- Judson Dunaway
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S. Judson Dunaway, 1890-1976, was an
inventor ,entrepreneur , and to the community ofDover, New Hampshire , aphilanthropist . Judson's family appears to be fromVirginia : He wrote a chapter on the Dunaway coat of arms in the book "The Dunaways of Virginia" [LC CS71.D895] , by Anna Elizabeth Clendening.Dunaway manufactured a number of
household specialtychemical s, including Deleterust and stain remover,Vanish toilet bowl cleaner, Elf drain cleaner, Expello moth crystals andinsecticide , and Bug-a-Boo moth crystals andaerosol .Expello was the leading brand in moth crystals. However, because the market is much bigger for toilet bowl cleaners, Vanish was his greatest success. His skills as an inventor were much less important than his skills as a marketer. The world of household cleansers is rife with me-too products.
Elf, a me-too drain cleanser, consisted of lye crystals. This was a less effective agent than crystal
Drano , which added aluminum shards to generate heat and provide a sharp edge to cut through hair, but it was equally good as any of Drano's other me-too competitors. Delete rust and stain remover consisted ofoxalic acid (an anti-rust agent),citric acid (a chelating agent) and microcrystallinecellulose , a very softabrasive . It was a good product, but not an inspired one, and it addressed a very small niche in the marketplace.Moth crystals aren't a complicated product, either; they're just paradichlorobenzene, possibly with perfume added. Moth crystals have largely been displaced by
moth balls , which are made ofnaphthalene , for liability reasons: while naphthalene is highly toxic, paradiclorobenzene is more toxic still. Furthermore, the entire moth preventative product category has declined with the adoption ofsynthetic fiber s, which moths do not eat, and the adoption ofair conditioning , which makes it harder for moths to reproduce.Toilet bowl cleaners aren't complicated, either. They are mostly sodium hydrogen sulfate and
surfactant s. Most household cleansers arealkaline (basic) in nature, but toilet bowl cleansers areacid ic.Dunaway is credited with inventing Vanish - except that he didn't invent it so much as wait for the patents for Sani-Flush [US Patent 1,118,200 Cleaning And Disinfecting Powder for the Removal of Stains, Incrustations, &c.] to expire in 1932, and then introduced Vanish in 1937. His marketing was good enough to distress Hygienic Products, who had been making Sani-Flush since 1911, and they sued him for trademark infringement in 1945. When the case was resolved in Dunaway's favor, it was a landmark ruling; the case [178 F.2d 461 (84 U.S.P.Q. 31) HYGIENIC PRODUCTS CO. v. JUDSON DUNAWAY CORPORATION, United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.] is still commonly cited in infringement lawsuits.
In 1957, the
Federal Trade Commission also took note of Judson Dunaway's marketing skills, [http://www.ftc.gov/os/annualreports/ar1958.pdf] although they weren't admiring them. The Judson Dunaway Corporation,General Mills , andSwanee Paper Corporation were charged with violating theClayton Act in dealing withGrand Union Co., a large eastern supermarket chain. Grand Union agreed not to carry similar products to those of Dunaway and General Mills, and Grand Union received promotional allowances not available to Grand Union's competitors. All four companies signedconsent decree s, a legal document in which one does not admit to doing anything wrong, but agrees to stop doing it.Originally, Dunaway did business as Expello Corporation. Eventually, he did business as the Judson Dunaway Corporation. The New Hampshire Secretary of State's office online search does not show any corporation ever existing under either name.
At the end of Dunaway's career in the late 1950s or early 1960s, the company was sold to The
Drackett Company. Vanish was a higher volume brand with reasonably good margins, and became one of their major brands. With no real competitors, Delete had satisfactory margins, but minimal volume. They made no real effort to market it, but simply accepted orders to replenish merchants' inventories. When ceramic cooktops first became popular in the 1970s, it enjoyed a major boom in sales, but it was still a product to be manufactured only one day a year. As manufacturers of the leadingDrano brand, Drackett saw Elf as a brand they wanted to kill. Expello was a liability bomb waiting to go off, and since Drackett already had theRenuzit brand, Expello found itself in the hands of Willert Home Products.Personal life
Dunaway and his wife, Anna E., lived on Belknap street in Dover during his early career as a manufacturer. In 1946, he purchased the [http://images.dover.lib.nh.us/digital%20images/120%20Silver%20st.jpghouse] at 120 Silver Street,
Dover, New Hampshire from Mary Dearborn. His daughter Helen is remembered in Dover for her large hair bows. Personally, or through his foundation, he funded squash courts atColby College inWaterville, Maine , the Judson Dunaway Library and Media Center at St. Thomas Aquinas High School inDover, New Hampshire , a wing at Wentworth-Douglass Hospital in Dover, a community center inOgunquit, Maine ee also
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