With all the pots and pans I've scrubbed over the decades and with all the S.O.S pads that graced the soapdish over our kitchen sink for years, I never knew - but wondered ... when it occured to me to wonder about it - what the S.O.S stood for or the origin of the name for those scruffy little pads. Until today. But first ... the back story.
In San Francisco, in 1917, a salesman named Edwin Cox was making his living by going door-to-door selling aluminum cookware. While making his rounds, he was hearing complaints that took on a central theme. Housewives were collectively unhappy with the way food stuck to saucepans and the cleaning challenge represented by said stuck food. Smart Edwin was listening and got to work creating a product that combined the "scouring" action of steel wool and the soap needed for the "cleaning" part of the equation.
S.O.S was born. Those same housewives became instant custormers for the soap filled steel wool pads that Ed concocted in his ktichen. So strong was the demand for his invention that he was able to quit selling pans and focus and on his new "inspired" soap-pad business.
Mrs. Cox contributed the name: Save Our Saucepans. It was meant to be a spin on the SOS universal distress signal. Like so many people, she mistakenly assumed that S-O-S stood for "Save Our Ship" or "Save Our Souls". Many people still do not know that the SOS distress Morse code signal was adopted because the "three dots - three dashes - three dots" corresonding to those letters can be easily and quickly sent by those in distress and easily identified by those receiving the message at the other end.
Regardless, the brand message was simple ... and successful. As was the product. Got to admit .... those little pads worked like a charm when it came to degunking pans. Especially Mom's beloved Revereware saucepans. A round of S.O.S and a dab of Twinkle copper cream and all was well.
I would like to know, however, why it took them so long to figure out how to rust-proof those little pads. The pans might have gotten cleaned, but then came figuring out how to remove those snarky little rust stains the steel wool left by the faucet. What took them so long?
But there you have it ... how S.O.S came by its name. And how one door-to-door salesman kept his ears open, innovatively combined the ingredients needed to effectively clean pots and pans, and created a product still in use today ... one hundred years later. That's stayiing power. And a mini-lesson for every would-be entrepreneur.
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