What was super glue originally invented for?

Most inventors would celebrate discovering a liquid that bonds almost anything in seconds. Harry Coover found it, decided it was a nuisance, and put it away. Then he found it again, nearly a decade later.

The short answer

Super glue was not invented to be glue at all. In 1942, during the Second World War, chemist Harry Coover and his team at Eastman Kodak were researching chemicals called cyanoacrylates to make clear plastic gun sights. The stuff was far too sticky for the job, so they set it aside.

The real story

Coover later summed up the problem neatly: everything the chemicals touched stuck to everything else. For a precision optical part, that is a disaster. So the most powerful instant adhesive of the century was filed under failure.

Then came the second accident. In 1951, Coover was at Kodak’s plant in Kingsport, Tennessee, overseeing research into heat-resistant polymers for jet aircraft canopies. A colleague, Fred Joyner, tested a cyanoacrylate between two expensive refractometer prisms. They stuck together firmly. This time Coover saw the commercial potential.

The glue works by reacting with the thin film of moisture found on almost every surface, which is why it needs no heat or pressure. Coover patented it in 1954, and Kodak began selling it in 1958 under the thrilling name Eastman 910. It was later licensed to Loctite, and the name super glue stuck, so to speak.

Coover even showed it off on a television game show, using glued metal pieces to lift two men.

The twist is that the battlefield story is not entirely invented, just in the wrong order. Coover said the adhesive was used in the Vietnam War, where field surgeons sprayed cyanoacrylates on wounds to stop bleeding before soldiers reached hospital. Kodak had applied to the US Food and Drug Administration in 1964 to have the glue considered for sealing wounds, and medical-grade versions are now common in hospitals.

Why people get it wrong

Because the medical use is real, people assume it was the reason for the invention. The story gets compressed: soldiers, wounds, glue. The wartime gun sights and the jet canopies are less memorable details, so they drop out.

There is also a popular version claiming soldiers in the Second World War discovered the glue themselves. Coover’s own history does not support that. The war connection is about gun sights in a laboratory, not first aid in a trench.

One practical note: medical adhesives are specially formulated. The Mayo Clinic does not recommend using household super glue on cuts.

Coover, who was born in 1917 and died in 2011, was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2004.

“He invented it, binned it, found it again and nearly binned it again. Most famous sticky situation in history.”