Joshua Pusey (March 27, 1842 - May 8, 1906 (?)), was an American

inventor An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea, or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an ...

and an attorney. In 1827, an English

pharmacist A pharmacist, also known as a chemist in English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English, is a healthcare professional who is knowledgeable about preparation, mechanism of action, clinical usage and legislation of medications in ...

named John Walker produced his "sulphuretted peroxide strikables," gigantic, yard-long sticks that can be considered the real precursor of today's match. Small phosphorus matches were first marketed in Germany in 1832, but they were extremely hazardous. In 1836 in the United States, Alonzo D. Phillips of Springfield, Massachusetts, obtained a patent for "manufacturing of friction matches" and called them locofocos crazies. The danger problem was not resolved until the invention of amorphous (red) phosphorus in 1845. Carl Lundstrom of Sweden introduced the first red phosphorus "safety" matches in 1855. These types of matches were large and had to be carried in a wooden box, and Pusey didn't like the bulkiness of this. He decided to make matches in a paper book that was easier to carry. In 1889 he finished and had created strike-able book matches. Pusey was a

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

n attorney who was fond of

smoking Smoking is a practice in which a substance is combusted, and the resulting smoke is typically inhaled to be tasted and absorbed into the bloodstream of a person. Most commonly, the substance used is the dried leaves of the tobacco plant, whi ...

cigar A cigar is a rolled bundle of dried and Fermentation, fermented tobacco leaves made to be Tobacco smoking, smoked. Cigars are produced in a variety of sizes and shapes. Since the 20th century, almost all cigars are made of three distinct comp ...

s. Fed up with carrying bulky boxes of

wood Wood is a structural tissue/material found as xylem in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulosic fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin t ...

match A match is a tool for starting a fire. Typically, matches are made of small wooden sticks or stiff paper. One end is coated with a material that can be ignited by friction generated by striking the match against a suitable surface. Wooden matc ...

es, he set to work to invent

paper Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, Textile, rags, poaceae, grasses, Feces#Other uses, herbivore dung, or other vegetable sources in water. Once the water is dra ...

matches that would be lighter and smaller. His final design had matches secured to a thin paper wrapping with an attached striking surface. Unlike present-day matchbooks, Pusey positioned the striking surface on the inside of the paper fold. This allowed all 50 matches to be lit at once. The Diamond Match Company later put the striking surface on the outside. He received a

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...

for his invention of the paper

matchbook A matchbook is a small paperboard folder (known as a matchcover) enclosing a quantity of matches and having a coarse striking surface on the exterior. The folder is opened to access the matches, which are attached in a comb-like arrangement ...

(which he called "flexibles") in 1889, but the idea did not catch on right away. Eight years later, in 1897, the

Mendelssohn Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (3 February 18094 November 1847), widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period. Mendelssohn's compositions include symphonie ...

Opera Company distributed matchbooks with their

logo A logo (abbreviation of logotype; ) is a graphic mark, emblem, or symbol used to aid and promote public identification and recognition. It may be of an abstract or figurative design or include the text of the name that it represents, as in ...

emblazoned on them to advertise their

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

opening. After this promotion,

demand In economics, demand is the quantity of a goods, good that consumers are willing and able to purchase at various prices during a given time. In economics "demand" for a commodity is not the same thing as "desire" for it. It refers to both the desi ...

for paper matchbooks soared. Pusey later sold the invention to the

Diamond Match Company The Diamond Match Company is a brand of matches and toothpicks, and formerly other wood products and plastic cutlery, that has its roots in a business started in 1853 by Edward Tatnall in Wilmington, Delaware. Ownership passed to William H. ...

for $4000 in 1896.

External links

Joshua Pusey ExplorePAHistory.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pusey, Joshua 1842 births 1906 deaths 19th-century American inventors