Bubble wrap was originally invented in 1957 by an American mechanical engineer and a Swiss chemical engineer trying to design a textured plastic wallpaper for the Beat generation — failed, tried selling it as greenhouse insulation, failed again — and was saved only when IBM started using it to ship its 1401 mainframe computers

The original wallpaper concept was, by every available account from the period, a perfectly reasonable mid-century product idea. The American post-war housing boom had produced a substantial market for interior design innovations. The Beat generation and its broader cultural ecosystem — beatniks, jazz clubs, abstract expressionist art, modernist architecture — was creating consumer demand for [...] The post Bubble wrap was originally invented in 1957 by an American mechanical engineer and a Swis