Roller Skating 1: Development of the Skate
By the early 17th century, ice skating had become such a convenient way for the Dutch to move around on their frozen canals that, in warmer weather, they evidently began using a primitive type of roller skate, made by attaching wooden spools to a platform. Some sources give the name of the inventor as Hans Brinker or Brinkner.
The documentation for all that is very skimpy and questionable, though. We're on much firmer ground with John Joseph Merlin. A Belgian-born mechanic, Merlin settled in London in 1760, when he was 25 years old. He made fine clocks and watches and also came up with a number of inventions, including a "perpetual motion machine" that was powered by changes in atmospheric pressure.
In 1760, he made made himself a pair of roller skates. According to a contemporary report, Merlin chose to demonstrate his invention at a costume ball in London. He rolled into the ballroom, playing a violin, and crashed into a very expensive mirror. The mirror was shattered and Merlin was badly injured. That ended experimentation with roller skates for about 30 years.
Another Belgian, Maximiliaan Lodewijik Van Lede, in 1790 made a roller skate that he called the patin a terre, meaning "earth skate" or "land skate." While Merlin had used two iron wheels, Van Lede's skate was an iron plate to which wooden wheels were attached.
Van Lede was living in Paris when he came up with his invention. The idea of the roller skate must have been in the air of France. The first roller skate patent was issued in 1819 to a Frenchman named Petitbled for a design that had two to four rollers of copper, ivory, or wood on a wooden soleplate to be attached to a boot. Four years later, Robert John Tyers of London, who was an avid ice-skater, was issued a patent for a skate he called the "Rolito." It had five wheels in a single row. The center wheels were slightly larger than those on the ends, allowing to skater to maneuver by shifting weight to the front or rear.
Another roller skate patent was issued in Austria in 1828 to August Lohner, a Viennese clock maker. Up until then, all the designs had been for in-line skates, but Lohner's version was like a tricycle, with two wheels in back and one in front. He also added a ratchet to prevent the skate from rolling backward.
Now back to France, where Jean Garcin also received a patent in 1828, for a skate that he called the "Cingar," reversing the syllables of his last name. This was another in-line design, with three wheels. Garcin opened a roller rink, gave lessons, encouraged ice skaters to take up roller skating in warm weather, and wrote a book, Le Vrai Patineur ("The True Skater"). But so many people were injured while skating in his rink that he was forced to shut it down.
Every so often, roller skating got some publicity from the theater. In 1818, a ballet called Der Maler oder die Wintervergn Ugungen ("The Artist or Winter Pleasures") was staged in Berlin. Ice skating was among the winter pleasures portrayed, but it had to be simulated by roller skaters. It's not known what type of skates were used.
Monsieur and Madame Dumas, who were professional dancers, led a performance of fancy roller skating at Paris's Port Saint Martin-Theatre in 1840.
The German composer Giacomo Meyerbeer wrote an opera, Le Prophète, which included an ice skating ballet scene on a frozen lake. Again, roller skaters had to pretend to be ice skaters. A French skater, Louis Legrand, was hired to teach the dancers how to skate. Legrand also created two kinds of skates for the production. For the men, he designed boots with two wheels, front and back. For the women, he made skates with two wheels in front and two in back, the first appearance of what are now known as "quad" roller skates, to distinguish them from in-line skates.
The Meyerbeer opera opened in Paris on April 6, 1849, and in London on August 24 of that year. It opened in New Orleans less than in a year after its Paris premiere, though the opera wasn't staged in New York until 1853.
Le Prophète was very popular, as was an 1849 ballet, Plaisier de Hiver ou Les Patineurs ("The Pleasures of Winter or the Skaters)", another show in which roller skaters impersonated ice skaters. These two productions helped make roller skating a very popular pastime in both France and England during the 1850s. Large public rinks were opened in 1857 in London, at the Floral Hall of Covent Garden and The Strand.
A new skate, known as the Woodward, was invented in London in 1859. The Woodward skate had wheels made of vulcanized rubber, which offered better traction than iron on wooden rink floors. There were four wheels, two of them paired in the middle and slightly larger than those on the ends to make it easier to turn.
Turning and stopping had always been problems with roller skates, and the Woodward design didn't solve those problems any more than the similar Rolito. However, the Woodward skate was enough of an improvement to be adopted by Jackson Haines for his exhibitions. Haines, the founder of modern figure skating, was mainly an ice skater, but he had to use roller skates for his stage demonstrations of the art. He also appeared in a revival of Le Prophète in the late 1860s.
The Cingar skate also had a brief revival, thanks to demonstrations at the 1867 Exposition Universelle in Paris. But the Cingar and all other roller skates were rendered obsolete by the modern "quad" roller skate, patented by James Leonard Plimpton, a furniture maker, in 1863. Instead of placing the wheels in-line, Plimpton put one pair in front and another in the rear. His biggest innovation, though, was to put the wheels on pivots so they could turn independently of the platform. He also added a rubber cushion that allowed the skater to lean in the direction of the turn. The original Plimpton skate had toe and heel clamps, but an improved design, introduced in 1866, used straps with buckles instead.
Plimpton installed a skating floor at his furniture business in New York City, where he leased skates. He also founded the New York Roller Skating Association (NYRSA) to promote the pastime. The NYRSA converted the ballroom of the Atlantic House, in Newport, Rhode Island, into a public skating rink in the summer of 1866.
The Plimpton skate was such an improvement over previous designs that other manufacturers quickly began making copies. Plimpton's lawyers developed a form letter to send to those who were infringing on his patent. But Plimpton's efforts went well beyond merely making skates. He introduced a medal for those who could pass a skating proficiency test he developed, operated roller rinks in the Northeast, and traveled throughout the region, giving lessons. By 1870, the proficiency test medals were being given out in 20 countries where Plimpton skates were being used.
Another American, William Fuller, also helped popularize roller skating in other parts of the world. In 1860, he drew crowds of appreciative Australians when he performed his comic skating act at the Royal Theatre of Melbourne. Five years later, he performed in Egypt, India, and Russia. In St. Petersburg, fans skated in the public gardens with Fuller after his performances.
Large rinks were opened in Paris and Berlin in 1876, followed by one in Frankfort and another in Paris in 1877. As the popularity of roller skating grew, manufacturers developed methods of mass production, driving prices down, which in turn made the pastime more affordable and therefore more popular.
The Samuel Winslow Skate Company of Worcester, Massachusetts, founded in 1837 to manufacture ice skates, began making roller skates for Plimpton about 1870. Then Winslow began making its own skates skates. Plimpton sued for patent infringement. After a settlement was reached, the company kept on manufacturing Winslow skates. In 1886, Winslow made 260,000 pairs of ice and roller skates. It's been estimated that there were then more than a million pairs of roller skates in use, many of them being rented out by more than 3,000 rinks.
Henry Richardson Plimpton, the son of James, pioneered the use of ball and roller bearings in many applications, including horse-drawn carriages and roller skates. His design for a "silent wheel" skate incorporated three sets of ball bearings inside the wheel.
A better system was patented in 1884 by Levant M. Richardson, who owned skating rinks in Illinois and Wisconsin. He and his wife often did exhibitions to demonstrate the skates and in 1898 he founded the Richardson Ball Bearing and Skate Company. The Richardson skate was especially popular among racers.
The Chicago Roller Skate Company, founded by Walter Ware in 1905, became the world's leading skate manufacturer during the 20th century, supplanting Winslow. Ware's company didn't make any major innovations, but it produced well-made, reliable skates.
The shoe skate, a skating boot with the skate permanently attached, was introduced about 1900. They were used almost exclusively by professional skaters, though. Most people rented their skates at a rink, and shoe skates were seen as unsanitary, so clamp-on skates remained the rule for recreational skaters. These skates were often adjustable to fit people who took different sizes.
Most skate wheels were made of boxwood or maple during the 19th century. Early in the 20th century, manufacturers began to use steel wheels, primarily for outdoor skating, and wheels of aluminum alloy for speed skating. Fiber composition wheels were developed for rinks because they offered better traction on the wooden floors and were more durable.
John L. Wintz, who owned a California company that made plastic cosmetic cases and cigarette lighters, created a Lucite skate wheel in 1935. Then he became intrigued with the problem of making a wheel that would combine traction and durability. He eventually came up with a wheel made of brake fiber with rubber inlays. To manufacture the wheels, Wintz formed the Sure-Grip Skate Company in 1936. Other companies, notably Raybestos, later began making similar wheels.
During the 1960s, polyurethane became the material of choice for skate wheels. It still is. Because it's very hard without being susceptible to shattering, skate wheels are now made mostly of polyurethane. Fillers are often added both to cut costs and to soften the material so that it will offer better traction.