Whitcomb L. Judson (March 7, 1843 – December 7, 1909) was an American machine salesman, mechanical engineer and inventor.

He received thirty patents over a sixteen-year career, fourteen of which were on pneumatic street railway innovations.

In 1889, Judson obtained six patents related to his concept of a street railway running on compressed air.

The concept was similar to the cable railway system but with pistons suspended beneath the rail-car.

[6] He also invented a "clasp-locker" automation production machine that made his fastener device inexpensively.

The "clasp locker" was a complicated hook-and-eye fastener with an arrangement of hooks and eyes run by a "guide" for closing and opening a clothing item.

"[8] It is also said one of the reasons he invented this device was to relieve the tedium of fastening high button boots that were fashionable in those days.

Later design patents of the fastener describe opposite elements on each side that are identical to each other and fit together by the engaging of "pintles" and "sockets."

Judson launched the Universal Fastener Company to manufacture his new invention, together with Harry L. Earle and Lewis Walker.

Judson made a "C-curity" clasp-locker fastener in 1905 which was an improved version of his previous patents.

[13] Judson made his invention to save people the trouble of buttoning and unbuttoning their shoes every day as shows in his wording in the patent application.

557,207 From the foregoing statements it must be obvious that a shoe equipped with my device has all the advantages peculiar to a lace-shoe, while at the same time it is free from the annoyances hitherto incidental to lace-shoes on account of the lacing and unlacing required every time the shoes were put on or taken off the feet and on account of the lacing-strings coming untied.

[14]In 1913, the zipper was improved by the Swedish-American engineer, Gideon Sundback, and also by Catharina Kuhn-Moos of Europe.

Sundback successfully redesigned Judson's fastener into a more streamlined and reliable form called "Talon."

The B. F. Goodrich company in 1923 installed these fasteners in their rubber galoshes, calling the new design "Zippers."

[15] Rossland became vice-president of Continental Motor Manufacturing Company, which developed the first automobile hydraulic system co-innovated by Judson.