Communications - Overview
Tools of communication have transformed American society time and again over the past two centuries. The Museum has preserved many instruments of these changes, from printing presses to personal digital assistants.
The collections include hundreds of artifacts from the printing trade and related fields, including papermaking equipment, wood and metal type collections, bookbinding tools, and typesetting machines. Benjamin Franklin is said to have used one of the printing presses in the collection in 1726.
More than 7,000 objects chart the evolution of electronic communications, including the original telegraph of Samuel Morse and Alexander Graham Bell's early telephones. Radios, televisions, tape recorders, and the tools of the computer age are part of the collections, along with wireless phones and a satellite tracking system.
"Communications - Overview" showing 394 items.
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Patent model for printers' quoins
- Description (Brief)
- This patent model demonstrates an invention for quoins whose two sides were opened or closed by wedges governed by a central double-threaded screw; the invention was granted patent number 139351.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1873
- patent date
- 1873-05-27
- maker
- Ames, Chauncey W.
- Sprague, E. H.
- ID Number
- 1996.0062.01
- patent number
- 139351
- accession number
- 1996.0062
- catalog number
- 1996.0062.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Patent Model for Molds for Casting Blocks for Printing Carpets or Wall Paper
- Description (Brief)
- This patent model demonstrates an invention for a mold that made blocks that were used in printing carpets or wall paper; the invention was granted patent number 10630. The design, formed of short and long pieces of type, was set up in a square casting box. The printing block was then cast in any suitable material such as type metal, plaster-of-paris, vulcanized rubber, or, by preference, gutta percha - a popular material in the mid nineteenth century.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1854
- patent date
- 1854-03-14
- maker
- Berry, James
- ID Number
- 1996.0062.02
- accession number
- 1996.0062
- catalog number
- 1996.0062.02
- patent number
- 010630
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Patent model for printers' shooting sticks
- Description (Brief)
- This patent model demonstrates an invention for a shooting stick, used for driving in quoins, or wedges, to tighten a form in its chase; the invention was granted patent number 107154. These sticks had different-sized notches to fit different quoins, and two wings to help open spaces for the quoins among the furniture.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1870
- patent date
- 1870-09-06
- maker
- Blackwell, Benjamin B.
- ID Number
- 1996.0062.03
- patent number
- 107154
- accession number
- 1996.0062
- catalog number
- 1996.0062.03
- patent number
- 107154
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Patent Model of a Metallograph, or Embossing Pen for Autographic Printing
- Description (Brief)
- This patent model demonstrates an invention for a metallograph, and was granted patent number 215792. With this tool, a writer could turn a sheet of metal into a printing plate as he wrote on it. The air-powered writing instrument made a series of sharp blows to the metal, knocking out projections on the back of the sheet. The projections formed a facsimile of the writing in reverse and in relief for printing at a type press.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- ca 1879
- patent date
- 1879-05-27
- patentee
- Setchell, George C.
- maker
- Carey, Augustus C.
- Carey, George R.
- ID Number
- 1996.0062.04
- catalog number
- 1996.0062.04
- patent number
- 215792
- accession number
- 1996.0062
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Patent model for loose leaf binder
- Description (Brief)
- This patent model demonstrates an invention for a loose leaf binder with adjustable sides; the invention was granted patent number 787353.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1905
- patent date
- 1905-04-18
- maker
- Carlson, Charles A.
- ID Number
- 1996.0062.05
- patent number
- 787353
- accession number
- 1996.0062
- catalog number
- 1996.0062.05
- patent number
- 787353
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Patent Model for a Type Mold
- Description (Brief)
- This patent model demonstrates an invention for a type mold which was granted patent number 5846. The Universal Hand Type-Mold cast type of any size.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1848
- Date made
- 1848
- patent date
- 1848-10-10
- maker
- Day, Hartley W.
- ID Number
- 1996.0062.06
- patent number
- 005846
- accession number
- 1996.0062
- catalog number
- 1996.0062.06
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Patent Model for Stencil Frames for Autographic Writing.
- Description (Brief)
- This patent model demonstrates an invention for a stencil-printing frame which was granted patent number 219665. The frame is adjustable to take stencil sheets of different sizes.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1879
- patent date
- 1879-09-16
- maker
- De Zuccato, Eugenio
- ID Number
- 1996.0062.07
- catalog number
- 1996.0062.07
- accession number
- 1996.0062
- patent number
- 219665
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Patent Model for a Card Gauge for Platen Printing Press
- Description (Brief)
- This patent model demonstrates an invention for a card guage for a platen printing press; the invention was granted patent number 145101. This invention provided a card feeder for Golding's Pearl press, which was covered by a patent of 1871 taken out by William L. Balch and assigned to Golding and his partner Edward Dennison (Patent 118182). William Golding (1845–1916) was apprenticed to a printer at the age of 15, and set up The Printer Manufactory Company at 23 with his partner, Edward Dennison. The company at first supplied stamps and seals and other stationery goods, but soon moved into the manufacture of small presses for amateurs, such as the Pearl, and then full-sized jobbing presses. Two years after Golding's death, the company was sold to the American Type Founders Company, which continued the manufacture of his presses for some years.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1873
- patent date
- 1873-11-02
- inventor
- Golding, William H.
- maker
- Golding, William H.
- ID Number
- 1996.0062.08
- catalog number
- 1996.0062.08
- patent number
- 145101
- accession number
- 1996.0062
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Patent model for sidesticks and quoins
- Description (Brief)
- This patent model demonstrates an invention for a combination of quoins and sidesticks which was granted patent number 218518. The quoins swiveled on the ends of wide screws that turned into the sides of the metal sidesticks. A guage in the center of each sidestick told the compositor how far the quoin could be extended.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1879
- patent date
- 1879-08-12
- maker
- Gosorn, George T.
- ID Number
- 1996.0062.09
- patent number
- 218518
- accession number
- 1996.0062
- catalog number
- 1996.0062.09
- patent number
- 218518
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Patent model for printers' sidesticks and quoins
- Description (Brief)
- This patent model demonstrates an invention for sidesticks with several tapering sections, and grooves or steps to guide the quoins on their path; the invention was granted patent number 145574.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1873
- patent date
- 1873-12-16
- maker
- Keehn, Francis
- ID Number
- 1996.0062.10
- patent number
- 145574
- accession number
- 1996.0062
- catalog number
- 1996.0062.10
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center