Brannock Device Explained

The Brannock Device is a measuring instrument invented by Charles F. Brannock for measuring a person's shoe size. Brannock spent two years developing a simple means of measuring the length, width, and arch length of the human foot. He eventually improved on the wooden RITZ Stick, the industry standard of the day,^[1] patenting his first prototype in 1925^[2] and an improved version in 1927.^[3] The device has both left and right heel cups and is rotated through 180 degrees to measure the second foot. Brannock later formed the Brannock Device Company to manufacture and sell the product, and headed the company until 1992 when he died at age 89. The Smithsonian Institution has the nearly complete records of the development of the Brannock Device and subsequent marketing.^[4]

The Brannock Device Company was headquartered in Syracuse, New York, until shortly after Charles Brannock's death. Salvatore Leonardi purchased the company from the Brannock Estate in 1993, and moved manufacturing to a small factory in Liverpool, New York.

On May 31, 2018, the Syracuse minor league baseball team had a one-night promotion and rebranded as the Syracuse Devices in honor of the Brannock Device.^[5]

Sizing system

The modern Brannock device takes three measurements of each foot:

Foot length: the length from heel to the tip of the longest toe (in increments of barleycorns)

Foot and arch lengths correspond to numeric Brannock sizes, and foot widths correspond to letter Brannock widths AAAA (narrowest) to EEEE (widest), as follows:

FootLength=7\tfrac{1}{3}inches+(Men'sBrannockSize x \tfrac{1}{3}inch)

ArchLength=5\tfrac{18}{50}inches+(Men'sBrannockSize x \tfrac{11}{50}inch)

Width=1\tfrac{10}{16}inches+(Men'sBrannockSize x \tfrac{1}{8}inch)+(StepsUpFromAAAA x \tfrac{3}{16}inch)

Women's Brannock sizes are offset from men's by one:

Women'sBrannockSize=Men'sBrannockSize+1

|-! 16|-! |-! 17|-! |-! 18|-! |-! 19|-! |-! 20|-! |-! 21|-! |-! 22|-! |-! 23|-! |-! 24|-! |-! 25|-! |-! Heel-to-Toe (Foot) Length !! Heel-to-Ball (Arch) Length !! AAAA !! AAA !! AA !! A !! B !! C !! D !! E !! EE !! EEE !! EEEE|-| NaNinches| NaNinches| NaNinches| NaNinches| NaNinches| NaNinches| NaNinches| NaNinches| NaNinches| NaNinches| NaNinches| NaNinches| NaNinches

Bibliography

Web site: Craig . Berry . Why the Shoe Fits . American Heritage of Invention & Technology . 16 . 1 . Summer 2000 . 64 .
Web site: Davidson . Martha . https://web.archive.org/web/20050818021105/http://invention.smithsonian.org/resources/online_articles_detail.aspx?id=348 . 2005-08-18 . A Fitting Place for the Brannock Device Company Records . Fall 2001 . The Lemelson Center (The Smithsonian Institution) .
Book: Lukas, Paul . Inconspicuous Consumption: An Obsessive Look at the Stuff We Take for Granted, from the Everyday to the Obscure . Three Rivers Press . 1997 . 0-517-88668-5 .
Web site: https://web.archive.org/web/20051001094157/http://www.americanhistory.si.edu/archives/d8672.htm . 2005-10-01 . Brannock Device Company Records, 1925 - 1998 .
Aeppel . Timothy . Maker of Foot Measurer Tries to Stop Other Shoe From Dropping - On It . Wall Street Journal . 2011-01-10 .

External links

The Brannock Device Co., Inc.
Charles Brannock: MIT inventor of the Week (August 2001)
Brannock Company history and archives
Brannock Device, an early Design Drawing from the Smithsonian (1920s) Smithsonian Institution Libraries

Notes and References

News: Aeppel. Timothy. Maker of Foot Measurer Tries to Stop Other Shoe From Dropping -- On It -- Iconic Bannock Device Hangs On By Its Toes Against Foreign-Made Rivals. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition. 10 January 2011. United States. A.1.
US . 1682366 . patent . Foot-measuring instrument . 28 Aug, 1928 . 4 Nov, 1925 . C. F. Brannock . C. F. Brannock.
US . 1725334 . patent . Foot-measuring instrument . 1929-08-20 .
Web site: From the Collections: Charles Brannock . May 21, 2014 . .
Hill, Benjamin. "Chiefs give Brannock Devices their due", MiLB.com, New York, 4 June 2018. Retrieved on 15 August 2019.