When Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter coined the phrase “creative destruction,” he described it as “the essential fact about capitalism.” Creative destruction is how an economy evolves when entrepreneurs and innovators create new products, services, and ideas. When Americans started driving Henry Ford’s Model T car, even the biggest horse and buggy manufacturers were forced to adapt or perish.
Crises cause turmoil and pain, but crises also have always accelerated the process of creative destruction—and that’s a good thing. Unprecedented times call for unprecedented innovations, and as mankind has seen throughout history, the innovations born out of crises have literally changed the course of history.
1439: Johannes Gutenberg – Black Death Pandemic
Printing Press
The Black Death pandemic, or bubonic plague, swept Eurasia and Africa in the mid-1300s, killing as many as 200 million people, including massive numbers of monks who transcribed books by hand. Survivors inherited property, which greatly boosted not only their net worth but demand for books. Johannes Gutenberg recognized the need for a faster means of information-sharing and developed the printing press at his Mainz, Germany, shop in 1439.
1667: Isaac Newton – Great Plague of London
Gravity
Isaac Newton was among the Cambridge University students sent home amid the Great Plague of London. Newton, in his 20s at the time, spent his homebound time developing his theories that revolutionized physics, including gravity.
1879: Thomas Edison – Long Depression
Light Bulb
Although efforts to develop electric light stretch back as far as 1800, Thomas Edison and his research team in Menlo Park, New Jersey, invented the world’s first commercially successful light bulb in 1879. The achievement came during the worldwide economic downturn known as the Long Depression.
1918: Kurt Huldschinsky – World War I(Rickets Outbreak)
Sun Lamp
In winter of 1918, it’s estimated, half of the children in Berlin suffered from rickets. The disease stemmed from calcium deficiency and caused bones to become soft and deformed. Kurt Huldschinsky was a German field medic in World War I who later became a pediatrician and research scientist. In an experiment involving four children, Huldschinsky successfully demonstrated how ultraviolet lamps could treat rickets.
1928: Sir Alexander Fleming – Widespread Bacterial Illnesses
Penicillin
Scottish researcher Sir Alexander Fleming was a technician experimenting with the influenza virus at the laboratory of the Inoculation Department at St. Mary’s Hospital in London. Upon his return from a two-week vacation, he found a mold growing on a staphylococcus culture plate and noticed the culture prevented the bacteria’s growth.
1930: Michael Cullen – Great Depression
Supermarket
Michael Cullen was working at the Kroger grocery store chain during the 1920s when he devised the idea for a supermarket—a new type of huge, mostly self-service grocery store. Cullen’s idea came to fruition in 1930, when the entrepreneur opened King Kullen in a Queens, New York, garage. The world’s first supermarket gave “the poor buying public a chance” during the Great Depression.
1940: Dr. Norman Borlaug – Famine, Food Shortages
Dwarf Wheat
Before 1950, poor, rural farmers around the world had trouble growing wheat that could withstand harsh climates and disease. In the mid 1940s, Dr. Norman Borlaug, a geneticist and plant pathologist, developed a new strain of hearty wheat that tripled harvests and could be grown in harsh climates. Dr. Borlaug won the Nobel Prize for his work, and today, dwarf wheat represents 99% of the wheat grown throughout the world and has saved hundreds of millions of lives in food-deficient countries.
1976: Edward E. Hammer – 1973 Oil Crisis
Spiral CFL (Fluorescent) Light Bulb
Although fluorescent lighting was developed in the 1930s, it was limited to commercial and industrial use. The 1973 oil crisis prompted energy-saving efforts and in 1976, General Electric engineer Edward E. Hammer created the compact fluorescent light bulb (CFL) by bending a fluorescent tube into a spiral shape. The CFL was far more energy efficient than the incandescent light bulb, and was soon widely manufactured.
1996: André Briend – Severe Malnutrition
Plumpy’Nut
By the 1990s, malnutrition was killing millions of children around the world. Existing treatments were ineffective and expensive, but French pediatrician André Briend changed all that with Plumpy’Nut. Dubbed “Nutella for the poor,” Plumpy’Nut is an enriched peanut-based paste that delivers vital nutrients to children suffering from severe acute malnutrition. Served in a foil pouch, Plumpy’Nut is portable, non-perishable, and can be consumed by babies. Plumpy’Nut reaches millions of the world’s most severely malnourished children each year and has saved millions of children from dying of malnutrition.
