In February, 1935, Hugo Gernsback (who coined the term "science fiction," and for whom the Hugo Awards are named) published this Science and Mechanics article about the hot new phenomenon of "gadgets." Gernsback explains what a gadget is, and why you might want to get into business designing them.
YOU will not find the word "gadget" in many dictionaries; perhaps for the reason that most dictionary compilers consider the word to be slang. Yet, the word "gadget" is well known to everyone, and is used in everyday language in connection with some article that has a practical use and, usually, can be bought at a low price…As I have said before, the market for gadgets in this country is really tremendous. There is constantly room for these novelties, and the public is always willing to buy them. There is, in fact, a sort of craze, that many people have, to be the first to have this or that new gadget to parade it proudly among their friends…
And let no one think that the gadget market in this country is apt to decline. With our advance in civilization, the chances are overwhelmingly in the opposite direction; since the more mechanized we become, the greater the demand for gadgets. We probably have not even scratched the surface, and in the years to come we may expect to see a flood of gadgets on the market that will dwarf anything we have seen so far.
