Sure, we know about Thomas Alva Edison. We know about his workshop in Menlo Park and that it took him thousands of failed attempts to invent the design for a working lightbulb. We also know that he invented the phonograph and the motion picture camera.

New Jersey has more to offer than Edison’s amazing mind and tenacity. Many things were invented here, some by people who never became household names but whose ideas changed and shaped the world.

Here are seven inventions we had no idea came from right here in the Garden State.

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TV dinners

The history goes back to 1935. William Maxson of West Orange developed the idea of freezing already cooked foods and then packaging them inside reheatable containers to be served on troop transports. After the war, they were then sold to commercial airlines for in-flight dinners. Finally, the concept moved on to the TV dinners many remember.

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Electric guitar

While its predecessor was a hollow-bodied electrified guitar dabbled with in the 1930s in California, what we know as the solid-bodied electric guitar was invented in New Jersey. By who else other than Les Paul in 1940? The New Jersey Hall of Famer lived in Mahwah.

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Color TVs

The first color television was invented by RCA Laboratories and demonstrated in Princeton in 1947. It was created by Ray Kell and Richard Webb at RCA Labs. The first television show in color would come four years later in 1951, a variety show called “Premiere” on CBS.

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Vibrating Beds

Does anyone remember these? The Magic Fingers bed was coin-operated and would give a soothing, tingling feeling after several minutes of vibration. They were commonly found in cheap to mid-priced hotel and motel rooms in the 1960s through the 1980s. It was invented by John Joseph Houghtaling in his Glen Rock basement in 1958.

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Canva / TSM Illustration
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Bubble wrap

Those sheets of plastic with air bubbles used as packing material that no one doesn’t love to pop were invented in New Jersey. Marc Chavannes and Alfred Fielding came up with it in 1957 but envisioned it as a textured 3D wallpaper. That didn’t work. Then they tried marketing it as a greenhouse insulation. Also failed. Eventually, IBM heard about the stuff and contacted the men wondering if it could be used as packing material for their 1400 series computer products. Bingo.

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Play-Doh

Just like bubble wrap it didn’t start as what it became. A material that began as a wallpaper cleaner in 1933 fell out of favor when washable vinyl wallpaper came along. Years later Kay Zufall, a teacher from Dover, thought to use this material in a new way. She let her students experimentally play with it and soon they were creating anything they could imagine. Play-Doh was born.

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Teflon

Roy Plunkett accidentally invented this slippery substance in 1938. He worked for DuPont which had a research lab in Jackson and was experimenting with the synthesis of tetrafluoroethylene, a gas commonly used in refrigeration. When one canister wouldn’t discharge he discovered the gas had turned into a smooth white powder. It became the coating known as Teflon. Once he figured out the accidental process a patent was attained and Teflon became a household word.

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Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.

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