Object: The Screw Driver

 The History acording to Wickipedia...

The earliest screwdrivers of which written evidence remains were used in Europe in the late Middle Ages. It seems that they were probably invented in either Germany or France, in the late 15th century. The tool's original names in German and French were Schraubendreher (screwturner) and tournevis (turnscrew), respectively, reflecting the native linguistic patterns of Germanic and Romance languages ("noun-verber" and "verb-noun", respectively). The first documentation of the tool is in The Medieval Housebook of Wolfegg Castle, a manuscript written sometime between 1475 and 1490. These earliest screwdrivers had pear-shaped handles and were made for slotted screws (diversification of the many types of screwdrivers did not emerge until the Gilded Age). The screwdriver remained inconspicuous, however, as evidence of its existence throughout the next 300 years was based primarily on the presence of screws.

Screws were very hard to produce before the First Industrial Revolution, requiring manufacture of a helix on a cylindrical surface that cones off. Two brothers, Job and William Wyatt, found a way to produce a screw on an assembly line type machine that first cut the slotted head, and then carved the helix. Though their business ultimately failed, their contribution to the screw ultimately led to a vast increase in the screw and the screwdriver’s popularity.

The increase in popularity ultimately lead to refinement and eventually diversification of the screwdriver. Refinement of the precision of screws also significantly contributed to the boom in production, mostly by increasing its efficiency and standardizing sizes, important precursors to industrial manufacture.

Canadian P.L. Robertson, although he was not the first person to patent the idea of socket-head screws, was the first person to successfully commercialize them, starting in 1908.

Meanwhile, Henry F. Phillips patented his own invention, an improved version of a deep socket with a cruciform, today known as the Phillips Screw. The Phillips screw was offered by Phillips to the American Screw Company, and after a successful trial on the 1936 Cadillac, quickly swept through the American auto industry. With the Industrial Revival at the end of the Great Depression and the onslaught of World War II, the Phillips screw quickly became, and still remains, the most popular screw in the world.