This clear plastic template has holes in the shape of various pieces of office furniture as well as measuring scales for designing offices. Shapes are drawn to a scale of ¼” to a foot. This particular example was used to plan the layout of offices in the Mechanical and Civil Engineering collections of the Museum of History and Technology (now the National Museum of American History) when it first opened. A mark on the object reads: RAPIDESIGN (/) NO 710 (/) OFFICE PLAN (/) TEMPLATE.
A brown paper sleeve holds the instrument.
Versions of this RapiDesign template sold as early as 1950 and remained on sale at least as late as 2016. In 1963, the instrument cost $1.60.
This clear plastic rectangular template has a scale of inches from 1 to five inches along the left side, divided to 1/32 inch. It has an unequal scale of degrees along the top and right side which can be used as a rectangular protractor. Cut out of the template are seven rows of figures. The first row has ten squares, ranging in size from 3/4 inch on a side down to 1/8 inch on a side. The next two rows have 19 circles ranging from 1/16 inch in diameter up to 1 inch in diameter. The fourth row has eight hexagons, the fifth row six rectangles, the seventh row an arrow and three ovals and the eighth row five equilateral triangles. In addition there is an arc of a circle, a star, two pointed figures, and an additional small circle.
The instrument fits in a tan paper envelope.
According to both a printed and a penciled mark on the object, it cost $1.00. The donor recalls that he purchased the device while he was working on as a free-lance programmer during his student days at Purdue University.
This clear yellowish plastic rectangular template has a five-inch scale divided to sixteenths of an inch across the top and one divided to tenths of an inch along the bottom. The interior has openings in the shape of circles, hexagons, squares, and triangles with diameters of 1/2, 7/16, 3/8, 11/32, 5/16, 9/32, 1/4, 7/32, 3/16, 5/32, 1/8, and 3/32 inches. A mark on the template reads: RAPIDESIGN No. 19. Another mark reads: SKETCH MATE.
A pen mark on the paper envelope reads: 3914-49. Another one reads: $1. A stamp on the envelope reads: RUTH LUTZ COMPANY (/) 540 Volusia Avenue (/) DAYTONA BEACH, FLORIDA (/) PHONE: 253-3691. The Ruth Lutz Company was founded in 1946 and in business in Daytona Beach in 1965 at the address and telephone number given on the envelope.
A version of this template was available in 2016 from art suppliers as the RapiDesign Sketch Mate R-19 with $14.35 as the list price.
References:
[Advertisement], The Jetstream: Official Newspaper of the Student Body of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical Institute, vol. 1, issue 4, August 5, 1965, p. 6.
Art Supply Warehouse web page, accessed October 17, 2016.
This clear plastic template contains five circles, a rectangle, a square, a parallelogram, and two triangles, along with thirteen pieces of chemical apparatus.
By the 1920s, students studying chemistry in American colleges and universities were expected to keep detailed laboratory notebooks. To help them in this endeavor, laboratory apparatus firms such as Eimer and Amend in New York, as well as CENCO, E.H. Sargent & Co., and W.H. Welch Company (all of Chicago) sold stencils with cutouts in the shape of chemical apparatus. All of these firms sold a stencil that shows the chemical apparatus on this object and the five circles. These stencils were cut off on one side (hence in the shape of trapezoids and not a rectangle) to assist in drawing bent delivery tubes. This eliminated the triangles, square, parallelogram, and rectangle on this instrument.
A template precisely like this one is found in a 1967 catalog of the C-Thru Ruler Company of Bloomfield, Connecticut. Called a “chemistry and math stencil,” it sold for $1.80 a dozen. That catalog also contains a “chemistry stencil” like – but not identical to – those found in the earlier catalogs of chemical supply companies.
The donor presented this object along with a set of drawing instruments by Dietzgen, although the template is not by Dietzgen. The gift was given in memory of his father, Edward Bradley Morrison, and in honor of his son, Joshua Bradley Morrison. The donor had been told that his uncle got the set from a friend who assisted with the restoration of the U.S.S. Constitution; the uncle then gave the set to the donor's father for use in his college studies.
References:
Central Scientific Company, Catalog, Chicago. No stencil with chemical symbols is shown in the May 1909 catalog. One does appear in the 1912 catalog reprinted in 1914, as the #532. From 1919 until 1927 it sold as the model 12790. By 1936 through at least 1960 it was the #18800.
E. H. Sargent & Company, Catalog, Chicago, 1929, p. 721. It showed a “Novic” stencil like those shown by CENCO, Eimar & Amernd, and Welch.
Eimar and Amend, Catalog AA, New York, 1920, p. 515. It too shows a “Novic” stencil.
William M. Welch Catalog, Chicago. A stencil with chemical symbols appeared as model #303 in catalogs from at least 1922 through 1949.
C-Thru Ruler Company, General Catalogue, Bloomfield, Connecticut, 1967, p. 11. This template was model no. 350. C-ThruRuler Company was founded in 1939.