History Of Sunglasses
Sunglasses are a regular part of everyday eyewear, it seems impossible to imagine a future without them. When did sunglasses come into being and who was the person who invented them?
The oldest forms of sunglasses have been discovered as far back as the prehistoric Inuit period. Inuit people believe to have come from western Alaska and Canada around the 1000 common period (CE).
Residing in snow-heavy areas, the Inuit are thought to have developed some form of snow goggles to safeguard themselves from photokeratitis, also known as snow blindness.
Artifacts that were discovered during this period comprised of driftwood ivory, and bone . They had tiny slits that were carved into the front of the eyepieces. They also decreased glare by coating the carved-out openings with soot and gunpowder.
Who is the person who invented modern sunglasses?
The first pair of darkened glasses is believed to have been discovered in China in the 12th century, but they were available only to the most wealthy, and were mostly used to disguise the feelings of official officials.
In the late 1700s, James Ayscough, an English optician, proposed the addition of tint (primarily blue, green and amber) to eyeglasses to treat a variety of vision issues. The result was that Ayscough is often considered to be the inventor of sunglasses even though the sunglasses created by him were not made to protect eyes from the sun.
Crookes lenses were developed in the 1900s. Sir William Crookes was a British chemist and physicist who invented a 100% ultraviolet-light-blocking sunglass lens made from glass containing cerium. But it would take another 29 years before the concept of wearing sunglasses while flying regularly scheduled takeoff.
The year 1929 was when Sam Foster launched a manufacturing firm for plastics in Massachusetts and began making celluloid, among other products. In the following year, the first plastics injection molding machine was created. This machine allowed to manufacture mass mark mass sunglasses for the first time.
Foster was soon selling cat eye sunglasses under the name Foster Grant from a Woolworth store in Atlantic City, New Jersey. By 1937, more than 20 million sunglasses were said to have been distributed in the U.S.
Since they were introduced, sunglasses have since become an integral part of our everyday culture. Nowadays our United States is home to the largest market for sunglasses in the world, earning greater than $4.66 billion in revenue in 2018.
Foster Grant glasses are still available, in CVS, Walgreens, and other retail stores.
When was the time that sunglasses with polarized lenses were created?
Edwin Land, who founded the Polaroid Corporation in Cambridge, Massachusetts invented the first sunglasses that had the polarizing filter, which was introduced in 1929.
After 1935, the company reached a deal with American Optical Company to produce the first sunglasses with polarization.
Polarized lenses are equipped with a filter that blocks the intense reflection of light, which reduces glare, as well as improves the clarity of vision. These lenses can be highly beneficial for a variety of sporting activities as they block glare from reflections of light off flat surfaces, like sand, water, or a field of snow.