Military

• Trade catalogs from Colt's Patent Fire Arms Mfg. Co.

  Date

  1800s

  Variant company name

  Established 1836 ; Incorporated 1855

  Company Name

  Colt's Patent Fire Arms Mfg. Co.

  Related companies

  Colts Patent Fire Arms Mfg. Co. ; Johns-Pratt Co. (div.) ; Electrical Div. ; Mechanical Goods Div. (Dept.) ; Plastics Div. ; Colt Mfg. Co. ; Colt Industries Inc.

  Record ID

  SILNMAHTL_12279

  Data source

  Smithsonian Libraries

• Trade catalogs from M. Hartley Co.

  Date

  1900s

  Company Name

  M. Hartley Co.

  Related companies

  Remington Arms Co. ; Union Metallic Cartridge Co.

  Record ID

  SILNMAHTL_42603

  Data source

  Smithsonian Libraries

• Trade catalogs from Brick House Shop

  Date

  1900s

  Company Name

  Brick House Shop

  Record ID

  SILNMAHTL_42609

  Data source

  Smithsonian Libraries

• 

  Keuffel & Esser 1741 Thacher Cylindrical Slide Rule

  Description

  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.

  Location

  Currently not on view

  date made

  1890s

  maker

  Stanley, William Ford

  Keuffel & Esser Co.

  ID Number

  MA.315663

  accession number

  217544

  catalog number

  315663

  Data Source

  National Museum of American History

• 

  Quartz Clock

  Description

  This clock was built at the U. S. Naval Observatory about 1936 as part of an experimental program to control time signals transmitted by radio. It is a quartz clock, that is, it depends on a specially cut piece of quartz crystal to keep time. The search for a better timekeeper than the best pendulum clocks led to the development of quartz-crystal clocks, the first of which telecommunications engineers at Bell Telephone Laboratories built in 1927 to monitor and control frequencies.

  date made

  1936

  ID Number

  ME.319994

  catalog number

  319994

  accession number

  240411

  Data Source

  National Museum of American History

• 

  Italian Medical Chest for First-Aid Ambulance

  date made

  ca 1916

  ID Number

  MG.28627

  catalog number

  28627

  accession number

  65023

  Data Source

  National Museum of American History

• 

  Stenquist Construction Test - Single Series I

  date made

  ca 1918

  used at

  Carnegie-Mellon University

  ID Number

  MG.311913.10

  catalog number

  311913.10

  accession number

  311913

  Data Source

  National Museum of American History

• 

  Watch Fob

  date made

  1918-1919

  ID Number

  MG.M-01609

  catalog number

  M-01609

  accession number

  64133

  Data Source

  National Museum of American History

• 

  Footstool

  date made

  1917-1919

  ID Number

  MG.M-01614

  catalog number

  M-01614

  accession number

  64133

  Data Source

  National Museum of American History

• 

  Jar

  date made

  1917-1919

  ID Number

  MG.M-01615

  catalog number

  M-01615

  accession number

  64133

  Data Source

  National Museum of American History

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