In 1943, during the
Second World War, Stoudt worked at the
Green River Ordnance Plant in
Amboy, Illinois, packing ammunition boxes. She recognized that the way ammunition boxes were sealed made them difficult for soldiers to open in a hurry. The cartridges were packed eleven to a box, and the boxes were taped and waxed to make them waterproof and damp-proof. The box flaps were sealed with thin paper tape, and a tab of tape was left loose so that it could be pulled to release the waterproof wax coating and open the box. The problem was that due to the paper tape's thinness, the tabs often wore off, leaving soldiers frantically trying to open the box while under fire. She suggested this idea to her bosses at work, who did not implement the change. On February 10, 1943, she wrote a letter to President
Franklin D. Roosevelt, outlining the problem and her solution, complete with diagrams: Roosevelt approved of the idea which he sent to the War Production Board, who wrote back to Stoudt: They tasked the
Revolite Corporation to create the product. Stoudt received the
Chicago Tribune War Worker Award for her idea and for her persistence with it. She is credited by
Johnson and Johnson (the parent company of
Revolite Corporation at the time) for the invention of
duct tape. == Personal life ==