Excerpted from The Chronicle Vol. 49, no. 1, March 1996 By Clifford D. Fales The availability of better wood screws and the rise of the factory system in the last quarter of the nineteenth century saw a proliferation of patents for more efficient tools for driving screws. Isaac Allard’s spiral screwdriver patent of 1868 began …
Excerpted from The Chronicle Vol. 64, No. 3, September 2011 by Patty MacLeish This telephone, which weighs 44 pounds, was “picked up” by Jim Sellers last December (Figure 1). There is a Bureau of Mine Safety tag on the phone, which Jim learned was estab-lished in 1910. It’s not precisely a “Whatsits” as it is …
The following is excerpted from The Chronicle Vol. 59 no. 3, September 2006 by Suzanne Fellman Jacob It’s cold; the wind drives down the back of your neck. Your hands are ungloved in order to take the ears of corn from the husk. Opening the stiff, outer husks that protect the corn kernels further roughen …
Excerpted from The Chronicle, Vol. 59 no. 4, December 2006 by Joan Unwin Ken Hawley has been collecting tools and related material for more than fifty years, and, in 1998 with help from the Heritage Lottery Fund, his collection (Figures 1–3) was acquired by a charitable trust. Housed in a specially refurbished building at Sheffield …
Excerpted from The Chronicle, Vol. XVII no. 3, September 1964 The tin lamps and torches often used for Political Campaigns, were mainly used for religious, industrial and theatrical purposes. The name “torch” is applied to lamps used in the open air; normally they have a single, large wick. Political campaigns with all their “ballyhoo” came …