Harry Soref is born. The inventor will miniaturize the bank vault and put it into the everyday padlock.
Soref had an idea to improve padlocks at little expense. Most padlocks of the time had cheap metal casings that you could easily bust open with a hammer. Security? Ha! Building a padlock from thicker steel would have been expensive. Instead, Soref applied the laminated design of bank vaults and battleships: he used multiple layers. At the scale of a padlock, layers made of thin pieces of scrap steel would do the trick frugally.
Soref tried to interest big hardware companies in the idea, but engineers thought the construction process was too cumbersome. So with backing from a couple of friends, Soref established the Master Lock Company in 1921 and began building the little devils himself. His small Milwaukee shop had five employees, a drill press, a grinder, and a punch press. The locks—patented in 1924—were tough, and the company prospered. Corporate lore says Soref taught Harry Houdini how to hide keys under his tongue and between his fingers.
Milwaukee was famous for its beer, but Prohibition was in force. When the growing firm needed larger quarters, it moved into the shut-down Pabst brewery. Master Lock sent a famous shipment of 147,600 padlocks to federal agents in New York City in 1928. The irony that speakeasies and distilleries were shut down and secured with locks made in a former brewery was noted.
The American Association of Master Locksmiths in 1931 awarded Soref the only gold medal it has ever bestowed. Soref died in 1957 and never saw Master Lock’s famous 1974 Super Bowl commercial: it featured a high-powered rifle shooting a hole through a sturdy Master Lock without forcing it open.—RA