Vesta Stoudt facts for kids

Vesta Oral Stoudt (April 13, 1891 – May 9, 1966) was the woman who had the seminal idea for duct tape.

Early life

Vesta Oral Wildman was born on 13 April 1891 in Prophetstown, Illinois, to Gertrude Caroline (née Johnson) and Ulyses Simpson Grant Wildman, one of five sisters.

Invention of Duct Tape

During the Second World War, Stoudt worked at the Green River Ordnance Plant in Dixon, Illinois packing ammunition boxes. She recognized that the way ammunition boxes were sealed made them difficult for soldiers to open in a hurry. She suggested this idea to her bosses at work who didn't implement the change. On February 10, 1943, she wrote a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt explaining the problem and offering a solution. Her idea was to seal boxes with a waterproof, tearable cloth tape which she created and tested at her job.

I suggested we use a strong cloth tape to close seams, and make tab of same. It worked fine, I showed it to different government inspectors they said it was all right, but I could never get them to change tape.

—Vesta Stoudt to President Roosevelt, February 10, 1943

Roosevelt approved of the idea which he sent to the War Production Board who wrote back to Stoudt.

The Ordnance Department has not only pressed this idea...but has now informed us that the change you have recommended has been approved with the comment that the idea is of exceptional merit.

—War Production Board's Ordnance Department to Vesta Stoudt, March 26, 1943,

They tasked the Revolite Corporation to create the product. Stoudt received Chicago Tribune's War Worker Award for her idea, and her persistence with it.

Personal life

Vesta Wildman married Harry Issac Stoudt on 19 October 1910 in Morgan, Illinois. They went on to have eight children.

Vesta O Stoudt died age 75 at the Whiteside County Nursing home in Prophetstown, on May 9, 1966, following a long illness. She was survived by five children, twenty grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren.