In 1844 Charles Goodyear of New York, New York received a patent for a machine used for the manufacturing of corrugated or shirred rubber fabrics. Rubber strips were sandwiched between fabric, stretched and pressed between two rollers, one calendared, creating a rubber impregnated cloth.
Durand's improvement in "Dulcimers" was his only patent. He owned a dulcimer shop in Connecticut and offered instructional literature in the use of the instrument.
For Bigelow’s invention of a “Loom for Weaving Piled Fabrics,” he received one of his many patents, which included patents for his celebrated looms for weaving Brussels, or looped, carpets.
Pauline Hortense Gontard, of Cortébert, Switzerland, submitted this brass model with her patent application for an improvement in the winding mechanism in a stem winding watch or keyless watch. By the time, she applied for the patent in the United States in 1879, American watchmakers were mass producing watches and competing with European watch makers.
Stem winding watches were invented by a French clock maker in 1842 and patented in Europe in 1845. Before this time a key was necessary to wind a watch mechanism.
Jennings held patents for a variety of inventions, including the friction match and a threshing machine. This one, for a “Vapor Burner,” related to lamps and lighting.
David Rawl, of Batesburg, South Carolina, submitted this model with his patent application for an improvement for picking cotton 1882 to the United States Patent Office. The mechanism could be wheeled over the top of a cotton row. A frame is balanced over wheels and as the picker is moved the stalks are guided through spindles where the boll is removed and the cotton drops into a carrier.
Small metal model or example of a design for a spring clasp mechanism to securing an earring to the ear lobe. The design specifications also allowed for and concave/convex discs to help the earring seat itself on the ear lobe or a pin on the disc incase the wearer had pierced ears (This model does not show the pin). The model also shows two eye hooks. One allowed for a dangle and the other allowed a chain and hair clip that would attach to the hair for security.
Packard’s improvement in “Cooking Utensils,” her only patented invention, included a new design for a frying pan using rounded recesses to keep eggs in place on the pan while cooking.
Rennie described her only patented invention, for a “Dust Pan,” as having a “peculiar construction” which would assist with “Sweeping Stairs and Floors of Apartments.”
Mechanical engineer Frederck Sickels devoted his career to improving steam engines and advancing their use at sea. He was particularly interested in developing steam-assisted steering, a topic dear to many inventors as ships became larger and heavier through the middle of the nineteenth century. This patent model demonstrates Sickels's idea for a steering apparatus where steam pressure in a pair of cylinders would both control the side-to-side motion of a vessel's rudder but also hold the rudder stationary against the force of the surrounding water.