On November 30, 1858, John Landis Mason received a U.S. Patent No. 22186 on a Glass Jar
There were hundreds of designs for fruit jars, but Mason’s jar was the most well-known, so much so that it became the generic name for canning jars. Mason continued to improve the design patenting (U.S. Patent No. 100306) a jar with an improved seal on March 1, 1870, known as the Gem Jar:
Hopefully not too late to save your Thanksgiving dinner, here is a sampling of turkey technology over the years:
U.S. Patent No. 2,128,952, issued September 6, 1938, on Seasoning Poultry that provides “a novel method and apparatus for seasoning a fowl when it is dressed so that the meat of the fowl will be permeated substantially throughout with the seasoning”:
U.S. Patent No. 2,310,690, issued February 9, 1943, on Cooking Food by Electric Conductance by passing electric current through the food”:
U.S. Patent No. 2,633,601 issued April 7, 1953, on a Method of Preparing Fowl involving “skinning the fowl and later using the original skin as a covering for the flesh after the boning operation has been completed”:
U.S. Patent No. 2,708,769 issued May 24, 1955, on a Stuffing Shield for Roasting Fowls to help retain the stuffing inside, while still allowing it to brown:
U.S. Patent No. 3,131,448, issued May 5, 1964, on a Poultry Clip Device to “retain stuffing or the like therein”:
U.S. Patent No. 3,708,312 issued January 2, 1973, issued on a Poultry Product and Method which the “posterior opening of an eviscerated fowl is held open by a tubular device comprising a pair of telescoped members, through which stuffing may be introduced, and in which giblets or other items may be carried”:
Best wishes for a Happy Thanksgiving (and a delicious turkey)!
On November 25, 1903, Clyde J. Coleman, received U.S. Patent No. 745,157 on a Means for Operating Motor Vehicles (an electric starter for an automobile engine starter):
Before the electric starter the engine had to be hand-cranked, However hand cranking frequently resulted in broken thumbs, and occassionally a broken wrist, dislocated shoulder, or worse. Furthermore increasing engine size was making hand cranking increasingly physically demanding.
A few years later, Charles F. Kettering and Henry M. Leland, of Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company (DELCO), obtained U.S. Patent No. 1,150,523 on an improved design:
On November 24, 1874, Joseph F. Glidden received U.S. Patent No. 157,124 on Wire-Fences (one of the first successful barbed wire designs):
Glidden’s was not the first patent on barbed wire. That honor goes to Lucien B. Smith, who received U.S. Patent No. 66182 on June 25, 1867.
Glidden’s patent was the best of them, and even surived a challenge in the Supreme Court. confirming a virtual monopoly of the best design.
Isaac Ellwood received U.S. Patent No. 147756 on his own design, but quickly determined that Glidden’s design was superior and the two formed the Barb Fence Company in DeKalb.
Haish was another early barbed wire entrepreneur who obtained several U.S. Patents (U.S. Patent Nos. 152368, 164552, and 167240). Charles Washburn, who obtained his own patent (U.S. Patent No. 186389), completed the “big four” of the early barbed wire industry.
Several historians date the end of the Old West to the invention and subsequent proliferation of barbed wire.
Yesterday’s post was about Isaac Van Bunschoten’s U.S. Patent No 11979 on a lamp that burns rosin oil. In today’s world of ubiquitous electricity we take lighting for granted, but not that long ago, safe, reliable lighting was hard to come by. Lamps were fueled by various oils which many of which were dangerously unreliable. The headstone below is a testament to that danger:
Isaac Van Bunschoten’s invention, as short-lived as it was, is all the more notable for providing safe and sufficient light, until the next inventor advanced the technology. Whether ground-breaking or incremental all inventors contribute to the progress of science and the useful arts.
On November 21, 1854, Isaac Van Bunschoten received U.S. Patent No 11979 on a lamp that burns rosin oil:
He received a second patent, U.S. Patent No. 13378, sixteen months later:
Van Bunschoten Invented a modified Argand burner. While inventive and economical, the invention was shortly replaced by lamps that burned coal oil and kerosene. Van Bunschoten’s contribution is a reminder that inventors are integral to the process of technology, and the fact that their inventions are replaced by yet newer inventions does not diminish the importance of their contribution to the progress of science and the useful arts.
On November 20, 1866, James L. Haven and Charles Hittrick received U.S. Patent No. 59,745 on a Whirligig or Bandalore, or what we today call a Yo-yo:
This was not the first yo-yo — they have been known since at least 440 B.C., but it is the first patent on an improvement to a yo-yo.
The yo-yo business has had its ups and downs in the U.S. In 1928, Pedro Flores, a Filipino immigrant, opened the Yo-yo Manufacturing Company in Santa Barbara, California. Shortly thereafter entrepreneur Donald F. Duncan purchased the Flores Yo-Yo Corporation. In 1946, the Duncan Toys Company opened a yo-yo factory in Luck, Wisconsin. The Duncan yo-yo was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame in 1999.
In a trademark case in 1965, a federal court held that “yo-yo” had become a part of common speech and that Duncan no longer had exclusive rights to the term. The expenses incurred in this legal battle as well as other financial pressures, the Duncan family sold the company name and associated trademarks Flambeau, Inc., which operates the company today.
On November 19, 1895, U.S. Patent No. 549,952 on a paper pencil issued to Fredrick E. Blaisdell:
Frederck Elijah Blaisdell was born in 1864 at Chicago, Illinois. Disinterested in his family’s newspaper business, he left his family in Chicago, and spent some time in Philadelphia, before ending up in London. He obtained a job as a clerk, and one night while working late and alone the only pencil he had split and broke the wood around the lead so that all he had was the lead itself. As he continued working, the lead kept breaking. He finally tore off a strip of newspaper and wrapped it spirally around the lead which kept the lead from continually breaking and allowed him to complete his work. As the point of the lead would wear down, he would untwist some more of the spirally wrapped paper until he had another point working.
This gave him his big idea for his greatest invention, the Blaisdell Pencil. He found financing and patented the idea, and Blaisdell pencils were manufactured and marked for decades.
On November 18, 1997, U.S. Patent No, 5,687,752, issued on a Dining Table Having Integral Dishwasher.
The patent details numerous advantages, not the least of which is eliminating the “tedious task of carrying dishes to the sink”:
Numerous advantages are realized with the construction of the present invention. For example, the user no longer has to bend over to load dishes into the dish-carrying racks of the dishwasher. Additionally, the dishwasher may be placed within a kitchen counter top or table. If the dishwasher has a dining surface projecting from the top of the basin (e.g., is placed within a table), household members simply place their dirty dishes in the raised rack assembly rather than having to perform the tedious task of carrying dishes to the sink. Moreover, the inventive dishwasher is space conscious, which is primarily attributable to the elimination of the side opening and corresponding swinging door.
On November 17, 1970, U.S. Patent No. 3541541 issued to Douglas Engelbart on an X-Y Position Indicator for a Display System (computer mouse):
Engelbart he first recorded his thoughts about something he initially called a “bug” in his personal notebook on November 14, 1963. He wrote that the “bug” would be “easier” and “more natural” to use. The earliest known written use of the term “mouse” in reference to a computer X-Y pointing device is in a July 1965 publication, “Computer-Aided Display Control”. The name is widely believed to be form the resemblance of the shape and size of the device resembling that of a mouse, with the cord resembling its tail. Of course, today’s wireless mice eliminate some of the resemblance.