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Casimir Zeglen (Polish: Kazimierz Żegleń; 1869 near 
The Monk Who Stopped Bullets with Silk: Inventing the Bulletproof Vest
article from Culture.pl
BULLETPROOF
podcast episode about Żegleń from Stories From The Eastern West {{DEFAULTSORT:Zeglen, Casimir 1869 births American inventors Austro-Hungarian emigrants to the United States Year of death missing American Roman Catholic priests Polish Roman Catholic priests
Casimir Zeglen (Polish: Kazimierz Żegleń; 1869 near Tarnopol
Ternópil ( uk, Тернопіль, Ternopil' ; pl, Tarnopol; yi, טאַרנאָפּל, Tarnopl, or ; he, טארנופול (טַרְנוֹפּוֹל), Tarnopol; german: Tarnopol) is a city in the west of Ukraine. Administratively, Ternopi ...
– before 1927) was a Polish priest who invented a silk bulletproof vest
A bulletproof vest, also known as a ballistic vest or a bullet-resistant vest, is an item of body armor that helps absorb the impact and reduce or stop penetration to the torso from firearm-fired projectiles and fragmentation from explosions. T ...
. At the age of 18 he entered the Resurrectionist Order
The Resurrectionists officially named the Congregation of the Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ ( la, Congregatio a Resurrectione Domini Nostri Jesu Christi), abbreviated CR is a Catholic clerical religious congregation of Pontifical Right ...
in Lwów
Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in western Ukraine, and the seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is one of the main cultural centres of Ukraine ...
(today Lviv, Ukraine). In 1890, he moved to the United States.
In 1893, after the assassination
Assassination is the murder of a prominent or important person, such as a head of state, head of government, politician, world leader, member of a royal family or CEO. The murder of a celebrity, activist, or artist, though they may not have ...
of Carter Harrison Sr.
Carter Henry Harrison Sr. (February 15, 1825October 28, 1893) was an American politician who served as mayor of Chicago, Illinois, from 1879 until 1887; he was subsequently elected to a fifth term in 1893 but was assassinated before completing t ...
, the mayor of Chicago
The mayor of Chicago is the chief executive of city government in Chicago, Illinois, the third-largest city in the United States. The mayor is responsible for the administration and management of various city departments, submits proposals and r ...
, he worked on an improved silk bulletproof vest. In 1897, he worked on it with Jan Szczepanik. It saved the life of Alfonso XIII, the King of Spain
, coatofarms = File:Coat_of_Arms_of_Spanish_Monarch.svg
, coatofarms_article = Coat of arms of the King of Spain
, image = Felipe_VI_in_2020_(cropped).jpg
, incumbent = Felipe VI
, incumbentsince = 19 Ju ...
—his carriage was covered with Szczepanik's bulletproof armour when a bomb exploded near it.
He was a Catholic priest
The priesthood is the office of the ministers of religion, who have been commissioned ("ordained") with the Holy orders of the Catholic Church. Technically, bishops are a priestly order as well; however, in layman's terms ''priest'' refers only ...
of St. Stanislaus Kostka
Stanisław Kostka S.J. (28 October 1550 – 15 August 1568) was a Polish novice of the Society of Jesus. He is venerated in the Catholic Church as Saint Stanislaus Kostka (as distinct from his namesake, the 11th-century Bishop of Kraków S ...
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
in Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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, coordinates =
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, then the largest Polish church in the country, with 40,000 in the parish. In his early twenties, he began experimenting with the cloth, using steel shavings, moss
Mosses are small, non-vascular flowerless plants in the taxonomic division Bryophyta (, ) '' sensu stricto''. Bryophyta (''sensu lato'', Schimp. 1879) may also refer to the parent group bryophytes, which comprise liverworts, mosses, and hor ...
, and hair. In his research, he came upon the work of Dr. George E. Goodfellow, who had written about the bullet-resistive properties of silk
Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The protein fiber of silk is composed mainly of fibroin and is produced by certain insect larvae to form cocoons. The best-known silk is obtained from the coc ...
. In his mid-thirties he discovered a way to weave the silk, to enable it to capture the bullet, while visiting weaving mills in Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
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, timezone_DST ...
, Austria and Aachen
Aachen ( ; ; Aachen dialect: ''Oche'' ; French and traditional English: Aix-la-Chapelle; or ''Aquisgranum''; nl, Aken ; Polish: Akwizgran) is, with around 249,000 inhabitants, the 13th-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia, and the 28th- ...
, Germany. A thick, four-ply bulletproof vest produced there was able to protect the wearer from the lower velocity pistol bullets of that era.
See also
* List of Poles * Timeline of Polish science and technologyReferences
*" Three Grades of Fabric", ''Brooklyn Eagle
:''This article covers both the historical newspaper (1841–1955, 1960–1963), as well as an unrelated new Brooklyn Daily Eagle starting 1996 published currently''
The ''Brooklyn Eagle'' (originally joint name ''The Brooklyn Eagle'' and ''King ...
'', 9 October 1902
* Łotysz, Sławomir. "Mnich wynalazca" (Monk-inventor). Polonia (Chicago) Vol. 13, No. 1-2 (2007) pp. 68–71, and Vol. 14, No. 3-4 (2007) pp. 64–67.
* Articles in Nowy Dziennik (a Polish Daily News) published in New York City): Kuloodporny ksiądz (''Bulletproof priest''), 5 May 2006; Polski ksiądz i Polski Edison (''A Polish priest and the Polish Edison''), 13 May 2006; Od habitu do opony (''From a Religious habit
A religious habit is a distinctive set of religious clothing worn by members of a religious order. Traditionally some plain garb recognizable as a religious habit has also been worn by those leading the religious eremitic and anchoritic life, ...
to a tire''), 20 May 2006.
External links
The Monk Who Stopped Bullets with Silk: Inventing the Bulletproof Vest
article from Culture.pl
BULLETPROOF
podcast episode about Żegleń from Stories From The Eastern West {{DEFAULTSORT:Zeglen, Casimir 1869 births American inventors Austro-Hungarian emigrants to the United States Year of death missing American Roman Catholic priests Polish Roman Catholic priests