Art Fry

Ancestors

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Biography

Son of Lawrence D. Fry and Nevada Jones

While working a 3M Company, Art came up with the idea, along with a fellow worker, for the "Post-it Note".

As a young man he made his first attempt into engineering by building toboggans from scrap lumber. He later earned a degree in chemical engineering. In the early 1950s, Art worked for 3M (then called Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company) and was to research and develop products.

In the early 1970s, with Spencer Silver, who had come up with a glue like substance that held but not so much that it couldn't be removed. But they couldn't come up with a practical application of it. Later Art realized he was using slips of small paper to mark his pages in his choir book as he sang on Sunday morning in church. So he thought to try some of the adhesive on the edge of a slip of paper and it worked. It stayed where placed but could be removed easily. Presenting it to 3M and then working out the production problems the new Post-it Notes were on the US market by 1980 and were a huge success.

Sources

• Wikipedia:Arthur Fry

• Wikidata: Item Q590764

• "United States Census, 1940", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KMBY-S6G : Fri Oct 06 12:02:38 UTC 2023), Entry for Laurence D Fry and Nevada Fry, 1940.

• "United States 1950 Census", database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:6F9H-HZ8W : Thu Oct 05 21:47:53 UTC 2023), Entry for Lawrence Fry and Nevada Fry, 10 April 1950.