- Brannock Device
The Brannock Device is a
measuring instrument invented by Charles F. Brannock for computing a person'sshoe size . The son of a shoe industry entrepreneur, Brannock spent two years developing a simple means of measuring the length, width and arc length of the humanfoot . He eventually improved on the wooden RITZ Stick, the industry standard of the day, and patented his first prototype in 1926. The device has both left and rightheel cups and is rotated through 180 degrees to measure the second foot. Brannock later formed the Brannock Device Company to manufacture and sell the product, and headed the company until 1992 when he died at age 89. Today, the Brannock Device is an international standard of thefootwear industry, and theSmithsonian Institution houses samples of some of the first Brannock Devices.The Brannock Device Company was headquartered in
Syracuse, New York , until shortly after Charles Brannock's death. Salvatore Leonardi purchased the company from the Brannock Estate in 1993, and moved manufacturing to a small factory inLiverpool, New York . The company continues to manufacture several models of the device for determining the shoe sizes of men, women, and children; they also produce specialized models for fitting other types of footwear.ources
*Craig, Berry. [http://www.brannock.com/history.html "Why the Shoe Fits."] "American Heritage of Invention & Technology" 16, no. 1. (Summer 2000): 64.
*Davidson, Martha. [http://invention.smithsonian.org/resources/online_articles_detail.aspx?id=348 "A Fitting Place for the Brannock Device Company Records."] 2001.
*Lukas, Paul. "Inconspicuous Consumption: An Obsessive Look at the Stuff We Take for Granted, from the Everyday to the Obscure". Three Rivers Press, 1997. ISBN 0-517-88668-5
* [http://americanhistory.si.edu/archives/d8672.htm Brannock Device Company Records, 1925–1998]External links
* [http://www.brannock.com/ The Brannock Device Co., Inc.]
* [http://web.mit.edu/invent/iow/brannock.html Charles Brannock: MIT inventor of the Week (August 2001)]
* [http://americanhistory.si.edu/archives/d8672.htm Brannock Company history and archives]
*" [http://www.sil.si.edu/exhibitions/doodles/cf/doodles_enlarge.cfm?id_] " (1920's) Smithsonian Institution Libraries
* [http://www.google.com/patents?id=EfdHAAAAEBAJ&pg=PA1 Patent in Google Patents]
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