SAFETY, INVENTION AND EXISTENTIALISM

On October 27, 2008 in General

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Peter Drucker, in his ‘Managing in the Next Society’ made an unsubstantiated claim that hard hats were invented by Franz Kafka¹.  Franz Kafka was famous for his writings about individuals living under the strong influence of strong, nightmarish and mysterious forces, as evidenced in ‘The Castle’ or ‘The Trial’.  So what prompted a writer to invent a safety hat?

Kafka was not an accomplished writer during his lifetime, most of his works being published only posthumously.  He was actually gainfully employed during his life in a few positions, The one most relevant for this article being his employment at the Worker’s Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia from 1908 onwards.  He was supposedly a hard working employee, and received several promotions during his employment, and was quite proud of the work he performed there, in that he sent copies of his reports to close family and friends (a violation of copyrights?).  According to Drucker, it was during this time that Kafka came up with this invention.  However, considering there are copious documents available from that time period and area by and to Kafka, no documentation was available that mentions such an invention.

So who really was responsible for this really wonderful invention?  According to the Bullard Company², it was founder’s son Edward Wheatley Bullard who hit upon this idea when he returned home from his stint at the army in World War I.  He apparently patented his invention as ‘Hard-boiled Hat’ in 1919.

A quick search on espacenet³ for inventor Edward Bullard and title ‘Hat OR Cap’ gave ten patents, the earliest of which was filed in 1927 and granted 1929.  The safety hat has taken several shapes, sizes, and is being made for a variety of different situations these days.

1.      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_hats

2.      http://www.bullard.com/V3/products/head_face/head_protection/Hard_Hat_History/

3.     http://v3.espacenet.com/searchResults?locale=en_EP&TI=hat+or+cap&IN=edward+bullard&ST=advanced&compact=false&DB=EPODOC

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