PICK OF THE ARCHIVES (reprinted from Spring 2007 Generations ) by Judy Sherman
In the 1920s Peter Markus lived in Minneapolis and enjoyed hunting and fishing. Too often in the newspapers he read about boaters and fishermen who could not swim and drowned without a life preserver. Old-style life jackets were too bulky and uncomfortable to be worn by active sportsmen, so Markus tinkered with the idea for a garment that was light and easy to wear but that could be a lifesaver when needed.
Markus’s life vest, now familiar to airline passengers as well as boaters and pilots is flat and light but can be inflated almost instantly by pulling a cord, which releases carbon dioxide from a cartridge. Markus was experimenting with the device at an inland boating event when the Navy became aware of it and slowly began to equip its sailors. During World War II, the Navy, the RAF and other Allied troops used them routinely, calling them “Mae West” in honor of the vaudevillian’s buxom figure.
JHSUM board member Norman Pink, whose great uncle was Peter Markus, donated a very old but apparently functional Mae West life vest that probably dates to World War II or before. Bill Wolpert, also Markus’s great-nephew and a JHSUM board member, recently shared more of the story of Markus’s lifesaving invention.
Susan Hoffman wearing the Mae West life vest.
It first saved a life when a plane en route to Hawaii crashed at sea. The pilot, who was wearing the device, was rescued after several hours afloat, but his passenger, who was not wearing one, drowned. The real capability of the vest was demonstrated in the 1935 crash of the dirigible Macon off the California coast. Of the 100 men aboard, inflatable life vests saved 98, and only two crewmen caught in the wreckage drowned. The routine use of these vests has probably saved many thousand of lives in war and peace. Markus made several thousand dollars from royalties at first, but during the war gave the patent rights and the royalties to the United
States.
In March 2005 an obituary in the New York Times of inventor Andrew Toti credited him with the invention of the Mae West life vest. Peter Markus’s son Alvin, who recalls learning to swim in the 1920s while wearing an early version of the vest, sent the obituary writer copies of clippings about his father and the vest, as well as copies of the 1927 patent application and the 1931 document from the US Patent Office granting Markus the patent. Apparently Toti had improved the vest by adding a crotch strap to keep the vest from floating up above the wearer’s head. The Times conceded Toti was not the original inventor and credited Peter Markus with the invention in a subsequent correction.
Peter Markus was born in Dubuque , Iowa
in 1885. His siblings Joe (grandfather of Norman Pink and Amos Heilicher), Bessie (grandmother of Bill Wolpert) and Mollie were born in Lazdija, Lithuania
. Markus eventually moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma,
where he owned the K.C. Pipe and Supply Company. The principle behind his inflatable vest has been used to make inflatable lifeboats and emergency slides for planes as well as other devices.
