Posted on 08/26/2022 7:50:12 AM PDT by Borges
E. Bryant Crutchfield, a paper-company executive who in the early 1980s brought three-ringed order to the chaos of millions of grade-school backpacks with a plastic-and-cardboard triptych he called the Trapper Keeper, died on Sunday at a hospice center in Marietta, Ga. He was 85.
His son, Kenneth, said the cause was bone cancer.
Few objects evoke Gen X or millennial childhood as powerfully as the Trapper Keeper, essentially a large binder for your folders. Mead, Mr. Crutchfield’s employer, introduced it nationally in 1981, and by the end of the decade the company estimated that half of all middle and high school students in the United States had one.
Mr. Crutchfield’s design was brilliantly simple: The “trappers,” or folders, had vertically oriented pockets, which “trapped” papers; they were then held in place by a set of plastic rings in the “keeper,” which was closed with a metal snap — or, in later and more memorable versions, a patch of Velcro.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
College students, too...
I loved those things.
Well done, Mr. Crutchfield! Godspeed!
What about the Copper Clapper?
Haha
Claude Cooper gave the world the Copper Clapper.
We have three kids, first born in 1986. I never heard of a “Trapper Keeper.” My wife never heard of it either.
Sounds like a simple and practical invention. I hope he made some good money off of it.
In my day, many decades back, we all craved Pee-Chee folders. And our textbooks wore homemade covers fashioned from heavy brown-paper shopping bags.
I saw South Park those things are dangerous.
I had the brown shopping bag book covers too!
“I had the brown shopping bag book covers too”!
Me, too.
I liked my Trapper Keepers.
They really helped.
Back when we respected our school books.
Showing the age but it was all I carried in late middle school and high school for keeping my papers and notes. Still, I covered my text books with cut up brown grocery store bags. The Heavy grade bags they used to have.
Are you thinking of the Clapper Caper?
I owned at least one in high school. I preferred other methods, plus it was a bit pricey for my parents’ budget.
It was a big deal when textbooks were distributed on the first day of class! I remember the teacher walking up and down the aisle between our desks, dropping one on each desk while lecturing us on their proper treatment. We eagerly flipped thru them, checked their condition, then turned to the frontispiece where the names of the prior years’ owners were written. After noting the familiar names, we carefully added our names to the bottom of the list.
Yeah, the Copper Clapper Caper by Claude Cooper.
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