This print is one of fifteen chromolithographs that were included in the 1889-1890 folio "Sport or Fishing and Shooting" published by Bradlee Whidden of Boston and edited by A.C. Gould. These prints are based on watercolors that were commissioned for the publication, and illustrated by prominent American artists. Each folio illustration was accompanied by a single leaf of descriptive text followed by an account of the depicted sporting scene. The publication was advertised as having been reviewed for accuracy by a renowned group of anglers and hunters prior to printing.
This print was originally titled and numbered on the text page as 7. Mallard Shooting. S.F. Denton. It depicts two men in a boat in a marsh. One man is shooting at mallard ducks while the other is paddling.
The artist was Sherman Foote Denton (1856-1937), a naturalist and noted illustrator of drawings of fish. Denton also invented a method of mounting fish that preserved their colors as in life. His work was frequently commissioned by the U.S. Fish Commision, forerunner of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
This print is one of fifteen chromolithographs that were included in the 1889-1890 folio "Sport or Fishing and Shooting" published by Bradlee Whidden of Boston and edited by A.C. Gould. These prints are based on watercolors that were commissioned for the publication, and illustrated by prominent American artists. Each folio illustration was accompanied by a single leaf of descriptive text followed by an account of the depicted sporting scene. The publication was advertised as having been reviewed for accuracy by a renowned group of anglers and hunters prior to printing.
This print was originally titled and numbered on the text page as 13. A hunt above the timber line [Big-horn]. Edward Knobel. Depicted are four big horn sheep running across boulders in the foreground. A fifth sheep falls, shot by one of two hunters visible in the left background.
The artist was Edward Knobel (1839-1908), noted for his illustrations of plants and animals.
This print is one of fifteen chromolithographs that were included in the 1889-1890 folio "Sport or Fishing and Shooting" published by Bradlee Whidden of Boston and edited by A.C. Gould. These prints are based on watercolors that were commissioned for the publication, and illustrated by prominent American artists. Each folio illustration was accompanied by a single leaf of descriptive text followed by an account of the depicted sporting scene. The publication was advertised as having been reviewed for accuracy by a renowned group of anglers and hunters prior to printing.
This print was originally titled and numbered on the text page as 4. Fly-fishing for Black Bass. S.F. Denton. Depicted is of a fisherman standing in a stream reeling in a fish.
The artist was Sherman Foote Denton (1856-1937), a naturalist and noted illustrator of drawings of fish. Denton also invented a method of mounting fish that preserved their colors as in life. His work was frequently commissioned by the U.S. Fish Commision, forerunner of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
This is a patent model for a road scraper assigned to the Western Wheeled Scraper Company in 1892.
As the good roads movement gathered strength in the 1890s, inventors generated a host of patent applications for machines that improved roads using horse-drawn scrapers and graders.
In about 1886 the Swede W. T. Odhner, who worked in St. Petersburg, Russia, opened his own shop where he worked on improvements to the pinwheel calculating machine he had introduced the previous decade. By 1890, Odhner had a commercial product, and had begun to produce calculating machines in some numbers. In 1893 he exhibited his arithmometer, or reckoning machine, at the Columbian Exposition, a World’s Fair held in Chicago.
This is an example of an Odhner arithmometer from the 1890s. The machine has a brass frame, painted black, with eight metal pinwheels and a wooden base. Numbers are set by rotating the pinwheels forward, using levers that extend from the wheels. Digits inscribed on the frame next to the rotating pinwheels show the number set. The machine has no separate set of windows to show these digits.
The carriage is at the front of the machine, with eight windows for the revolution counter on the left and 13 windows for the result register on the right. Wing nuts at opposite ends of the carriage zero these registers. To release the carriage, one pushes down a lever at the front. the machine has no metal holds to ease the shifting. A crank with a wooden knob on the right side of the machine rotates clockwise for addition and multiplication, and counterclockwise for subtraction and division. The machine has no decimal markers.
A mark on the top reads: No 2676. Another mark there reads: The Spectator Company (/) New York
Compare MA.328418.
According to the Odhner History, W. T. Odhner manufactured calculating machines in Russia on his own from 1886 until his death in 1905. According to Timo Leiipälä, from 1892 until 1896 Odhner manufactured calculating machines in conjunction with an Englishman named Hill. These machines are marked (in Cyrillic) Odhner and Hill. There appears to be no mention of Hill on this machine. By the time Odhner manufactured machine number 2490, Hill was no longer in the picture. Leipälä dates the machine to between 1896 and 1899. The Spectator Company of New York was the U.S. agent for the Odhner calculating machine from at least 1897 through at least 1903. In 1897 it advertised this model of the Odhner as selling for $125.
References:
Timo Leipälä, “The Life and Works of W. T. Odhner,” Greifswalder Symposium zur Entwicklung der Rechentechnik, ed. W. Girbardt, Greifswald: Univ. Greifswald, Inst. für Mathematik und Informatik, 2003 and 2006.
Timo Leipälä, Personal communication.
Henry Wassen, Odhner History, Gothenburg, Aktiebolaget Original-Odhner, 1951.
The Spectator Company, The Insurance Year Book 1897-8, New York, 1897, p. 30.
This writing slate belonged to the Copp family of Stonington, Connecticut during the 19th century. Slate boards like this one were primarily owned for schooling, with student practicing writing on one side and arithmetic on the other. Slate boards and slate pencils were more economical than pencils, pens, and paper and were the most popular writing instrument for schoolchildren during the 19th century.
The Copp Collection contains a variety of household objects that the Copp family of Connecticut used from around 1700 until the mid-1800s. Part of the Puritan Great Migration from England to Boston, the family eventually made their home in New London County, Connecticut, where their textiles, clothes, utensils, ceramics, books, bibles, and letters provide a vivid picture of daily life. More of the collection from the Division of Home and Community Life can be viewed by searching accession number 28810.
In 1881, Edwin Thacher, a "computing engineer" for the Keystone Bridge Company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, received a patent for an improvement in slide rules. Thacher, a graduate of Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute, spent much of his career designing railway bridges. To assist in his calculations, he designed a cylindrical slide rule. Thacher's rule, though it fit on a desk, was equivalent to a conventional slide rule over 59 feet long. The rule had scales for multiplication and division and another scale, with divisions twice as large, for use in finding squares and square roots. There were no trigonometric scales.
To produce his "calculating instrument," Thacher turned to the London firm of W. F. Stanley. The company even designed a special dividing engine for preparing the scales for the instrument. These were printed on paper sheets, which were pasted to the drum and the slats. In this example, the paper is also printed in italics on the right side: Patented by Edwin Thatcher [sic], C.E. Nov. 1st 1881. Divided by W. F. Stanley, London, 1882. Made by Keuffel & Esser Co. N.Y. Wayne Feely has suggested that K&E began manufacturing (as opposed to simply distributing) Thacher cylindrical slide rules in 1887, indicating 1887 is the earliest date for this example of the instrument.
The drum is rotated with wooden handles. The cylinder of slats is held in place with a brass frame, which is affixed to a wooden base. A paper of DIRECTIONS AND RULES FOR OPERATING is glued to the front of the base. A small silver metal tag affixed to the front right of the base is engraved: KEUFFEL & ESSER CO. (/) NEW-YORK (/) 589. A metal extension on the front, screwed to both sides of the frame, bears a fixed holder and thumbscrew that once held a magnifying glass.
A paper K&E label on the inside lid of the instrument's mahogany case is marked in ink: 1741/589 (/) Thacher's (/) Calculating (/) Instr. The inside of the lid and the bottom of the base are both painted: M59. The back of the base is missing a chip 5 cm in length. The left and right sides of the case both bear labels marked in ink: INSTRUMENT (/) CALCULATING (/) THATCHER. A diagonal line is drawn through the second T in "Thatcher" on the right side.
Keuffel & Esser Company of New York sold versions of the Thacher cylindrical slide rule from at least 1883 until about 1950. There were two models, one with a magnifying glass (K&E model 1741, K&E model 4013 after 1900), and one without (K&E model 1740, later K&E 4012). This is a model 1741. In 1892, the model 1741 sold for $40.00. The Physics Department of the United States Military Academy transferred this example to the Smithsonian in 1958.
References: Edwin Thacher, "Slide-Rule" (U.S. Patent 249,117 issued November 1, 1881); Wayne E. Feely, "Thacher Cylindrical Slide Rules," The Chronicle of the Early American Industries Association 50 (1997): 125–127; Peggy Aldrich Kidwell, Amy Ackerberg-Hastings, and David Lindsay Roberts, Tools of American Mathematics Teaching, 1800–2000 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 113–114; Wilfred Scott Downs, ed., "Nickel, Frank F.," Who's Who in Engineering, (New York, 1931), iii:957; Catalogue of Keuffel & Esser (New York, 1892), 131. This was the first K&E catalog to list the model 1741.
Wool bunting pennant flag. White field with blue triangles forming each corner. The edges of the triangles facing the center of the flag are convex. A red St. Andrew's cross (or X) is in the center of the flag. On the upper edge of the flag, to the left of the fly, is a patch repair. White hoist with no grommets. Inscription on hoist reads "4th Brg 1st Div 6 Army Corps".
Rectangular wool bunting flag. Blue field with a white five-point star in the center of the flag. White hoist with no grommets. The inscription on the hoist reads "2nd Div. 20thArmy Corps R.C. Toy 49 N.9th Phila."
Wool bunting pennant flag. Blue field with pie-shaped red triangles forming the three corners. The edges of the triangles facing the center of the flag are convex. In the center of the flag is a white fan-leaved cross with an octagonal center (similar to a Maltese cross). White hoist with no grommets. The inscription on the hoist reads "2nd Div 4th Brg 19th Army Corps R.C. Toy 49 N. 9th Phila."
Pre-1863 design. Rectangular wool bunting flag. Red field with a white four-pointed star in the center of the flag. The number "1" is painted in black in the center of the star. White cotton canvas hoist with no grommets. The inscription on the hoist reads "1st Div 19 Army Corps [illegible]." The flag is machine stitched.
Wool bunting pennant flag. White field with a green shield in the center of the flag. Inside the shield is a white anchor surmounted by a red or brown cannon. The cannon and anchor are diagonally crossed. Each corner of the flag forms a pie-shaped blue triangle. The edges of the triangles that face the center of the flag are convex. White hoist with an inscription that reads "4th Brg 4th Div 9 Army Corps [illegible]."
Rectangular wool bunting flag. Red field with a black cartridge box in the center of the flag. On the front flap of the cartridge box is a yellow oval, or plate, with the letters "U.S." Above the cartridge box, in black letters, is written "FORTY ROUNDS" in an arc. White hoist with an inscription reading "1st Div 15 Army Corps."
Wool bunting pennant flag. White field with a wide blue border around all three sides. In the center of the flag is a red applique of two crossed swords. A blue or black number "3" is painted on top of the crossed swords. White cotton hoist with no grommets. The hoist has an inscription on each side; one side reads "3rd Brg. 1st Div. Cavalry. Command." and the reverse side reads "R C Toy 49 N 9th St. Phila Pa." The flag has machine-stitched flat-felled panel seams.
Pre-1863 design. Rectangular wool bunting flag. Horizontal triband design. Top and bottom band are blue; the middle band is white. In the center of the middle band is a black painted number "2" cotton applique. White cotton canvas hoist without grommets. The hoist has an inscription that reads "1st Div 2nd Brg 19 Army Corps Prior to 1863." Machine stitching throughout the flag.
Wool bunting pennant flag. White field with a blue six-point star in the center of the flag. White cotton hoist. Machine stitching. Inscription on hoist reads "1st Brg 3rd Div. 8 Army Corps...[illegible]."