This large metal Sears brand thermostat has a clock at the top and a bakelite plastic back. On the front of the thermostat is a glass-tube thermometer with 40-90 temperature markings. The clock has a red minute hand and a standard 60-minute dial. Each side of the thermostat has temperature dials towards the bottom of the device. One dial set the temperature for the day, and the other for the night.
The ubiquity of thermostats in 21st century homes shrouds the decades of innovation, industrial design, and engineering that went into making them an everyday object in almost every home. In the early 20th century, a majority of American households still heated their homes with manually operated furnaces that required a trip down to the basement and stoking the coal fired furnace. Albert Butz’s “damper-flapper” system was patented in 1886 and allowed user to set the thermostat to a certain temperature which would open a damper to the furnace, increasing the fire and heating the house. Progressive innovations allowed for the thermostats to use gas lines, incorporate electricity, turn on at a set time, include heating and cooling in one mechanism, and even connect to the internet.
The Fulton Company of Knoxville, Tennessee manufactured this Sylphon Regitherm thermostat around 1910. The thermostat could be set between 60 and 80 degrees. The Regitherm operated by the expansion and contraction of the metal bellows seen at the far left of the object, changing the temperature on the thermostat varied the liquid level inside the bellows. Once the bellows contracted to a certain level, the liquid exerted a pressure on the mechanism that opened the damper system on the furnace, increasing the heat.
The ubiquity of thermostats in 21st century homes shrouds the decades of innovation, industrial design, and engineering that went into making them an everyday object in almost every home. In the early 20th century, a majority of American households still heated their homes with manually operated furnaces that required a trip down to the basement and stoking the coal fired furnace. Albert Butz’s “damper-flapper” system was patented in 1886 and allowed user to set the thermostat to a certain temperature which would open a damper to the furnace, increasing the fire and heating the house. Progressive innovations allowed for the thermostats to use gas lines, incorporate electricity, turn on at a set time, include heating and cooling in one mechanism, and even connect to the internet.
This is “The Minneapolis” heat regulator that was manufactured by the Minneapolis Heat Regulator Company of Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1918. The Minneapolis model was first manufactured around 1907, when it was first patented, and the time attachment seen in this object was sold with the Minneapolis beginning in 1912. The Minneapolis regulator had a thermometer that displayed the temperature in the room, a thermostat that kept that house at an even temperature, and a time attachment that could be set to turn on the furnace when desired. A key would be used to wind the clock, a necessary feature for the clocks that were not powered by a battery or hard wired into the house’s electrical system. The Minneapolis Heat Regulator Company merged with the Honeywell Heating Specialties in 1927 to become the Minneapolis-Honeywell Heat Regulator Company.
The ubiquity of thermostats in 21st century homes shrouds the decades of innovation, industrial design, and engineering that went into making them an everyday object in almost every home. In the early 20th century, a majority of American households still heated their homes with manually operated furnaces that required a trip down to the basement and stoking the coal fired furnace. Albert Butz’s “damper-flapper” system was patented in 1886 and allowed user to set the thermostat to a certain temperature which would open a damper to the furnace, increasing the fire and heating the house. Progressive innovations allowed for the thermostats to use gas lines, incorporate electricity, turn on at a set time, include heating and cooling in one mechanism, and even connect to the internet.
This General Controls Tempotherm thermostat was manufactured during the 1960s. The thermostat could be programmed for separate temperatures for the day and the night. The Tempotherm could automatically oscillate between the two temperatures at the desired time.
The ubiquity of thermostats in 21st century homes shrouds the decades of innovation, industrial design, and engineering that went into making them an everyday object in almost every home. In the early 20th century, a majority of American households still heated their homes with manually operated furnaces that required a trip down to the basement and stoking the coal fired furnace. Albert Butz’s “damper-flapper” system was patented in 1886 and allowed home owner to set the thermostat to a certain temperature which would open a damper to the furnace, increasing the fire and heating the house. Progressive innovations allowed for the thermostats to use gas lines, incorporate electricity, turn on at a set time, include heating and cooling in one mechanism, and even connect to the internet.
Honeywell Incorporated of Minneapolis, Minnesota manufactured this Honeywell Comfort T882 Chronotherm thermostat around 1966. While conventional thermostats would allow for different settings during the day and night, the change had switched by hand. The Chronotherm could automatically change the thermostat’s setting between day and night. Chronotherm is one of Honeywell’s most prominent brands and has been in existence since the 1930s. The T882 model Chronotherm has a clock on the left side of the face and a temperature indicator on the right side. Above the temperature indicator are two glass sliders that can be set between 60 and 90, one controlling the temperature during the night and the other during the day. The T882 was the first Chronotherm that had heating and cooling capabilities, previously the house would only be cooled by to the ambient temperature.
The ubiquity of thermostats in 21st century homes shrouds the decades of innovation, industrial design, and engineering that went into making them an everyday object in almost every home. In the early 20th century, a majority of American households still heated their homes with manually operated furnaces that required a trip down to the basement and stoking the coal fired furnace. Albert Butz’s “damper-flapper” system was patented in 1886 and allowed home owner to set the thermostat to a certain temperature which would open a damper to the furnace, increasing the fire and heating the house. Progressive innovations allowed for the thermostats to use gas lines, incorporate electricity, turn on at a set time, include heating and cooling in one mechanism, and even connect to the internet.
Honeywell, Inc. of Minneapolis, Minnesota manufactured this Honeywell Comfort T8095 Chronotherm thermostat around 1977. This front face of the thermostat features a clock, thermometer, and two (red and blue) temperature setting levers. For heating, the left (blue) lever sets the lower temperature when the clock hits a blue pin, and the right (red) lever sets the temperature for when the clock has a red pin. The red and blue program pins are inserted into the clock, switching the furnace on or off to heat the house to its setting. The thermostat operated via a bimetallic strip and mercury tube, — the bimetallic bar would move one way when the temperature dropped, and another when the temperature rose. This movement shifted the mercury in a tube, opening and closing a circuit inside the tube when the mercury flowed to one side or the other.
The ubiquity of thermostats in 21st century homes shrouds the decades of innovation, industrial design, and engineering that went into making them an everyday object in almost every home. In the early 20th century, a majority of American households still heated their homes with manually operated furnaces that required a trip down to the basement and stoking the coal fired furnace. Albert Butz’s “damper-flapper” system was patented in 1886 and allowed home owner to set the thermostat to a certain temperature which would open a damper to the furnace, increasing the fire and heating the house. Progressive innovations allowed for the thermostats to use gas lines, incorporate electricity, turn on at a set time, include heating and cooling in one mechanism, and even connect to the internet.
This is “The Minneapolis” heat regulator that was manufactured by the Minneapolis Heat Regulator Company of Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1918. The Minneapolis was first manufactured around 1907, when it was first patented. The clock attachment seen in this object was sold with the Minneapolis beginning in 1912. The Minneapolis regulator had a thermometer that indicated the temperature in the room, a thermostat that kept that house at an even set temperature, and a time attachment that could be set to turn on the furnace when desired. A key was used to wind the clock, a necessary feature for the clocks that were not powered by a battery or hard wired into the house’s electrical system. The Minneapolis Heat Regulator Company merged with the Honeywell Heating Specialties in 1927 to become the Minneapolis-Honeywell Heat Regulator Company.
The ubiquity of thermostats in 21st century homes shrouds the decades of innovation, industrial design, and engineering that went into making them an everyday object in almost every home. In the early 20th century, a majority of American households still heated their homes with manually operated furnaces that required a trip down to the basement and stoking the coal fired furnace. Albert Butz’s “damper-flapper” system was patented in 1886 and allowed user to set the thermostat to a certain temperature which would open a damper to the furnace, increasing the fire and heating the house. Progressive innovations allowed for the thermostats to use gas lines, incorporate electricity, turn on at a set time, include heating and cooling in one mechanism, and even connect to the internet.
The Minneapolis-Honeywell Regulator Company of Minneapolis, Minnesota manufactured this Honeywell Comfort brand thermostat in 1939. The thermostat used Honeywell’s Time-O-Stat feature that allowed the home owner to set a lower temperature for up to 12 hours, before returning the heat to any temperature between 45 and 69 degrees. This could be used to turn off the thermostat during the evening or while the occupant was at work, helping reduce fuel consumption and save money. Late 1930s advertising depicted the thermostat selling for $12.50, a lower-end thermostat for the Minneapolis-Honeywell company.
The ubiquity of thermostats in 21st century homes shrouds the decades of innovation, industrial design, and engineering that went into making them an everyday object in almost every home. In the early 20th century, a majority of American households still heated their homes with manually operated furnaces that required a trip down to the basement and stoking the coal fired furnace. Albert Butz’s “damper-flapper” system was patented in 1886 and allowed home owner to set the thermostat to a certain temperature which would open a damper to the furnace, increasing the fire and heating the house. Progressive innovations allowed for the thermostats to use gas lines, incorporate electricity, turn on at a set time, include heating and cooling in one mechanism, and even connect to the internet.
This is a Honeywell Round T832 day-night thermostat that was manufactured by the Minneapolis-Honeywell Company around 1960. Renowned industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss designed the iconic “Round” line of Honeywell thermostats that debuted in 1953. This 1960 model has two built-in red indicators that allow for the setting of two temperatures as well as a “set-back timer” which would automatically switch between the two thermostats. Staring in the 1953, Honeywell offered the Round in a variety of colors to match any home’s color scheme for a price of $12.80.
The ubiquity of thermostats in 21st century homes shrouds the decades of innovation, industrial design, and engineering that went into making them an everyday object. In the early 20th century, a majority of American households still heated their homes with manually operated furnaces that required a trip down to the basement and stoking the coal fired furnace. Albert Butz’s “damper-flapper” system was patented in 1886 and allowed the home owner to set the thermostat to a certain temperature which would open a damper to the furnace, increasing the fire and heating the house. Progressive innovations allowed for the thermostats to use gas lines, incorporate electricity, turn on at a set time, include heating and cooling in one mechanism, and even connect to the internet.
This is a Chronotherm Model T105 thermostat that was manufactured by the Minneapolis-Honeywell Company of Minneapolis, Minnesota around 1935. The T105 Chronotherm was one of Minneapolis-Honeywell’s more expensive thermostat offerings in 1935, selling for $41.00. This Chronotherm used Honeywell’s patented “Heat Acceleration” feature to anticipate a drop in temperature and kick on the furnace earlier to level the heat and avoid the “cold 70°.” The thermostat would warm itself up two degrees so that by the time it reached the pre-set thermostat temperature it would know to turn on and re-heat the room.
The ubiquity of thermostats in 21st century homes shrouds the decades of innovation, industrial design, and engineering that went into making them an everyday item. In the early 20th century, a majority of American households still heated their homes with manually operated furnaces that required a trip down to the basement and stoking the coal fired furnace. Albert Butz’s “damper-flapper” system was patented in 1886 and allowed user to set the thermostat to a certain temperature which would open a damper to the furnace, increasing the fire and heating the house. Refilling the furnace with coal was still necessary. Progressive innovations allowed for the thermostats to use gas lines, automate coal fueling, incorporate electricity, turn on at a set time, include heating and cooling in one mechanism, and even connect to the internet.
This thermostat has a Type 772 Tem-Clock timing apparatus with a T-41 electric switch that was made by General Electric for the Penn Electric Switch Company around 1938. The timer could be set for an AM and a PM temperature, or be turned on automatically when the thermostat hit a certain temperature.
The ubiquity of thermostats in 21st century homes shrouds the decades of innovation, industrial design, and engineering that went into making them an everyday object in almost every home. In the early 20th century, a majority of American households still heated their homes with manually operated furnaces that required a trip down to the basement and stoking the coal fired furnace. Albert Butz’s “damper-flapper” system was patented in 1886 and allowed home owner to set the thermostat to a certain temperature which would open a damper to the furnace, increasing the fire and heating the house. Progressive innovations allowed for the thermostats to use gas lines, incorporate electricity, turn on at a set time, include heating and cooling in one mechanism, and even connect to the internet.
The Minneapolis-Honeywell Regulator Company of Minneapolis, Minnesota manufactured this Honeywell Comfort TM850 Chronotherm thermostat during the 1950s. The Honeywell Chronotherm brand has been manufactured in different models since 1935. While conventional thermostats allowed for different settings during the day and night, most had to be manually changed by hand. The Chronotherm automatically changed those settings so that the temperature could be lowered at night and then turned up each morning. The TM850 Chronotherm featured a Telechron clock and sold for $34.90 in 1950.
The ubiquity of thermostats in 21st century homes shrouds the decades of innovation, industrial design, and engineering that went into making them an everyday object in almost every home. In the early 20th century, a majority of American households still heated their homes with manually operated furnaces that required a trip down to the basement and stoking the coal fired furnace. Albert Butz’s “damper-flapper” system was patented in 1886 and allowed home owner to set the thermostat to a certain temperature which would open a damper to the furnace, increasing the fire and heating the house. Progressive innovations allowed for the thermostats to use gas lines, incorporate electricity, turn on at a set time, include heating and cooling in one mechanism, and even connect to the internet.
The Minneapolis-Honeywell Regulator Company of Minneapolis, Minnesota manufactured this Chronotherm thermostat around 1940. This Chronotherm is the first in the line to have a numerical clock and not an analog clock to turn the thermostat on and off. This Chronotherm was advertised as the first to “make automatic heating automatic” and touted the benefits of saving fuel as patriotic and helping the war effort. The digital clock mechanism did not work as well as the previous analog clock’s and the design was quickly discontinued.
The ubiquity of thermostats in 21st century homes shrouds the decades of innovation, industrial design, and engineering that went into making them an everyday object in almost every home. In the early 20th century, a majority of American households still heated their homes with manually operated furnaces that required a trip down to the basement and stoking the coal fired furnace. Albert Butz’s “damper-flapper” system was patented in 1886 and allowed user to set the thermostat to a certain temperature which would open a damper to the furnace, increasing the fire and heating the house. Progressive innovations allowed for the thermostats to use gas lines, incorporate electricity, turn on at a set time, include heating and cooling in one mechanism, and even connect to the internet.
Albert Penn of the Penn Electric Switch Company in Des Moines, Iowa invented this Type B thermostat in 1930. His invention was given patent number 1,867,756 on July 19, 1932 and describes a room thermostat that operates via an electric circuit controlled by a thermostatic metal bar. A thermostatic metal bar (or bimetallic strip) is used to sense temperature changes and move accordingly. The bar would essentially move one way when the temperature dropped, and another when the temperature rose. As the bar moved, it would close the circuit that turned the furnace on or off, depending on the thermostat’s setting. This “Type B” thermostat was more conventional than the Type AA Penn thermostat seen in objects 2008.0011.14 that was controlled by a temperature actuated bellows element. This thermostat has an embedded thermometer and a metal slider sets the thermostat.
The ubiquity of thermostats in 21st century homes shrouds the decades of innovation, industrial design, and engineering that went into making them an everyday object in almost every home. In the early 20th century, a majority of American households still heated their homes with manually operated furnaces that required a trip down to the basement and stoking the coal fired furnace. Albert Butz’s “damper-flapper” system was patented in 1886 and allowed home owner to set the thermostat to a certain temperature which would open a damper to the furnace, increasing the fire and heating the house. Progressive innovations allowed for the thermostats to use gas lines, incorporate electricity, turn on at a set time, include heating and cooling in one mechanism, and even connect to the internet.
Albert Penn of the Penn Electric Switch Company in Des Moines, Iowa invented this Type AA thermostat in 1928. His invention was given patent number 1,749,392 on March 4, 1930 and describes a room thermostat in which a switch is controlled by a temperature actuated bellows element to close or break a circuit that would turn on the furnace. While this design was innovative, it was not as sensitive to temperature changes as other thermostats, and the large bellows element would have jutted 4 inches out from the wall. Other thermostats were becoming smaller and more attractive, and Penn soon changed its design seen in object 2008.0011.12. While similarly styled, the thermostatic metal in the Type B worked better than the bellows, and the device protruded a mere 1.5 inches from the wall.
The ubiquity of thermostats in 21st century homes shrouds the decades of innovation, industrial design, and engineering that went into making them an everyday object in almost every home. In the early 20th century, a majority of American households still heated their homes with manually operated furnaces that required a trip down to the basement and stoking the coal fired furnace. Albert Butz’s “damper-flapper” system was patented in 1886 and allowed home owner to set the thermostat to a certain temperature which would open a damper to the furnace, increasing the fire and heating the house. Progressive innovations allowed for the thermostats to use gas lines, incorporate electricity, turn on at a set time, include heating and cooling in one mechanism, and even connect to the internet.
The Time-O-Stat Controls Corporation of Elkhart, Indiana produced this Time-O-Stat thermostat around 1930. Time-O-Stat was a large company that specialized in control systems that had applications in a variety of industrial, commercial, and domestic applications. Time-O-Stat was purchased by the Minneapolis-Honeywell Regulator Company in 1934, who continued to sell a Time-O-Stat brand thermostat in the years following the acquisition and used Time-O-Stat control patents in future devices.
The ubiquity of thermostats in 21st century homes shrouds the decades of innovation, industrial design, and engineering that went into making them an everyday object in almost every home. In the early 20th century, a majority of American households still heated their homes with manually operated furnaces that required a trip down to the basement and stoking the coal fired furnace. Albert Butz’s “damper-flapper” system was patented in 1886 and allowed home owner to set the thermostat to a certain temperature which would open a damper to the furnace, increasing the fire and heating the house. Progressive innovations allowed for the thermostats to use gas lines, incorporate electricity, turn on at a set time, include heating and cooling in one mechanism, and even connect to the internet.
The Williams Oil-O-Matic heating company of Bloomington, Illinois manufactured this thermostat during the 1930s. Walter W. Williams patented his oil burner control mechanism on March 11, 1925. The Oil-O-Matic was an attempt to make oil heating automatic “without work or worry.” The home owner could set a temperature with the thermostat and the Oil-O-Matic would parcel out the right amount of oil, atomize the oil for combustion, keep the flame alive with a fan, and increase the heat in the combustion chamber, heating the whole house. Advertisements for the Oil-O-Matic touted the way it could save its owner money—fuel costs, upkeep costs, cleaning bills, doctors’ bills, and time due to the labor of refilling a coal furnace. This dark brown plastic thermostat was used in conjunction with the Oil-O-Matic, it contains a thermometer and could be set between 55 and 85 degrees.
The ubiquity of thermostats in 21st century homes shrouds the decades of innovation, industrial design, and engineering that went into making them an everyday object in almost every home. In the early 20th century, a majority of American households still heated their homes with manually operated furnaces that required a trip down to the basement and stoking the coal fired furnace. Albert Butz’s “damper-flapper” system was patented in 1886 and allowed home owner to set the thermostat to a certain temperature which would open a damper to the furnace, increasing the fire and heating the house. Progressive innovations allowed for the thermostats to use gas lines, incorporate electricity, turn on at a set time, include heating and cooling in one mechanism, and even connect to the internet.
The Iron Fireman Manufacturing Company of Portland, Oregon produced this thermostat in the late 1930s. Iron Fireman began their company by producing coal furnaces that used an automatic coal-feeding system. The thermostat could be set to a desired temperature and time, which would fire up the furnace and be automatically fed from a coal bin through a screw feed “ring drive” which delivered the coal to the bottom of the furnace. Delivering the coal below the furnace instead of dumping it on top generated more heat and used the coal more efficiently. This system allowed for coal to be used as an automatic fuel similar to gas or oil, keeping coal production economically viable in a time when it was losing market share to gas.
The ubiquity of thermostats in 21st century homes shrouds the decades of innovation, industrial design, and engineering that went into making them an everyday object in almost every home. In the early 20th century, a majority of American households still heated their homes with manually operated furnaces that required a trip down to the basement and stoking the coal fired furnace. Albert Butz’s “damper-flapper” system was patented in 1886 and allowed home owner to set the thermostat to a certain temperature which would open a damper to the furnace, increasing the fire and heating the house. Progressive innovations allowed for the thermostats to use gas lines, incorporate electricity, turn on at a set time, include heating and cooling in one mechanism, and even connect to the internet.
The Minneapolis-Honeywell Regulator Company manufactured this Honeywell T852 electric clock thermostat beginning in 1960. The thermostat had two external tabs for setting the temperature for daytime and nighttime. The thermostat connected to the house’s electric system so that it did not have to be wound or set.
The ubiquity of thermostats in 21st century homes shrouds the decades of innovation, industrial design, and engineering that went into making them an everyday object in almost every home. In the early 20th century, a majority of American households still heated their homes with manually operated furnaces that required a trip down to the basement and stoking the coal fired furnace. Albert Butz’s “damper-flapper” system was patented in 1886 and allowed home owner to set the thermostat to a certain temperature which would open a damper to the furnace, increasing the fire and heating the house. Progressive innovations allowed for the thermostats to use gas lines, incorporate electricity, turn on at a set time, include heating and cooling in one mechanism, and even connect to the internet.
This Time-O-Stat 8-Day Thermostat was manufactured by the Time-O-Stat Controls Corporation of Elkhart, Indiana around 1932. The home owner could program thermostat to keep different temperatures during the day or night, and the clock switched between these temperatures for 8 days before it needed to be wound. The thermostat’s temperature could be set between 60 and 80, and the thermometer on the front displays the temperature from 30 to 100 degrees. This thermostat contained a mercury switch on a helical bi-metal coil, the mercury served to slow the opening and closing of the circuit that controlled the furnace, preventing “short-cycling.” Time-O-Stat was a large company that specialized in control systems that had applications in a variety of industrial, commercial, and domestic applications. Time-O-Stat was purchased by the Minneapolis-Honeywell Regulator Company in 1934, who continued to sell a Time-O-Stat brand thermostat in the years following the acquisition and used Time-O-Stat control patents in future devices.
The ubiquity of thermostats in 21st century homes shrouds the decades of innovation, industrial design, and engineering that went into making them an everyday object in almost every home. In the early 20th century, a majority of American households still heated their homes with manually operated furnaces that required a trip down to the basement and stoking the coal fired furnace. Albert Butz’s “damper-flapper” system was patented in 1886 and allowed user to set the thermostat to a certain temperature which would open a damper to the furnace, increasing the fire and heating the house. Progressive innovations allowed for the thermostats to use gas lines, incorporate electricity, turn on at a set time, include heating and cooling in one mechanism, and even connect to the internet.