When were sunglasses invented? The first sunglasses were used by the Inuit people tens of thousands of years ago.
The Inuit people lived, and still live, on the Arctic regions of Greenland, Canada, and Alaska. Snow blindness is a problem that they have always had to deal with. Snow blindness is not caused by the brightness of the sun, it is caused by the UV rays that are reflected off the snow into our eyes. The UV light has a very short wavelength, which means it has more energy than visible light, and it can burn. Sunburn is caused by UV light and snow blindness is basically sunburn of the eyes. Thousands of years ago, the Inuit invented sunglass, although they were nothing like we know today. They were goggles made of walrus or caribou ivory and they had a slit cut across the middle of them. The goggles reduced the amount of UV light that reflected off the snow and into the eye. The technical term for snow blindness is photokeratitis.
The Roman Emperor Nero is said to have used cut emeralds to watch gladiator matches through. He is said to have held them to his eyes. There is no direct proof of this, though, and it is not known how they would have helped him see. They could possibly have helped in bright sunlight and if they were cut correctly, they might aid with vision, but they would be green, and the Romans had access to clear glass. These probably don’t count as an early pair of sunglasses.
The Chinese were the first people to use dark glasses. They used flat pieces of tinted quartz in about 1100 AD. These would have protected the eyes from sunlight, but they were not used for that purpose. Apparently, they were used by judges to hide their eyes when they were questioning witnesses and about to hand down judgements. They didn’t want the people to be able to see their facial expressions. It also made the judges appear aloof and unapproachable.
In the mid-1700s, people in Venice started using green-tinted glasses to protect their eyes from the glare of the canals. These were called “Goldoni glasses” because a famous playwright called Carlo Goldoni wore them. They may not have known it, but green is a very effective color for blocking out UV light.
In 1752, a British optician called James Ayscough experimented with different colored lenses in glasses to fix different vision problems. His glasses weren’t meant to protect the eyes from the sun, but he is often credited as the inventor of sunglasses.
There are occasional references to “sunglasses” in the centuries after and some people say that soldiers during the American Civil War used sunglasses. There are some glasses that have tinted lenses and a clear circle in the middle of each lens, but they could have been used by snipers to help them aim more easily.
In 1899, German company Rodenstock GmbH was the first company to produce tinted glasses that shielded the eyes from the sun and UV light. Then, in 1913, a chemist called William Crookes invented 100% ultraviolet blocking glasses. He used cerium, which completely blocked ultraviolet light. It is a silvery-white metal that tarnishes when it is exposed to air.
In 1929, Sam Foster, in America, started to make sunglasses using celluloid. Injection molding was invented in 1919 and Sam Foster bought the first injection molding machine in America. He started to mass-produce cheap sunglasses. They started to become more popular once Hollywood celebrities began to wear them. By 1930, the price had come down to a price that everybody could afford and they began to take off.
Sunglasses went worldwide with World War 2. Pilots started to wear them to protect against high altitude glare and the American government ordered thousands of pairs from Bausch & Lomb, they were called Ray-Ban Aviators. It wasn’t long before regular troops were wearing them as well.
Cheap plastic made sunglasses available to everyone. In 150 years, we have gone from people needing sunglasses and not having them to people having them but not needing them.
So, the Inuit were the first people to make eye protection against sun glare, but it wasn’t until the beginning of the 20th century that real sunglasses were available. And this is what I learned today.
Sources
https://venetiancat.blogspot.com/2014/06/venetians-put-on-show-spectacles-fit.html
https://www.allaboutvision.com/sunglasses/faq/invention-of-shades/
https://www.sunglassmuseum.com/blogs/news/a-brief-history-of-sunglasses
https://www.americansunglass.com/blogs/news/ever-want-to-know-how-sunglasses-came-about
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunglasses