The Shopping Cart 

An example of how one spectacular invention can prompt another is the supermarket shopping cart. By the mid-1930s, private automobiles and home refrigerators had become commonplace, giving consumers the means and the ability to buy more groceries at well-stocked self-service supermarkets proliferating across the country. Problem was that customers usually restricted their shopping to what they could comfortably place in their hand-held baskets; when it grew too heavy, they tended to stop.

One day in 1936 Sylvan Goldman, owner of the Standard/Piggly Wiggly supermarket chain in Oklahoma, contemplated the dilemma while idly staring across his office at two folding chairs. Then it hit him. By putting a basket on the seat and wheels on the legs, he could form a rolling cart-better yet, why not make it two baskets. Working with mechanic Fred Young, Goldman fashioned a metal frame with caster wheels supporting two wire baskets.

It was ingenious, but women initially shunned it because it reminded them of baby carriages, and men refused to use it lest they appear effeminate. Undeterred, Goldman secretly hired a few men and women to "demonstrate" how convenient it was to shop using the carts. His marketing ploy worked. Merchants across the nation saw it as a way to increase sales. Goldman formed the Folding Basket Carrier Company, later issuing improved models with nesting capabilities and built-in child seats. Soon, checkout counters and aisle layouts of supermarkets everywhere were being redesigned to accommodate shopping carts. In 1940, the Saturday Evening Post touted Goldman's invention as "the cart that changed the world." Indeed, it did.

Design Classic #19