John P. Thompson changed our world yet most of us have never heard of him. At some point in our lives, each of us has used his inventions. It would be hard to find a home in America which does not contain multiples of John’s inventions. They are so commonplace that they often go unnoticed.
Little is known about John Thompson, but he was born in 1857 in Iowa. After working various jobs including laborer, bank teller, and room furnisher in a couple of different states, he eventually settled in Portland, Oregon. While there, he worked as an auto mechanic. John used a hand tool to tighten fasteners to the cars he worked on, but the tool kept slipping off the fastener. This resulted in skinned knuckles and damage to the cars. Finally, John’s frustration had reached its limit. He decided to create a new tool and fastener that when used together would not slip. No one knows how long John worked on his inventions or how many attempts it took before he created his “cruciform groove” tool and fastener, but in the summer of 1932, John filed for patents for his two inventions. On May 9, 1933, the United States Patent Office granted patent numbers 1,908,080 and 1,908,081 for John’s fastener and tool respectively. For reasons that remain unclear, in the patents John assigned or transferred his rights to his inventions to Henry Frank. The connection between John and Henry has never been proven, but many people believe that Henry purchased or funded John’s patents.
Rather than investing the money to create and sell the tool and fasteners himself, Henry created a company to franchise the products. Companies which produced them paid Henry’s company a hefty royalty. In 1936, Cadillac became the first industrial customer to use John’s inventions for its 1937-year model cars. The new tool and fasteners increased production and lowered costs. Word quickly spread and within a short time the other automobile companies as well as railroad and aviation manufacturers adopted John’s cruciform groove inventions. In September 1940, John died impoverished and largely forgotten, but Henry became wealthy. John’s cruciform groove inventions could have been known as the Thompson screw and Thompson screwdriver, but because he transferred the patents to Henry, we know them by his last name. We have all used Henry Frank…Phillips screws and Phillips screwdrivers.
Sources:
1. Michael J. Allen, “Phillips screw and driver,” Oregon Encyclopedia: A project of the Oregon Historical Society, accessed April 5, 2026, https://www.
2. “J.P. Thompson Screw, patent number 1,908,080,” United States Patent and Title Office, May 9, 1933, accessed April 5, 2026, https://ppubs.uspto.gov/
3. “J.P. Thompson Screw Driver, patent number 1,908,081,” United States Patent and Title Office, May 9, 1933, accessed April 5, 2026, https://ppubs.uspto.gov/