Ettore Steccone (1896-1984) immigrated to the United States in 1922 and chose window cleaning as his profession. Yet Ettore was unhappy with the poor quality of the tools that were available. He vowed to develop a better method for window cleaning, and over the next ten years he tinkered in his tiny garage until he developed the first single-blade squeegee in 1936. He patented it in 1937 and called it the “New Deal” squeegee.