historical events. Here’s The History Guy with the story of the screwdriver wars.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
This is our American Stories, and our next story comes
from a man who's simply known as the History Guy.
His videos are watched by hundreds of thousands of people
of all ages on YouTube. The History Guy has also
heard right here on our American Stories. Here's the History
Guy with the story of the screwdriver wars.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Screws as fasteners were not apparently produced until around the
fifteenth century. There's no mention as in the late fifteenth
century manuscript. Their initial use was as a fastener for
parts of medieval jousting armor, and in nearly the same
period for early firearms. The earliest screwdrivers were built to
service these weapons, and they were called either a screw
(00:56):
turner or a turn screw, and they had a pair
shape wooden handle and looked a lot like a modern
flat headed screwdriver. But these screws and screwdrivers would have
been custom made and used on very expensive devices like
wheel locks and jousting armor, and so screws were not
for the common folk. In seventeen sixty, brothers Job and
(01:17):
William Wyatt of Staffordshire patented a screwmaking machine that used
a file to cut in the threads. Following the pitch
of a lead screw. This allowed mass production of screws
and was a precursor to industrial mass production machines. The
idea of using a lathe of some sort of cut
threads was variously improved upon until the process for cold
rolling threads was perfected in the eighteen eighties. But virtually
(01:39):
all of these screws used just a few turning methods,
either a hexagon or square that was turned externally or
a flat slot cut to turn internally, and as anyone
who has ever used one knows, flat headed screws and
screwdrivers have their problems, but solutions were on the horizon.
Peter L. Robertson was born and hauled Men County, Ontario,
(02:01):
Canada in eighteen seventy nine. Tinkerer Robertson produced a number
of inventions, including a new design for cufflins and even
a better mouse trap. In nineteen oh five, received a
patent in Canada for a new design of a corkscrew
that centered itself on the bottle. Around the turn of
the century, Robertson was working through Eastern Canada is what
was called a high pitchman, meaning a traveling salesman for
(02:22):
a Philadelphia tool company. High pitchmen would sell their wares,
say on a street corner at County Fair, calling out
their wares. Among the things that he was selling was
the device of his own design. Robert's twentieth century wrench
brace was a multi tool that could be used as
a monkey wrench, as a brace, as a bench vice,
as a screwdriver. While demonstrating the screwdriver, which was flat bladed,
(02:45):
the blade slipped and seriously cut his hand. That gave
him the idea of a new type of screwdriver head
that was less likely to slip or cam out. In
eighteen seventy five, Alan Cummings of New York City had
been granted a patent for a screw that used a
cavity either a square or triangle, rather than a slot,
to address the same problem. Cummings description noted, it is
(03:06):
well known that the ordinary screwhead provided with a slot
is very susceptible to injury caused mainly by the slipping
of the screwdriver from the slot when the screws being
set home in wood or metal. By admitting the usual
slot and using the proper shaped cavity and screwdriver, perfect
safety is insured to the metallic cap, but Cummings design
had a flaw. The way that you made the cavity
(03:27):
that the screwdriver fit into was by stamping it with
a die and stamping it deeply enough that the screwdriver
would set inside, it would deform or weaken the screw head.
Robertson had a better solution, to which he applied for
a patent in nineteen oh seven. His screw tapered the
sides of the crew gradually down to a pyramid shape.
This not only prevented the head from being deformed, but
actually helped align the metal grain, as he explained, knitting
(03:49):
the atoms together for greater strength. It had the added
advantage of less waste, since the slot of a slot
headed screw was usually cut out, losing a bit of
metal and weakening the head of the screw. Because it
was less likely to cam out, you could use more
torque with the Robertson screw and driver. As it was
self centering, it could be used with one hand, or
as a slotted screw driver usually required two. The head
(04:11):
of the screw was less likely to deform, and the
Robertson screwdriver was much better able to still remove the
screw if it did. It also worked better than the
slotted screw if the screw had been painted over. Robertson's
screw and driver were particularly attractive to furniture makers and
boat builders, where it was more of a problem if
a flathead screw cammed out because it would damage the
material around it damage the value of the product. But
(04:34):
perhaps best of all is that robertson screw could be
cold form. That is, because the stamp tapered down inside
the screw. That meant that you could build the screw
without ever having to heat the metal. Cummings design, as
ingenious as it was, probably was never made during its
patent life because the screw simply couldn't be easily manufactured.
(04:54):
But Robertson's design could be cheaply manufactured in the millions.
His invention the biggest little invention of the twentieth century
so far. Robertson gained enough investors to open the P. L.
Robertson Manufacturing Company Limited in nineteen oh eight. He built
a factory in Milton, Ontario, which gave him tax breaks
and a ten thousand dollars loan. The patent was approved
(05:16):
February nineteen oh nine, and by then the company was
already filling orders. Robertson was just thirty years old. While
the Robertson Company described the initial years as hard, with
local competitors even challenging their patent, the Robertson screw slully
gained adherents among boat builders and furniture makers. In nineteen thirteen,
Fisher Autobody opened a factory in Walkerville, Ontario, making wooden
(05:39):
parts for the Ford Model T. The Robertson screw offered
a great advantage for manufacturing, and Fisher became one of
Robertson's largest customers, using some seven hundred screws per body.
Robertson letters designed a screw for metal to use on
the all metal body of the Ford Model A. Having
been awarded international patents, Robertson saw the opportunity to expand
(05:59):
a broad and so he went to Gillingham, England, and
established a company called the Recess Screw Company. He marketed
to British industry using the slogan the screw that grips
the driver, but his real plan was to manufacture screws
in England but sell them in Germany and Russia. In
the First World War, in the Russian Revolution foiled his plan.
(06:20):
Recess Screws turned to war production during the Great War
and produced things like firing needles and hand grenade pens,
but after the war, Recess Crews failed. There seems to
have been several factors involved, including a glot of supply
following the war, and the actions of some unscrupulous investors.
But Robertson resigned as a director of the company. But
the company in Canada was still doing well, and Robertson
looked to expand into the United States. Then Henry Ford
(06:43):
came to the table. An analysis had shown that the
use of Robertson Screws and the Ford plants in Canada
had saved two dollars and sixty cents a car, of
significant savings for car that retail for only three hundred
and ninety dollars in which was being produced in the millions.
Ford wanted to use Robertson Screws in all his US plants,
but Ford wanted to say in production in an exclusive contract,
(07:03):
and Robertson stubbornly refused to give up that control. When
the deal fell through, Robertson not only did not get
the contract for the American Ford Plants, but lost the
contracts in Canada, almost a third of his business. After
three failed tries, Robertson decided to never try to license
his screws outside of Canada again, but his marketing skills
made his screws and drivers the screwdrivers of choice in Canada,
(07:26):
even though just across the border of the United States
they're hardly known at all. But Ford was still using
flat screws, which were even more troublesome on automated assembly lines,
where if a screw cammed out it cost time and
slow manufacturing. The solutions started with a patent application in
nineteen thirty two by John P. Thompson, an auto mechanic
living in Portland, Oregon. Thompson's solution was similar to Robertson's.
(07:49):
By tapering, the screw had a star dyke could be
used without distorting the medal, and again stamping. The taper
design made the medal actually stronger. In nineteen thirty three,
when the patent was granted, Thompson assigned it to Henry
Frank Phillips. Like Robertson, Henry Phillips had been a traveling
salesman by the time that Patton was assigned to him.
He was the mandaging director of a mining concern, the
(08:11):
Oregon Copper Company. It's not only clear why Thompson assigned
the patent to Phillips, but Phillips refined the design and
was granted more patents. Unlike Robertson, Phillips did not intend
to manufacture screws, but hoped to license the patents to
manufacture and collect royalties. Not surprisingly, with new invention, Phillips
got a lot of rejections from companies who told me
the idea lack promise for commercial success. But eventually Phillips
(08:34):
convinced Eugene E. Clarke of the American Screw Company of Providence,
Rhode Island, to manufacture the design. By nineteen thirty four,
the screw was available for consumers. In nineteen thirty six,
General Motors was invited to test the design. The Phillips
heads screw first went into use at GM making the
nineteen thirty six Cadillac. Customers raved about the amount of
(08:54):
work time saved. Within just a few years, virtually all
US automakers, including Ford, were using Phillips headscrews. The airplane
manufacturing and railroad industry likewise switched. By nineteen thirty nine,
twenty companies had licenses to produce Phillips head screws. By
nineteen forty, eighty five percent of US screw manufacturers had
a license for the design, and the company grows more
(09:15):
than one point three million adjusted dollars. While the Second
World War limited foreign licenses, it established the Phillips head
screw as an industry standard among wartime manufacturers. The hundreds
of thousands of planes and motor vehicles built by the
US during the war were largely screwed together using Phillips headscrews.
While Robertson had Canada, Phillips screws are by industry estimates,
(09:37):
by far of the most popular type of screw everywhere
else in the world. The Robertson and Phillips screws were
the culmination of the development of screw technology over a
couple one hundred years, and they were two types that
rose to the top in an era where there was
a lot of innovation in the field. It's really ironic
that the events of the First World War were part
of the reason that the Robertson screw was never developed internationally,
(09:59):
whereas events the Second World War where the reason that
the Philip said it screw was and the relative fates
between the two say that invention isn't about just the
inspiration and pun intended drive of the inventor, but of
a complex interaction with historical forces and powerful personalities, things
that can impact every tool in the toolbox.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
And you've been listening to the History Guy. If you
want more stories of forgotten history, please subscribe to his
YouTube channel, The History Guy Colin History deserves to be remembered.
The story of the screwdriver war here on our American
Stories
This is our American Stories, and our next story comes
from a man who's simply known as the History Guy.
His videos are watched by hundreds of thousands of people
of all ages on YouTube. The History Guy has also
heard right here on our American Stories. Here's the History
Guy with the story of the screwdriver wars.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Screws as fasteners were not apparently produced until around the
fifteenth century. There's no mention as in the late fifteenth
century manuscript. Their initial use was as a fastener for
parts of medieval jousting armor, and in nearly the same
period for early firearms. The earliest screwdrivers were built to
service these weapons, and they were called either a screw
(00:56):
turner or a turn screw, and they had a pair
shape wooden handle and looked a lot like a modern
flat headed screwdriver. But these screws and screwdrivers would have
been custom made and used on very expensive devices like
wheel locks and jousting armor, and so screws were not
for the common folk. In seventeen sixty, brothers Job and
(01:17):
William Wyatt of Staffordshire patented a screwmaking machine that used
a file to cut in the threads. Following the pitch
of a lead screw. This allowed mass production of screws
and was a precursor to industrial mass production machines. The
idea of using a lathe of some sort of cut
threads was variously improved upon until the process for cold
rolling threads was perfected in the eighteen eighties. But virtually
(01:39):
all of these screws used just a few turning methods,
either a hexagon or square that was turned externally or
a flat slot cut to turn internally, and as anyone
who has ever used one knows, flat headed screws and
screwdrivers have their problems, but solutions were on the horizon.
Peter L. Robertson was born and hauled Men County, Ontario,
(02:01):
Canada in eighteen seventy nine. Tinkerer Robertson produced a number
of inventions, including a new design for cufflins and even
a better mouse trap. In nineteen oh five, received a
patent in Canada for a new design of a corkscrew
that centered itself on the bottle. Around the turn of
the century, Robertson was working through Eastern Canada is what
was called a high pitchman, meaning a traveling salesman for
(02:22):
a Philadelphia tool company. High pitchmen would sell their wares,
say on a street corner at County Fair, calling out
their wares. Among the things that he was selling was
the device of his own design. Robert's twentieth century wrench
brace was a multi tool that could be used as
a monkey wrench, as a brace, as a bench vice,
as a screwdriver. While demonstrating the screwdriver, which was flat bladed,
(02:45):
the blade slipped and seriously cut his hand. That gave
him the idea of a new type of screwdriver head
that was less likely to slip or cam out. In
eighteen seventy five, Alan Cummings of New York City had
been granted a patent for a screw that used a
cavity either a square or triangle, rather than a slot,
to address the same problem. Cummings description noted, it is
(03:06):
well known that the ordinary screwhead provided with a slot
is very susceptible to injury caused mainly by the slipping
of the screwdriver from the slot when the screws being
set home in wood or metal. By admitting the usual
slot and using the proper shaped cavity and screwdriver, perfect
safety is insured to the metallic cap, but Cummings design
had a flaw. The way that you made the cavity
(03:27):
that the screwdriver fit into was by stamping it with
a die and stamping it deeply enough that the screwdriver
would set inside, it would deform or weaken the screw head.
Robertson had a better solution, to which he applied for
a patent in nineteen oh seven. His screw tapered the
sides of the crew gradually down to a pyramid shape.
This not only prevented the head from being deformed, but
actually helped align the metal grain, as he explained, knitting
(03:49):
the atoms together for greater strength. It had the added
advantage of less waste, since the slot of a slot
headed screw was usually cut out, losing a bit of
metal and weakening the head of the screw. Because it
was less likely to cam out, you could use more
torque with the Robertson screw and driver. As it was
self centering, it could be used with one hand, or
as a slotted screw driver usually required two. The head
(04:11):
of the screw was less likely to deform, and the
Robertson screwdriver was much better able to still remove the
screw if it did. It also worked better than the
slotted screw if the screw had been painted over. Robertson's
screw and driver were particularly attractive to furniture makers and
boat builders, where it was more of a problem if
a flathead screw cammed out because it would damage the
material around it damage the value of the product. But
(04:34):
perhaps best of all is that robertson screw could be
cold form. That is, because the stamp tapered down inside
the screw. That meant that you could build the screw
without ever having to heat the metal. Cummings design, as
ingenious as it was, probably was never made during its
patent life because the screw simply couldn't be easily manufactured.
(04:54):
But Robertson's design could be cheaply manufactured in the millions.
His invention the biggest little invention of the twentieth century
so far. Robertson gained enough investors to open the P. L.
Robertson Manufacturing Company Limited in nineteen oh eight. He built
a factory in Milton, Ontario, which gave him tax breaks
and a ten thousand dollars loan. The patent was approved
(05:16):
February nineteen oh nine, and by then the company was
already filling orders. Robertson was just thirty years old. While
the Robertson Company described the initial years as hard, with
local competitors even challenging their patent, the Robertson screw slully
gained adherents among boat builders and furniture makers. In nineteen thirteen,
Fisher Autobody opened a factory in Walkerville, Ontario, making wooden
(05:39):
parts for the Ford Model T. The Robertson screw offered
a great advantage for manufacturing, and Fisher became one of
Robertson's largest customers, using some seven hundred screws per body.
Robertson letters designed a screw for metal to use on
the all metal body of the Ford Model A. Having
been awarded international patents, Robertson saw the opportunity to expand
(05:59):
a broad and so he went to Gillingham, England, and
established a company called the Recess Screw Company. He marketed
to British industry using the slogan the screw that grips
the driver, but his real plan was to manufacture screws
in England but sell them in Germany and Russia. In
the First World War, in the Russian Revolution foiled his plan.
(06:20):
Recess Screws turned to war production during the Great War
and produced things like firing needles and hand grenade pens,
but after the war, Recess Crews failed. There seems to
have been several factors involved, including a glot of supply
following the war, and the actions of some unscrupulous investors.
But Robertson resigned as a director of the company. But
the company in Canada was still doing well, and Robertson
looked to expand into the United States. Then Henry Ford
(06:43):
came to the table. An analysis had shown that the
use of Robertson Screws and the Ford plants in Canada
had saved two dollars and sixty cents a car, of
significant savings for car that retail for only three hundred
and ninety dollars in which was being produced in the millions.
Ford wanted to use Robertson Screws in all his US plants,
but Ford wanted to say in production in an exclusive contract,
(07:03):
and Robertson stubbornly refused to give up that control. When
the deal fell through, Robertson not only did not get
the contract for the American Ford Plants, but lost the
contracts in Canada, almost a third of his business. After
three failed tries, Robertson decided to never try to license
his screws outside of Canada again, but his marketing skills
made his screws and drivers the screwdrivers of choice in Canada,
(07:26):
even though just across the border of the United States
they're hardly known at all. But Ford was still using
flat screws, which were even more troublesome on automated assembly lines,
where if a screw cammed out it cost time and
slow manufacturing. The solutions started with a patent application in
nineteen thirty two by John P. Thompson, an auto mechanic
living in Portland, Oregon. Thompson's solution was similar to Robertson's.
(07:49):
By tapering, the screw had a star dyke could be
used without distorting the medal, and again stamping. The taper
design made the medal actually stronger. In nineteen thirty three,
when the patent was granted, Thompson assigned it to Henry
Frank Phillips. Like Robertson, Henry Phillips had been a traveling
salesman by the time that Patton was assigned to him.
He was the mandaging director of a mining concern, the
(08:11):
Oregon Copper Company. It's not only clear why Thompson assigned
the patent to Phillips, but Phillips refined the design and
was granted more patents. Unlike Robertson, Phillips did not intend
to manufacture screws, but hoped to license the patents to
manufacture and collect royalties. Not surprisingly, with new invention, Phillips
got a lot of rejections from companies who told me
the idea lack promise for commercial success. But eventually Phillips
(08:34):
convinced Eugene E. Clarke of the American Screw Company of Providence,
Rhode Island, to manufacture the design. By nineteen thirty four,
the screw was available for consumers. In nineteen thirty six,
General Motors was invited to test the design. The Phillips
heads screw first went into use at GM making the
nineteen thirty six Cadillac. Customers raved about the amount of
(08:54):
work time saved. Within just a few years, virtually all
US automakers, including Ford, were using Phillips headscrews. The airplane
manufacturing and railroad industry likewise switched. By nineteen thirty nine,
twenty companies had licenses to produce Phillips head screws. By
nineteen forty, eighty five percent of US screw manufacturers had
a license for the design, and the company grows more
(09:15):
than one point three million adjusted dollars. While the Second
World War limited foreign licenses, it established the Phillips head
screw as an industry standard among wartime manufacturers. The hundreds
of thousands of planes and motor vehicles built by the
US during the war were largely screwed together using Phillips headscrews.
While Robertson had Canada, Phillips screws are by industry estimates,
(09:37):
by far of the most popular type of screw everywhere
else in the world. The Robertson and Phillips screws were
the culmination of the development of screw technology over a
couple one hundred years, and they were two types that
rose to the top in an era where there was
a lot of innovation in the field. It's really ironic
that the events of the First World War were part
of the reason that the Robertson screw was never developed internationally,
(09:59):
whereas events the Second World War where the reason that
the Philip said it screw was and the relative fates
between the two say that invention isn't about just the
inspiration and pun intended drive of the inventor, but of
a complex interaction with historical forces and powerful personalities, things
that can impact every tool in the toolbox.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
And you've been listening to the History Guy. If you
want more stories of forgotten history, please subscribe to his
YouTube channel, The History Guy Colin History deserves to be remembered.
The story of the screwdriver war here on our American
Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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