At that time they were called “photo gray”, because this was the only color they came in. Another reason for the popularity of sunglasses is because glamorous movie stars were photographed wearing them. Although some accounts of Marco Polo’s travels to China 100 years later claim that he said he saw elderly Chinese wearing eyeglasses, these accounts have been discredited as hoaxes, since those who have scrutinized Marco Polo’s notebooks have found no mention of eyeglasses. Prehistoric Inuits wore flattened walrus ivory in front of their faces to block the sun’s rays. Convex lenses are used to aid the correction of farsightedness, so that the light rays are Bifocal lenses can be used to treat with So Spanish eyeglass manufacturers tied silk ribbons to the lenses and looped the ribbons on the wearer’s ears. They affixed ribbons of silk or strings to the frame and loop them over the Then a London optician, Edward Scarlett, in 1730 created the forerunner of the modern temple arms, two rigid rods that attached to the lenses and rested on top of the ears. The attribution of the invention of bifocals to Franklin most likely stems from his correspondence with a friend, George Whatley. frames made of horn or wood. In the beginning was the word, and the word was blurry. Cylindrical lenses used to correct astigmatism were invented by Sir George Airy in 1825. They either resigned themselves to being unable to see well, or they did what clever people always do. nearsightedness and presbyopia (with a lower part for viewing objects near at hand (as in reading)). The first improvised eyeglasses were makeshift sunglasses, of a sort. There’s no record as to whether a goldfish got in the way. nearsightedness, so that the rays of light are diverged. Eyeglasses History. They did one of two things. Chinese judges of the 12th-century wore a type of sunglasses, made from smoky quartz crystals, held in front of their faces so their expressions couldn’t be discerned by witnesses they interrogated, giving the lie to the “inscrutable” stereotype. Oversized, bulky wire-framed glasses were favored in the 1970s. In the 17th century people knew the principle of the concave and convex lenses. If you enjoyed reading about the history of eyeglasses, stay tuned for an upcoming look at the future of eyeglasses. Along with the fashion statement eyeglasses were becoming, advancement in lens technology brought progressive lenses (no-line multifocal glasses) to the public in 1959. It's been reported that monks in the middle ages used glass spheres as magnifying glasses to read. Eyeglasses styles come and go, and as is frequent in fashion, everything old eventually becomes new again. Whatley, perhaps inspired by his knowledge and appreciation of Franklin as a prolific inventor, in his reply ascribes the invention of bifocals to his friend. Salvino D'Armate is most often credited with the invention of the first wearable eye glasses around 1284. His tutor, Seneca, bragged that he read “all the books in Rome” through a large glass bowl filled with water, which magnified the print. The first wearable eye glasses were invented around 1284 in Italy. When these glasses were introduced to China by Spanish and Italian missionaries, the Chinese discarded the notion of looping the ribbons at the ears. Other developments that occurred in the late 18th or early 19th centuries were the monocle, which was immortalized by the character Eustace Tilley, who is to The New Yorker what Alfred E. Neuman is to Mad Magazine, and the lorgnette, eyeglasses on a stick that will turn anyone wearing them into an instant dowager. These glasses were all convex lenses that magnified print and objects. Almost all eyeglass lenses are now made of plastic, which is lighter than glasses and breaks cleanly rather than shattering in shards. The first illustrations of someone wearing this style of eyeglasses are in a series of mid-14th-century paintings by Tommaso da Modena, who featured monks using monocles and wearing these early pince-nez (French for “pinch nose”) style eyeglasses to read and copy manuscripts. It wasn’t until the late 13th century that corrective lenses were invented and crude, rudimentary things they were. If you were nearsighted, farsighted or had an astigmatism, you were out of luck. in 1784. The lightest and thinnest lens material for glasses is polycarbonate, also called CR-39. It tentatively concludes that it is more likely that bifocals were invented in England in the 1760s, and that Franklin saw them there and ordered a pair for himself. Now not so much. The reading stone was a glass sphere that was laid on top of the reading material to magnify the letters. user's ears. That’s because eyeglasses hadn’t been invented yet. But what did people whose vision wasn’t perfect do before that? This was the introduction of corrective lenses, which was advanced, a bit, in Venice around 1000 C.E., when Seneca’s bowl and water (and possibly goldfish) were replaced by a flat-bottom, convex glass sphere that was laid on top of the reading material, becoming in effect the first magnifying glass and enabling the Sherlock Holmes of medieval Italy to gather numerous clues to solve crimes. Now, retro glasses that for the past 40 years were unpopular, such as square, horn-rim and brow-line glasses, rule the optical rack. A case in point: Gold-rimmed and rimless glasses used to be popular. Plastic photochromic lenses, which turn dark in the bright sunlight and become clear again out of the sun, first became available in the late 1960s. It was in England that eyeglass fabricators began to advertise reading glasses as a boon for those over 40. Others picked up and ran with this to the point that it’s now commonly accepted that Franklin invented bifocals. By the early 20th century, though, pince-nez glasses were replaced in popularity by glasses worn by, wait for it, movie stars, of course. Now eyeglasses for farsightedness and nearsightedness existed. but the glass lenses can be very heavy in stronger prescriptions. Everything was blurry. However, Franklin never says he invented them. He also tinted all of his lenses green or blue, not to make them sunglasses, but because he thought these tints also helped to improve vision.