Whatever type of clothes hanger we use today – metal, wood or plastic – it drapes our shirts, blouses, jackets, trousers, skirts, as if the clothes were sitting on our own ‘human’ shoulders.
Row after row of clothes sit on these humble hangers, ready for us to purchase throughout stores all over the world.
In 1903, Albert J. Parkhouse, heard his co-worker at the Timberlake Wire and Novelty Company in Jackson, Michigan, complain that there were not enough hooks to put his coat on and set about solving the problem. Parkhouse bent a piece of wire into two ovals, with ends twisted together to form a hook. The first recorded retail use of the early hangers was in 1906 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, when Meyer May, a men’s clothier,
was the first to use them to put his merchandise on.
Parkhouse did patent his invention, but he was not actually the first. That credit goes to O. A. North of Connecticut, who in 1869, took out a clothes hook patent. (It should also be acknowledged that some histories credit the US President, Thomas Jefferson, with inventing the first wooden hanger.) In fact, in the USA, there have been many patents for various types of clothes hangers; over 200 have been counted to date.
The Parkhouse wire clothes hook was further improved in 1932 when Schuyler C. Hulett received a patent for putting cardboard tubes onto the upper and lower portions of the hook, so that when freshly washed clothes were put over them they did not crease. In 1935, the next evolution was seen in the form of a hanger with a tube on the lower bar, the invention of Elmer D. Rogers.
Over the years, hangers have become carriers for the name of the brands as well as the clothes themselves, but the basic principles of their design have remained pretty much the same. They remain an excellent example of form following function.
Contribution to Retail History
Use of hangers enabled retailers to easily move and display rails of clothing at any given location on the shop floor. Garments were displayed with more efficient use of store space and to far better effect – uncreased, and more accessible to browsing customers, making it easy for them to see what was in style and in stock and encouraging closer scrutiny and handling. The clothes hanger also enabled more efficient distribution of merchandise between the manufacturer and the store.