The Last Laugh
Monopoly? Frozen food? Windshield wipers? You've got to be kidding.
Let me guess: Your idea is the best thing since sliced bread.
When Otto Rohwedder dreamed up the idea of selling sliced bread in 1912, however, all he got was a lot of carping and naysaying. How difficult was it to slice bread? And everyone knew that bread, even loaves of it, got stale quickly; in slices, it would spoil in a matter of minutes.
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It took Mr. Rohwedder, a jeweler by trade, 16 years to produce a machine that could both slice and package the bread to prevent it from being exposed to air. Then he had to beg a Missouri baker to offer it for sale.
Once in a long while, an inventor comes up with an idea that is quickly recognized as brilliant and commercial -- Gerry Thomas, inventor of the TV dinner; Edwin Land and his instant camera; Erno Rubik and the cube puzzle. But more often, inventors' pitches are greeted with skepticism, embarrassment, even ridicule. A box on a pole to collect change from people who want to park their cars on the street? Plastic food containers that burp when you seal them? A doll for boys? Pantyhose? Even the father of American invention, Thomas Edison, couldn't persuade anyone to take seriously his first patented idea -- an electric voting machine. "I failed my way to success," Edison said later.
And let's face it, people who call themselves inventors come up with some seriously nutty ideas. A pet-petting machine that will save you the trouble of stroking your own dog or cat? A portable nuclear shelter? A cheese-filtered cigarette? A fan that lets you ski uphill? Every inventor has to be a tiny bit crazy, not to mention stubborn, self-important and impervious to the slings and arrows of family and friends.
And some people believe those creative qualities can't be taught; you either have them or you don't. The late Edward Lowe, who invented Kitty Litter, called the inventive and entrepreneurial spirit "beagleism." You can't become "an entrepreneur just out of the blue: 'I want to go to school and become an entrepreneur,' " Mr. Lowe said in a videotaped interview. "If you don't have it, you're not gonna do it. Beagleism -- I describe it as you can take a beagle out and he will automatically chase a rabbit."
FROM THE BOOKSHELF
To read more about these and other inventors, you can try the following books used in researching this article
? The Book of Inventions by Ian Harrison
National Geographic, 2004
? American Inventions by Stephen van Dulken
New York University Press, 2004
? Poplorica by Martin J. Smith and Patrick J. Kiger
HarperCollins, 2004
? The Rejects by Nathan Aaseng
Lerner Publications, 1989
? Historical First Patents by Travis Brown
Scarecrow Press, 1994
? The Playmakers by Tim Walsh
Keys Publishing, 2004
Recommended Reading: Need inspiration, ideas or just nuts-and-bolts instructions on how to start a business?
The inventors below had good ideas that were mocked and or ignored. Some, but not all, of them got the last laugh.
Do Not Pass Go
Charles Darrow didn't invent the game of Monopoly -- a woman named Elizabeth Magie Phillips made a prototype in 1904, although she called it the Landlord's Game. But in 1933, Mr. Darrow, an unemployed engineer desperate for money, took Mrs. Phillips's idea and redesigned it, adding a colorful board and wood game pieces. Initially, Mr. Darrow crafted each game by hand, but as friends told friends about Monopoly, demand increased far beyond the six sets he and his family could produce each day. He decided to offer Monopoly to two of America's biggest game makers -- Parker Brothers and Milton Bradley Co.
"After giving...Monopoly our very careful review and consideration, we do not feel we would be interested in adding this item to our line," a Milton Bradley manager wrote to Mr. Darrow in 1934. Parker Brothers was even harsher, listing "52 fundamental errors" in the game -- it was too complicated, it took too long to play, people wouldn't want to keep circling a board. "The decision to turn it down was unanimous," Edward Parker later recalled.
Mr. Darrow invested the last of his personal savings in manufacturing 7,500 copies of the game, which quickly sold out at several department stores. Parker Brothers decided Mr. Darrow's game wasn't so bad after all and bought it from him. In 1936, the company sold 1.8 million copies of Monopoly. Mr. Darrow retired a millionaire.
Frozen Assets
Clarence Birdseye was well educated, successful and a risk taker -- everything an inventor should be. But Mr. Birdseye's brilliant idea, frozen food, had been tried before, with miserable results. Before anyone could appreciate his invention, he had to overcome their deep-seated prejudices.
A born naturalist, who paid his college tuition by providing snake food -- frogs -- to the Bronx Zoo, Mr. Birdseye sailed to Labrador in 1912 and spent the next three years trapping and trading fur. Later, he brought his wife and infant there, making him yearn all the more for fresh food during Labrador's long, dark winters. Mr. Birdseye noticed that the Eskimos froze their fish quickly at temperatures of 40 degrees or more below zero. Amazingly, weeks later the fish, when thawed, still tasted pretty good.
Unfortunately for Mr. Birdseye, food purveyors had already given the public a taste of frozen meats and vegetables. The old method was to throw the food into cold storage, where it would freeze slowly, giving the ice crystals ample time to break down the cells of the food. When thawed, slow-frozen food turned into gray mush. Also, Americans had come to love canned goods, which were dependable and easy to ship and store. Grocers balked at installing new refrigerated cases to safeguard Mr. Birdseye's novelty.
But he didn't give up. He borrowed against his life-insurance policy to open his own frozen-food manufacturing operation. Struggling along on the verge of bankruptcy, Mr. Birdseye in 1929 sold the company to Postum (soon renamed General Foods). And with the marketing heft of General Foods behind it, the frozen-food brand Birds Eye began to show up in more grocery stores. Then, during World War II, tin was diverted to the war effort, and millions of Americans were forced to try frozen vegetables.
Mr. Birdseye died in 1956, a wealthy man who never stopped inventing.
Ready, Aim...
Samuel Colt was even more interested in guns than most boys of early-19th-century America. But the firearms industry in America wasn't very interested in a newfangled weapon called a revolver.
The son of a textile manufacturer, Mr. Colt became a merchant seaman at the age of 15. On a trip to India, he saw something he had never encountered before: a gun that could fire more than one bullet without reloading. On the ship back to the U.S., Mr. Colt began whittling an improved model of such a gun using a chisel and jackknife. In 1831, the 18-year-old Mr. Colt engaged a gunsmith to build real samples of his revolver. But without money or a job, he had to give up on the project and go back to work for his father.
Eventually, Mr. Colt raised enough money to hire machinists to fabricate his pistols, and in 1836 he patented his revolving cartridge firearm and set up a factory to produce them. But there were few buyers. The Army Ordnance Department and most American gun makers were satisfied with their single-shot muskets and pistols. They thought Colt's revolver was unreliable and overly complicated. The U.S. government bought a few of Mr. Colt's guns, but not enough to keep his company, the Patent Arms Manufacturing Co., in business. In 1842, it closed.
But a few military officers, among them Gen. Sam Houston, who were fighting in the American West, found that the Colt revolver was very useful in battles against superior numbers. Gradually, the army began ordering some of Colt's firearms, and within another decade Mr. Colt was a millionaire. He wrote about his frustrations as an inventor in a (poorly spelled) letter to Gen. Houston:
"I am truly pleased to lern...that your influance unasked for by a poor devil of an inventor has from your own sense of right been employed to du away the prejudice heretofore existing among men who have the power to promote or crush at pleasure all improvements in Fire arms for military purposes."
Ahead of Her Time
Poor Mary Anderson. By rights, her invention should have earned her a place in the annals of prescient problem-solvers. Instead, she's barely a footnote to the history of the automobile.
A native of Birmingham, Ala., Ms. Anderson visited New York in the winter of 1903 and was appalled by the weather -- and the way streetcar drivers coped with it. When it snowed or rained, they would stop the cars, get out, wipe off the windshield with their hands, get back into the car and start driving again. She began drawing up plans for a windshield-sweeping device that could be activated from inside the car to clear the windshield.
The next year, Ms. Anderson applied for a patent for a device that could be operated from inside a car by the driver. The lever caused a spring-loaded arm with a rubber blade to swing back and forth across the windshield. The patent was granted in 1905. Unfortunately, there were very few cars on the road in 1905, and even people who owned a car thought Ms. Anderson's device was idiotic. Drivers operating a windshield-clearing device would be distracted from the road, and the blade would obstruct their vision.
Mary Anderson apparently did not capitalize on her invention. Within a decade, however, windshield wipers were standard equipment on American cars.
Perhaps Ms. Anderson and other inventors who have been scoffed at would find some consolation in the reaction of President Rutherford Hayes after using a telephone for the first time. "A wonderful invention," Mr. Hayes said, "but who would ever want to use one?"
笑到最后
让我来猜一猜：你的主意是有了切片面包以来最好的主意。
1912年，奥托?罗韦德尔(Otto Rohwedder)有了出售切片面包的想法，但他得到的只是数不清的讽刺和拒绝。将面包切成片能有多难？再说大家都知道，即使是大块的面包也会很快变得不新鲜；如果切成片，可能几分钟就放坏了。从事珠宝生意的罗韦德尔花了整整16年时间，终于设计了一种能够将面包切片并包装，同时避免面包暴露到空气中的机器。之后他不得不央求一位密苏里的面包商帮助销售。
有时候，人们很快就觉得一位发明家的某个想法非常伟大，而且具有商业意义。比如：盖里?托马斯(Gerry Thomas)发明的速冻快餐；埃德温?兰德(Edwin Land)发明的快速照相机；艾尔诺?鲁毕克(Erno Rubik)发明的魔方等等。但很多时候，新发明面临的常常是质疑、误解，甚至嘲笑。立根杆子，顶上安个小盒子，向街边停放的汽车收费？密封后仍能透气的塑料食品包装盒？给男孩玩的洋娃娃？连裤袜？甚至是美国的发明之父托马斯?爱迪生(Thomas Edison)也无法劝说人们认真对待他的第一个创意：电子投票机。爱迪生后来说：“我成功的道路上充满失败。”
还是让我们正视现实吧。那些自称发明家的人通常都有一些匪夷所思的想法。能替你抚拍小猫小狗的宠物拍拍机？便携式防核辐射装置？用奶酪作过滤嘴的香烟？让你能够从下向上滑雪的风扇？所有的发明家都有一点疯狂，更不用说在家庭和朋友面前的固执、高傲和封闭了。
但有人坚信，创造素质不是后天学来的；你要么有，要么没有。发明猫砂的爱德华?楼伊(Edward Lowe)将发明和企业家精神称为“猎犬精神”。他在一次录像采访中表示，你不可能“一夜之间”就有了企业家精神。“不能说，我想去上学，学习做一名企业家。如果你没有这种精神，以后也不会有。我对猎犬精神的描述是：你把猎犬放出去，它会自动追逐猎物。”
下面这些发明家的好创意也曾受到嘲笑或被轻视。但其中一些，当然不是全部，却笑到了最后。
查尔斯?达罗(Charles Darrow)并未发明“大富翁”(Monopoly)游戏，这款游戏的原型是一位叫做伊丽莎白?菲利浦丝(Elizabeth Magie Phillips)的女性在1904年发明的，她将其称为“大地主游戏”(Landlord's Game)。但在1933年，急需赚钱的失业工程师达罗得到了菲利浦丝的创意，并进行了重新设计，增加了彩色的图板和木制游戏块。最初，达罗完全用手工制作游戏用品，但“大富翁”游戏在朋友之间口口相传，需求远远超过了他和家人每天能够生产出的6套。他决定将游戏转让给美国最大的两家玩具生产商Parker Brothers和Milton Bradley Co。
Milton Bradley的一位经理在1934年写信给达罗称：“仔细审核和考虑了大富翁游戏后，我们对新增这项产品并不感兴趣。”Parker Brothers更为挑剔，列出了游戏的“52项重大缺陷”──过于复杂，耗时太长，人们不想围著一块图板不停地转圈等等。爱德华?帕克(Edward Parker)后来回忆道，“放弃这款游戏的决定是一致通过的。”
达罗用自己的最后一点积蓄生产了7,500套游戏，很快在几家百货商店销售一空。Parker Brothers认为达罗的游戏毕竟不是非常糟糕，最终从他手中买下了游戏。1936年，该公司卖出了180万套大富翁。达罗作为百万富翁功成身退。
克拉伦斯?伯宰(Clarence Birdseye)受过良好的教育，事业成功，愿意承担风险──具有发明家应有的一切。但伯宰伟大的创意──冷冻食品──曾在多次尝试后均以失败收场。在人们称赞他的发明之前，他首先需要战胜人们心中根深蒂固的偏见。
伯宰是一位天生的自然主义者，大学时期的学费就是通过向Bronx动物园提供蛇类的美食──青蛙而筹集的。1912年，伯宰坐船来到拉布拉多，在这里做了3年捕猎和毛皮交易。后来，他将妻子和孩子接到这里。这样，在拉布拉多漫长黑暗的冬季里，他家对新鲜食品的需求明显增加。伯宰注意到，爱斯基摩人在零下40度，甚至更低的温度下将鱼快速冷冻。令人惊讶的是，几周后解冻时，鱼还是很新鲜。
不幸的是，对伯宰来说，食品加工商以前曾让人们品尝过冻肉和冻菜。过去的做法是将食品放到冷库中慢慢冷冻，冰晶有充足的时间破坏食物细胞，解冻时就会变成黑乎乎的一团。而且，美国人一直喜欢可靠且容易运输和储存的罐装食品。所以，零售商都不愿安装新的冷柜帮助伯宰实现他的新奇想法。
但他并未放弃。他用自己的人寿保单作抵押，贷了一笔款子自己经营速冻食品加工业务。在破产的边缘徘徊了几年，伯宰最后在1929年将公司卖给了Postum（很快改名为General Foods）。General Foods加大了营销力度，速冻食品品牌Birds Eye开始出现在越来越多的零售店。后来，第二次世界大战爆发，大部分生产食品罐的锡都被军事部门征用，数百万美国人被迫品尝速冻蔬菜。
伯宰1956年去世，他是一位从未停止过发明的富人。
塞缪尔?科尔特(Samuel Colt)比大多数19世纪初期的美国男孩子更喜欢枪械。但美国的武器业对他新发明的左轮手枪却不感兴趣。
科尔特是纺织厂主的儿子，15岁那年成了一名商船上的水手。在去印度的旅途中，他看到了以前从未遇到过的东西：不用重新装弹药就能射出多发子弹的枪。在返回美国的船上，科尔特开始用凿子和折叠刀对这种枪进行改造。1831年，18岁的科尔特请了一名军械厂工人生产左轮手枪的真实样品。但因为缺乏没有资金，自己也没有工作，科尔特不得中途放弃，回去给父亲打工。
最终，科尔特筹到了足够的资金，聘用机械师制造左轮手枪。1836年他申请了连发手枪的专利，并成立了生产厂。但购买者寥寥无几。陆军军械部(Army Ordnance Department)和大多数美国枪械制造商对当时的单发毛瑟枪和手枪并无不满。他们认为科尔特的左轮枪可靠性不够，而且过于复杂。美国政府购买了少量科尔特的枪械，但不足以支撑其公司──Patent Arms Manufacturing Co.的业务。1842年，这家工厂不得不关闭了。
但正在美国西部打仗的萨姆?休斯敦(Sam Houston)将军等少数军官发现，科尔特的左轮枪在以寡抵众的战斗中非常有用。陆军逐渐开始订购部分科尔特的枪械，不到十年，科尔特就成了百万富翁。他在给休斯敦将军的信中写下了他作为发明者的沮丧心情：
“我十分高兴地获知，您没有像其他人那样对发明家抱有偏见，他们的偏见粉碎了出于军事目的改进枪械带来的所有快乐。”
下一位：可怜的玛丽?安德森(Mary Anderson)。按理说，她的发明应为她在创造性解决问题的名人录中争得一席之地。但她在汽车业的发展史中却几乎默默无闻。
安德森是阿拉巴马州人，1903年冬季她到纽约时，被当地的天气──以及电车司机的应对方式震惊了。天一下雪或下雨，司机就会停车、跳下来、用手擦擦挡风玻璃，然后回到车上接著开。她开始构思一种能在车内启动的挡风玻璃清扫装置。
第二年，安德森为这种能从车内操作的装置申请了专利。控制杆可带动一个带有橡胶擦的弹簧力臂在挡风玻璃上前后摆动。这项专利在1905年获得批准。
不幸的是，1905年路上跑的车很少，即使有车的人也认为安德森的装置非常滑稽。司机操作时会分神，不能集中精力注意道路情况，橡胶擦也会妨碍他们的视线。
安德森显然未能因此致富。但是，不到十年挡风玻璃雨刷就成为美国汽车的标准装备。
也许安德森和其他一直受到嘲笑的发明家们能从总统拉瑟福德?海斯(Rutherford Hayes)的一句话中得到些许安慰。海斯首次使用电话后说：“了不起的发明，但谁会用呢？”
