The idea for what became duct tape came from
Vesta Stoudt, an
ordnance-factory worker and mother of two Navy sailors, who worried that problems with ammunition box seals would cost soldiers precious time in battle. She wrote to President
Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1943 with the idea to seal the boxes with a fabric tape, which she had tested at her factory. The letter was forwarded to the War Production Board, who put Johnson & Johnson on the job. The
Revolite division of
Johnson & Johnson had made medical adhesive tapes from duck cloth from 1927 and a team headed by Revolite's Johnny Denoye and Johnson & Johnson's Bill Gross developed the new adhesive tape, designed to be ripped by hand, not cut with scissors.
Their new unnamed product was made of thin cotton duck coated in waterproof
polyethylene (plastic) with a layer of rubber-based gray adhesive (branded as "Polycoat") bonded to one side. It was easy to apply and remove, and was soon adapted to repair military equipment quickly, including vehicles and weapons. This tape, colored in army-standard matte
olive drab, was widely used by the soldiers. After the war, the duck tape product was sold in hardware stores for household repairs. The Melvin A. Anderson Company of
Cleveland, Ohio, acquired the rights to the tape in 1950. It was commonly used in construction to wrap air ducts. Following this application, the name "duct tape" came into use in the 1950s, along with tape products that were colored silvery gray like tin ductwork.