June 13, 2025 • 10 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, the barcode, technically known as the UPC (Universal Product Code), is a small invention that plays a big role in everyday life. Here’s the History Guy with the story behind it.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories. Our next story
comes to us from a man who's simply known as
the History Guy. His videos are watched by hundreds of
thousands of people of all ages over on YouTube. The
History Guy has also heard here and our American stories.
Bar codes on most products properly called a UPC or
(00:33):
universal product code, or a necessity for everyday life. Here's
the History Guy with the story.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
They've become so common that they're on virtually every consumer
product that you might buy, from a box of cookies
to an action figure, to every automobile that has been
built since nineteen eighty one. There are on mail, they're
unscannable tickets in COVID concerns. They were used to access
restaurant menus have become so ubiquitous that we take them
(01:02):
for granted. But bar codes are an absolute necessity in
the modern world. There would allow the vast and complex
trade networks and supply chains of the modern world to function.
According to GS one, which is a nonprofit that maintains
barcode standards, there were some five billion barcode scanned every
(01:23):
day in twenty twelve. It is history that deserves to
be remembered. Humans have engaged in trade for millennia, far
back into prehistory. For most of human existence, this was
done by bartering, impromptu trading sessions that involve personal negotiations
of goods and services without any money involved. As societies
grew more complex, bartering became less convenient, especially when humans
(01:45):
introduced civilization and the concept of government. Civilizations grew, economies developed,
and trade grew increasingly complex. In the ancient Middle East,
civilizations like the Acadians and the Sumerians developed writing largely
to keep records, and one of the most important uses
of records was in trade. At its most basic, the
concept of a bar code was to automate and streamline
(02:06):
that system so that businesses and manufacturers and transit systems
could cheap track of the millions of items that are
moved and sold at countless retailers, trading centers, and factories
every day. The twenty first century and the development of
consumer culture further complicated selling items using price booklets or memory.
Huge varieties of branded products would massively increase the number
and kind of products, so that whole aisles could be
(02:28):
filled with the same product being sold at different prices.
By different companies and became impossible for a salesperson to
memorize even a fraction of a store's prices. In nineteen
forty eight, Philadelphia Drexel Institute of Technology graduate named Bernard
Bob Silvers said have overheard a conversation between a supermarket
manager and the dean of engineering at Drexel. The manager
(02:49):
was hoping that the dean could consider working on some
way of automating the checkout process so that shoppers could
move through the store more quickly. After all, in nineteen
forty eight, the cashier und to manually check each item,
determine a price, and add that together for a total.
According to the story, the dean was uninterested, but Silver
was intrigued and confident that there was a solution. Silver
mentioned the conversation to fellow Drexel student Norman Joseph Woodland,
(03:11):
who began working on some concepts. He was quickly convinced
that a workable solution could be found. One of the
first concepts was used patterns of ink that would glow
under ultipolet light, and the pair built a device to
test the idea. While at worked, they found that the
ink faded and was too expensive. Woodland decided to dedicate
himself to the problem. He left his teaching job at
the university and cashed in some stocks to tide him
(03:34):
over while he worked, and went to live in an
apartment owned by his grandfather in Miami Beach. While working
in Miami Beach, he had his epiphany. According to Woodland,
he was sitting on the beach thinking when the solution
presented itself. He had learned Morse code as a boy
scout and considered the long and short sounds by drawing
them physically on the sand. He described the moments. I
(03:56):
remember I was thinking about dots and dashes when I
poked my four fingers into the sand. Then, for whatever
reason I didn't know, I pulled my hand towards me
and I had four lines, and I said, golly, now
I have four lines, and they could be widelines and
narrow lines instead of dots and dashes. Now I have
a better chance of finding the dog Gonde. Then only
seconds later, I took my four fingers they were still
(04:17):
in the sand, and I swept them around in a circle.
First Barcode was drawn out in the sand of Miami Beach.
W then returned to Drexel with his new idea, which
still faced the problem of how to read the data
once it was encoded in the binary barcode, He turned
to another technology to find the solution. In nineteen nineteen,
inventor Lee de Forest was awarded several patents that he
(04:39):
used to develop the optical sound on film technology, the
technology necessary to create the first talkie films. The four
system printed a pattern along a film strip that varied
the amount of transparency, and then shone a light through
the film as the picture ran. A sensitive tude could
then translate the shifts in brightness and convert the information
to sound. Needed was a light and a similar sensitive
(05:01):
tube to detect the information. During their work, they chose
to change the design from linear bars to concentric circles
of varying thickness, creating the bullseye barcode. The idea of
the bull's eye code was that it could be read
from any direction. In nineteen fifty one, the pair set
out to build the first barcode reader in Woodland's living room.
The initial device was the size of a desk, had
to be completely wrapped in oilcloth to keep out any
(05:24):
ambient light. It used a bright light and an RCA
nine thirty five photo multiplier tube originally designed for the
sound on film systems to read the data. The light
was so bright that as they tested the device, some
of the paper printed with barcodes actually began smoldering, but
they proved using an acillioscope the system could read information
from the bar codes. Of course, there remained several practical
(05:44):
issues with the invention. Installing them across the country was
impossible given the expense of the five hundred watt bulb,
which created an enormous amount of waste heat. That bulb
was an awful thing to look at. Woodland later said
it could cause eye damage. What they needed was a
way to focus a large amount of light with little
heat and in a more compact space, but in nineteen
(06:07):
fifty one lasers didn't exist. They were awarded the patent
for the designs and apparatus on October seventh, nineteen fifty two.
The year before, Woodland had been hired by IBM, and
both he and Silver hoped to convince the company to
pursue the technology by continually pestering IBM to take a
look at the concept. IBM finally commissioned to report on
(06:28):
the concept in the late nineteen fifties, which concluded that
the concept was interesting, but as of then impossible to
implement without further technological advancement. IBM did allegedly offer to
buy the patent, but not at the price that the
inventors thought was sufficient. The patent only granted Woodland and
Silver seventeen years of protection, and time was rapidly running
out for them to effectively make money on their invention,
(06:48):
and so in nineteen sixty two, when phil Co, a
pioneer in battery radio and television production, offered to buy
the patent for fifteen thousand dollars, they accepted. This would
be the only money the pair made off their invention. Here,
Bob Silver died of bronco pneumonia brought on by leukemia
at age thirty eight. Phil Co would later sell the
patent to RCA somewhere in the nineteen sixties. In nineteen
(07:10):
sixty six, the National Association of Food Chains had a
meeting on Automated checkout systems. RCA, which on Woodland and
Silver's original patent, was at the meeting and began working
on a project to deliver a checkout scanner in the
mid seventies, the NAFC established the ad Hoc Committee for
US Supermarkets on Uniform Grocery Product Code to manage competing
technologies and standardize an approach. The ad Hoc Committee developed
(07:32):
an eleven number code and asked companies to design a
system to read it. RCA attracted attention for their bullseye
code in nineteen seventy one, and IBM decided to develop
a competing technology. Someone remembered that Joe Woodland still worked
at the company and began a new facility in North
Carolina with Woodland to make it happen. George Lara Or,
a longtime IBUM employee, came to the conclusion that the
(07:53):
bullseye pattern wouldn't work when you run a circle through
a high speed press, there are parts that are always
going to get smeared, he recalled. RCA was learning this
at the same time at a test store in Cincinnati,
so Lauer came up with his own code using vertical lines,
ironically similar to Woodland's original concept. It took some time
to develop a system that was small enough to fit
(08:13):
on most products while still being readable. Eventually, based on
a barcode called Delta C developed by Bill Kraus. The
Delta Sea system was robust and able to read even damaged,
dirty or bent codes. The UPC code was born, and
in nineteen seventy three it was established as the standard
for the National Association of Food Chains. IBM developed the
(08:34):
IBM thirty six sixty scanner with a digital point of
sale terminal UPC's. The grocery industry, from supplies to supermarkets,
adopted the technology wholesale. On June twenty sixth, nineteen seventy four,
Clyde Dawson, head of R and D with Mars Supermarket,
handed over a multi pack of Wrigley's goum, which became
the first UPC code to be scanned. Came out to
(08:56):
sixty nine cents. Dawson later said he chose gum specifically
because of its small size to prove the usefulness of
the barcode. In nineteen ninety two, Woodland was awarded the
National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the highest honor of
the US can confer to a US citizen for technological achievement.
It took a while for barcodes to fully catch on,
but of course they did, largely facilitated with large chains
(09:18):
like Kmart and Walmart started using them. Perhaps one of
the most important of the early adopters of barcodes was
the United States Military, which is their own code called
the Code thirty nine. Now barcodes are on all sorts
of products. They're used for stock checking and inventory maintenance,
and of course for checkout scanning. Since the nineteen seventies,
(09:38):
the types of barcodes have proliferated to things that don't
even really look like barcodes, so called two D barcodes,
like the QR code and data matrix and MaxiCode during
all sorts of products. A bar code with a vehicle
identification number has been required in all newly manufactured automobiles
in the United States since nineteen eighty one, and barcodes
have been required on pharmaceuticals since two thousand and four.
(10:00):
Oh you know, way, the way a society attracts Daddy
as a hallmark of civilization begun millennia ago when the
Mesopotamians first started to develop writing, computers and lasers, and
especially on barcodes. They're really just part of a long
string of technologies that have been built to facilitate commerce
and make civilization just a little bit easier.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
And a terrific job on the editing by Greg Hangler
and the production and a special thanks to the History Guy.
If you want more stories of forgotten history, please subscribe
to his YouTube channel, The History Guy colon history deserves
to be remembered. The story of the barcode here on
our American Stories
And we continue with our American stories. Our next story
comes to us from a man who's simply known as
the History Guy. His videos are watched by hundreds of
thousands of people of all ages over on YouTube. The
History Guy has also heard here and our American stories.
Bar codes on most products properly called a UPC or
(00:33):
universal product code, or a necessity for everyday life. Here's
the History Guy with the story.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
They've become so common that they're on virtually every consumer
product that you might buy, from a box of cookies
to an action figure, to every automobile that has been
built since nineteen eighty one. There are on mail, they're
unscannable tickets in COVID concerns. They were used to access
restaurant menus have become so ubiquitous that we take them
(01:02):
for granted. But bar codes are an absolute necessity in
the modern world. There would allow the vast and complex
trade networks and supply chains of the modern world to function.
According to GS one, which is a nonprofit that maintains
barcode standards, there were some five billion barcode scanned every
(01:23):
day in twenty twelve. It is history that deserves to
be remembered. Humans have engaged in trade for millennia, far
back into prehistory. For most of human existence, this was
done by bartering, impromptu trading sessions that involve personal negotiations
of goods and services without any money involved. As societies
grew more complex, bartering became less convenient, especially when humans
(01:45):
introduced civilization and the concept of government. Civilizations grew, economies developed,
and trade grew increasingly complex. In the ancient Middle East,
civilizations like the Acadians and the Sumerians developed writing largely
to keep records, and one of the most important uses
of records was in trade. At its most basic, the
concept of a bar code was to automate and streamline
(02:06):
that system so that businesses and manufacturers and transit systems
could cheap track of the millions of items that are
moved and sold at countless retailers, trading centers, and factories
every day. The twenty first century and the development of
consumer culture further complicated selling items using price booklets or memory.
Huge varieties of branded products would massively increase the number
and kind of products, so that whole aisles could be
(02:28):
filled with the same product being sold at different prices.
By different companies and became impossible for a salesperson to
memorize even a fraction of a store's prices. In nineteen
forty eight, Philadelphia Drexel Institute of Technology graduate named Bernard
Bob Silvers said have overheard a conversation between a supermarket
manager and the dean of engineering at Drexel. The manager
(02:49):
was hoping that the dean could consider working on some
way of automating the checkout process so that shoppers could
move through the store more quickly. After all, in nineteen
forty eight, the cashier und to manually check each item,
determine a price, and add that together for a total.
According to the story, the dean was uninterested, but Silver
was intrigued and confident that there was a solution. Silver
mentioned the conversation to fellow Drexel student Norman Joseph Woodland,
(03:11):
who began working on some concepts. He was quickly convinced
that a workable solution could be found. One of the
first concepts was used patterns of ink that would glow
under ultipolet light, and the pair built a device to
test the idea. While at worked, they found that the
ink faded and was too expensive. Woodland decided to dedicate
himself to the problem. He left his teaching job at
the university and cashed in some stocks to tide him
(03:34):
over while he worked, and went to live in an
apartment owned by his grandfather in Miami Beach. While working
in Miami Beach, he had his epiphany. According to Woodland,
he was sitting on the beach thinking when the solution
presented itself. He had learned Morse code as a boy
scout and considered the long and short sounds by drawing
them physically on the sand. He described the moments. I
(03:56):
remember I was thinking about dots and dashes when I
poked my four fingers into the sand. Then, for whatever
reason I didn't know, I pulled my hand towards me
and I had four lines, and I said, golly, now
I have four lines, and they could be widelines and
narrow lines instead of dots and dashes. Now I have
a better chance of finding the dog Gonde. Then only
seconds later, I took my four fingers they were still
(04:17):
in the sand, and I swept them around in a circle.
First Barcode was drawn out in the sand of Miami Beach.
W then returned to Drexel with his new idea, which
still faced the problem of how to read the data
once it was encoded in the binary barcode, He turned
to another technology to find the solution. In nineteen nineteen,
inventor Lee de Forest was awarded several patents that he
(04:39):
used to develop the optical sound on film technology, the
technology necessary to create the first talkie films. The four
system printed a pattern along a film strip that varied
the amount of transparency, and then shone a light through
the film as the picture ran. A sensitive tude could
then translate the shifts in brightness and convert the information
to sound. Needed was a light and a similar sensitive
(05:01):
tube to detect the information. During their work, they chose
to change the design from linear bars to concentric circles
of varying thickness, creating the bullseye barcode. The idea of
the bull's eye code was that it could be read
from any direction. In nineteen fifty one, the pair set
out to build the first barcode reader in Woodland's living room.
The initial device was the size of a desk, had
to be completely wrapped in oilcloth to keep out any
(05:24):
ambient light. It used a bright light and an RCA
nine thirty five photo multiplier tube originally designed for the
sound on film systems to read the data. The light
was so bright that as they tested the device, some
of the paper printed with barcodes actually began smoldering, but
they proved using an acillioscope the system could read information
from the bar codes. Of course, there remained several practical
(05:44):
issues with the invention. Installing them across the country was
impossible given the expense of the five hundred watt bulb,
which created an enormous amount of waste heat. That bulb
was an awful thing to look at. Woodland later said
it could cause eye damage. What they needed was a
way to focus a large amount of light with little
heat and in a more compact space, but in nineteen
(06:07):
fifty one lasers didn't exist. They were awarded the patent
for the designs and apparatus on October seventh, nineteen fifty two.
The year before, Woodland had been hired by IBM, and
both he and Silver hoped to convince the company to
pursue the technology by continually pestering IBM to take a
look at the concept. IBM finally commissioned to report on
(06:28):
the concept in the late nineteen fifties, which concluded that
the concept was interesting, but as of then impossible to
implement without further technological advancement. IBM did allegedly offer to
buy the patent, but not at the price that the
inventors thought was sufficient. The patent only granted Woodland and
Silver seventeen years of protection, and time was rapidly running
out for them to effectively make money on their invention,
(06:48):
and so in nineteen sixty two, when phil Co, a
pioneer in battery radio and television production, offered to buy
the patent for fifteen thousand dollars, they accepted. This would
be the only money the pair made off their invention. Here,
Bob Silver died of bronco pneumonia brought on by leukemia
at age thirty eight. Phil Co would later sell the
patent to RCA somewhere in the nineteen sixties. In nineteen
(07:10):
sixty six, the National Association of Food Chains had a
meeting on Automated checkout systems. RCA, which on Woodland and
Silver's original patent, was at the meeting and began working
on a project to deliver a checkout scanner in the
mid seventies, the NAFC established the ad Hoc Committee for
US Supermarkets on Uniform Grocery Product Code to manage competing
technologies and standardize an approach. The ad Hoc Committee developed
(07:32):
an eleven number code and asked companies to design a
system to read it. RCA attracted attention for their bullseye
code in nineteen seventy one, and IBM decided to develop
a competing technology. Someone remembered that Joe Woodland still worked
at the company and began a new facility in North
Carolina with Woodland to make it happen. George Lara Or,
a longtime IBUM employee, came to the conclusion that the
(07:53):
bullseye pattern wouldn't work when you run a circle through
a high speed press, there are parts that are always
going to get smeared, he recalled. RCA was learning this
at the same time at a test store in Cincinnati,
so Lauer came up with his own code using vertical lines,
ironically similar to Woodland's original concept. It took some time
to develop a system that was small enough to fit
(08:13):
on most products while still being readable. Eventually, based on
a barcode called Delta C developed by Bill Kraus. The
Delta Sea system was robust and able to read even damaged,
dirty or bent codes. The UPC code was born, and
in nineteen seventy three it was established as the standard
for the National Association of Food Chains. IBM developed the
(08:34):
IBM thirty six sixty scanner with a digital point of
sale terminal UPC's. The grocery industry, from supplies to supermarkets,
adopted the technology wholesale. On June twenty sixth, nineteen seventy four,
Clyde Dawson, head of R and D with Mars Supermarket,
handed over a multi pack of Wrigley's goum, which became
the first UPC code to be scanned. Came out to
(08:56):
sixty nine cents. Dawson later said he chose gum specifically
because of its small size to prove the usefulness of
the barcode. In nineteen ninety two, Woodland was awarded the
National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the highest honor of
the US can confer to a US citizen for technological achievement.
It took a while for barcodes to fully catch on,
but of course they did, largely facilitated with large chains
(09:18):
like Kmart and Walmart started using them. Perhaps one of
the most important of the early adopters of barcodes was
the United States Military, which is their own code called
the Code thirty nine. Now barcodes are on all sorts
of products. They're used for stock checking and inventory maintenance,
and of course for checkout scanning. Since the nineteen seventies,
(09:38):
the types of barcodes have proliferated to things that don't
even really look like barcodes, so called two D barcodes,
like the QR code and data matrix and MaxiCode during
all sorts of products. A bar code with a vehicle
identification number has been required in all newly manufactured automobiles
in the United States since nineteen eighty one, and barcodes
have been required on pharmaceuticals since two thousand and four.
(10:00):
Oh you know, way, the way a society attracts Daddy
as a hallmark of civilization begun millennia ago when the
Mesopotamians first started to develop writing, computers and lasers, and
especially on barcodes. They're really just part of a long
string of technologies that have been built to facilitate commerce
and make civilization just a little bit easier.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
And a terrific job on the editing by Greg Hangler
and the production and a special thanks to the History Guy.
If you want more stories of forgotten history, please subscribe
to his YouTube channel, The History Guy colon history deserves
to be remembered. The story of the barcode here on
our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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