The U.S. Army says this Maine invention should make you proud to be an American

The U.S. Army has posted a piece on the website Buzzfeed listing all 50 states and something each has contributed to “make you proud to be an American.”

The list includes things like sunscreen, which was upgraded by a pharmacist in Florida as a way to protect World War II soldiers from sunburns, and John Wayne, whom Iowa gets credit for as his birth state.

So what has Maine contributed to make you proud to be an American?

Earmuffs.

Farmington native Chester Greenwood invented the ear warmers when he was just a teenager in 1873, and the town still annually celebrates “Chester Greenwood Day” on the first Saturday of December.

Greenwood and his grandmother fashioned the first pair of earmuffs out of wire, beaver fur and cloth, showing the kind of American ingenuity that makes the U.S. Army proud.

By 1936 — just a year before Greenwood’s death at the age of 78 — his West Farmington factory reached its peak production by cranking out more than 400,000 pairs of earmuffs, which he called “Champion Ear Protectors.”

Earmuffs weren’t the only things Greenwood invented. According to the Maine Secretary of State’s website, he also patented a wide-bottom tea kettle, steel-toothed rake and a “shock absorber that’s an ancestor to today’s airplane landing gear,” among other things.

How does Maine’s contribution to American pride compare with New York, which gets credit for giving the country baseball, or Tennessee, where cotton candy was first invented?

I guess that depends how cold it is.