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Screw-cutting lathe, from The Medieval Housebook of Wolfegg Castle, c. 1475-90

In his book, One Good Turn – A Natural History of the Screwdriver & the Screw, author Witold Rybczynski traces the development of the screwdriver from the Greek invention of the water screw in the second century B.C., possibly by Archimedes, to the 1936 patent for socket screws by Henry Phillips of Oregon.

Along the way there were turnscrews used for wine, olive oil, linen and printing presses. Early screwdrivers were used in Germany in war technology for armor and firearms.

In the 18th century the English Wyatt brothers discovered how to manufacture screws cheaply, and Henry Maudslay created a precision screw cutter, based on a sketch by da Vinci.

Traveling tool company salesman Peter Robertson invented the Wrench-Brace, a combination brace, monkey wrench, screwdriver, bench vise and rivet maker.

In 1907 Robertson patented a socket-head screw. He got the idea for a 1907 socket-head screw patent while demonstrating a spring-loaded screwdriver to sidewalk gawkers in Montreal.

“An enthusiastic promoter, Robertson found financial backers, talked a small Ontario town, Milton, into giving him a tax-free loan and other concessions, and established his own screw factory.”
The automotive industry became a major customer.

Phillips too had been a traveling salesman. He acquired patents for Portland inventor John Thompson’s socket screw and improved the design with a cruciform shape.

After rejections by many manufacturers, the American Screw Company developed it for the automotive industry, and within two years after its first use in the 1935 Cadillac all but one automobile manufacturer had switched to his socket screws.

The author suggested that his favorite, the Robertson, might be the “biggest little invention of the 20th century.”

What might interest the fastener industry most is Rybczynski’s final chapter, which reviews literature to determine the Father of the Screw.

“The water screw is not only a simple and ingenious machine, it is also, as far as we know, the first appearance in human history of the helix. The discovery of the screw represents a kind of miracle,” Rybczynski wrote. “Only a mathematical genius like Archimedes could have described the geometry of the helix in the first place. If he invented the water screw as a young man in Alexandria, and – as I like to think – later adapted the idea of the helix to the endless screw, then we must add a small but hardly trifling honor to his many distinguished achievements: Father of the Screw.”

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