This thread got me thinking that it would be fun to have a connection list that, instead of being presidents of this or that country, or governors of this or that state, would be inventors of favourite goodies1. After all, goodies bring such happiness to our lives, and wouldn't it only be fair to give credit to all those people who invented such amazing deliciousness?
Oddly enough, though, an awful lot of companies like to play coy with admitting who actually invented their biggest-selling products.
Now, granted, it's possible that they were all invented by committees, but I doubt that that happens very often. (Recall that one definition of a camel is a horse that was invented by a committee.) In my experience, creative ideas tend to come from individuals, or sometimes two or three people working together. Granted, working out mass production and so on take lots of people, but I suspect that the original ideas usually come from individuals or very small teams.
I suspect that the real problem is that company lawyers say things like "Oh, you can't give out the name of the person who invented that! Their great-grandchildren will sue for back royalties." I say "rubbish". For one thing, patents are only good for 17 years, so once a product has been on the market long enough, anyone can put out a copy (although they can't use the trademark). For another thing, if somebody invents something and then subsequently sells the recipe (or their company) to another company, then the rights to the product go with the sale, and nobody can come back later and sue. (Granted, they might weep and gnash their teeth that their great grandpappy didn't demand a higher price, but legally, they have no recourse.)
All that said, if you can find out who invented your favourite goodies, please, uh, do something or other. I'm pretty sure I wrote a footnote about what to do. Now where did I put that?
- "Whose favourite goodies?" I hear you ask. That's easy: yours. Make a list of the goodies you love best (one, two, three, or however many, although if your list goes past a dozen then it's probably time to stop making a list of goodies and eat lunch), then see if you can find out who invented each, and then look to see if they have a WikiTree profile, and add one for them if they don't. Then please reply to this comment with the name of the inventor (and the goodie) and a link to their profile. But please don't anybody start connecting them yet! I'm planning to post a new connector list on Friday, and it wouldn't be any fun for the connectors if the profiles were already connected, would it? (You can source. By all means, source, add categories, write biographies, post photos... just hold off on the actual connectionisationificating, if you don't mind...)
