“I never understood what people did with them—who's buying all these?"
Diane Smahlik, daughter of Ettore Steccone
Italian immigrant Ettore Steccone (1896-1984) liked to keep windows clean. When he moved across the Atlantic in 1922, window cleaners were using heavy, cumbersome tools, but he was about to change all that. In 1936 the patent for Steccone's squeegee was filed, and in 1938 it was published. But he was viewed as an uneducated Italian immigrant, and his attempts to sell his invention to dealers proved fruitless. Instead he approached fellow window cleaners, offering them the chance to try his tool for one day Its simplicity and ergonomic design made it an instant hit and the Steccone family made a great deal of money.
The squeegee has been making the lives of window cleaners easier ever since, and the design has hardly changed in the process. The key lies in the rubber, as even the slightest imperfections will leave streaks on the glass. Despite the fact that Steccone's company—still based in Oakland—has evolved into "the world's squeegee empire," the workers still cut every single strip of rubber by hand, using Steccone's original wooden measuring system.
The squeegee looks just like a T-shaped device with a rubber bit across the front edge, but the formula for producing rubber that leaves windows squeaky clean is still carefully guarded to this day, even if imitations do exist. However, in the future self-cleaning windows may take some of Steccone's market share.
