The Accidental Inventions We Should All Be Grateful For

Our next story is about a product that became obsolete until a new use was found for it. In the 1930s, Noah McVicker developed a putty that could clean coal residue off of wallpaper. It worked really well, but then wallpaper materials changed, and his product was no longer useful and needed.

Fortunately for him, as the story goes, he heard from a schoolteacher how her students loved to play with her cleaning putty and mold it into different shapes. He realized that if he could rebrand and market his product for that purpose, he could find a use for it again! And that’s how we came to have the beloved Play-Doh.