How was the bendy straw invented?

In the 1930s, an American man named Joseph Friedman came up with the idea for a bendy straw while watching his young daughter attempt to drink a milkshake through a straight paper straw. The bendy straw is not the first known iteration of the drinking straw, but it is the first to bend in a way that would make it convenient for a child to drink out of.

Friedman built the bendy straw by putting a screw inside a paper straw and creating indentations in the paper with a string. He then removed the screw and found that the straw successfully bent.