Which person came up with the idea that resulted in the development of duct tape?

The idea for duct tape came from Vesta Stout (1891-1966), an ordnance-factory worker and mother of two US Navy sailors, who worried that problems with ammunition box seals would cost soldiers precious time in battle. She wrote to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1943 with the idea to seal the boxes with a fabric tape, which she had tested at her factory. Stout worked at the Green River Ordnance Plant in Dixon, Illinois. The letter was forwarded to the War Production Board, who put Johnson & Johnson (J & J) on the job.

Her February 10, 1943 letter to the President in part said, "I suggested we use a strong cloth tape to close seams, and make tab the same. It worked fine, I showed it to different government inspectors they said it was all right, but I could never get them to change tape".

The Revolite division of J & J developed the new adhesive tape designed to be ripped by hand, not cut with scissors. Their new unnamed product was made of thin cotton duck coated in waterproof polyethylene (plastic) with a layer of rubber-based gray adhesive bonded to one side.

The name 'duct tape' came into use in the 1950s. By the 1960s a St. Louis, Missouri company, Albert Arno, Inc. trademarked the name 'Ductape' for their 'flame-resistant' duct tape.

Bette Nesmith Graham invented 'Liquid Paper'. Richard Gurley Drew invented scotch tape and Pellegrino Turri invented carbon paper.

Stoudt received the Chicago Tribune's War Worker Award for her idea and her persistence.