On September 25, 1962, U.S. Patent No. 3,055,113, on a Tracing Device — what was commercialized as the Etch-A-Sketch:

In an odd coincidence, exactly eleven years later, on September 25, 1973, U.S. Patent No. 3,760,505 issued on a Tracing Device — covering an improved case:

How much simpler things would be if we could just shake our tablets and start over, like the good old Etch-A-Sketch.

Dr. Alexander Dey received U.S. Patent No. 411586 on a Workman’s Time-Recorder — a time clock on September 24, 1889.

In Dr. Dey’s own words, the invention “consists in a novel construction and combination, with a clock, of mechanisms by means of which employés of shops, factories, and other establishments may be enabled to record the time of their entering and leaving their place of business, and thus save the extra expense of watchmen or time keeper’s usually employed for the aforesaid purpose.”

Dr Alexander Dey was educated at Aberdeen and Cambridge Universities. He worked as an inspectors of schools in Scotland from 1873 to 1903. As a side hustle he invented the time recorder, He and his brother John Dey formed the Dey Patents Company in Syracuse New York in 1893, which eventually became the Dey Time Register Company around 1900. Dr Alexander Dey moved to Syracuse in 1903 to work full time on his inventions. The brothers’ company was acquired by the International Time Recording Company four years later in 1907. In 1911, International Time Recording Company merged with two other firms and became the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company, later renamed International Business Machines, or IBM.

On behalf of everyone who has ever had to punch a time clock, thank you?

On September 23, 1934, U.S. Patent No, 1,776,637 issued to Johannes Ostermeier on a Flash Lamp.

A fixture in photography, for decades, flash bulbs have been replaced by electronic flashes, and supplanted first by faster films and more recently by digital photography. Important in its time, other inventors and the march of time, obsoleted this technology, as they do to most technologies.

On this date in 1859, George B. Simpson received U.S. Patent No. 25532 for his “electroheater”.

This was the first patent on an electric range, The range was powered by battery, and as the patent explained, could be used to “warm rooms, boil water, [and] cook victuals.”

The electric range was important invention because it gives house hunters something to complain about when touring houses on TV.

On September 19, 1838, Ephraim Morris received a patent on a train brake, presumably to the great relief of train passengers everywhere.

Ephraim apparently was fascinated by inclined planes. because he is credited with designing the inclined planes for the Morris Canal which opened in 1831, which brought further commerce to the area and provided recreational diversion in the form of swimming in the summer and ice skating in the winter. His patent explained that brake could be used on an inclined plane of a canal or railroad.

On September 17, 1901, electrical engineer and inventor Peter Cooper Hewitt of New York City received a serios of eight patents (Nos. 682,692-99). Also these lights had a peculiar blue-green color, these were commercially successful because of their improved efficiency over incandescent lamps, and were a precursor to fluorescent lighting. The mercury vapor lamp was often used in tandem with an incandescent lamp, providing a more acceptable color.

In 1902 Hewitt developed the mercury arc rectifier, the first rectifier that could convert alternating current power to direct current without mechanical action. He also worked on an early hydoifoil, and on a automatic airplane.

When Cooper Hewitt died in 1921 at the age of 60, he left 1/3 of his $4 million estate to his wife Maryon and 2/3 to his daughter Ann, with the proviso that should Ann die childless, her share would revert to her mother, inadvertently pitting mother against daughter. Shortly before her 21st birthday Ann came down with appendicitis, and Maryon had the doctor sterilize her daughter while removing her appendix, guaranteeing the reversion upon Maryon’s death. After discovering what Maryon had done, she filed the civil suit against her mother for $500,000 in January 1936, alleging that Maryon Cooper Hewitt paid the doctors to remove her fallopian tubes without her knowledge or consent. Soon after, the San Francisco district attorney charged Maryon and both doctors with “mayhem,” a rare charge that was “reserved for cases involving the act of disabling or disfiguring an individual . . . punishable by up to 14 years in prison.”

A lengthy, scandalous trial resulted in the charges being dropped against the doctors and Maryon, and Ann accepting a settlement of $150,000. Maryon died at 55 following a stroke a few years later in April 1939. Ann wound up marrying five times, before dying of cancer in February 1956 at age 40.

On September 15, 1885 U.S. Patent No. 326,281 issued to Constantin Fahlberg on an improved composition of the artificial sweetener saccharine.

A few months earlier, on June 2, 1885, he received U.S. Patent No. 319,082 on saccharine itself:

Saccharine is still widely used today as an artificial sweetener (the sweetener in Sweet ‘n’ Low). Fahlberg allegedly noticed a sweet taste on his hands after work, and connected this with the compound benzoic sulfimide on which he had been working earlier that day. Oddly, two other other artificial sweeteners were discovered the same way — tasting the same way. Cyclamate was discovered in 1937 at the University of Illinois by graduate student Michael Sveda, who was working on an antipyretic drug. He noticed that his cigarette, which he had put down on the lab bench, had a sweet taste when he put it back in his mouth. Aspartame was discovered in 1965 by James M. Schlatter at the G.D. Searle company. He was working on an anti-ulcer drug and accidentally spilled some aspartame on his hand, and noticed it had a sweet taste when he licked his finger. A third artificial sweetener, Sucralose (the sweetener in Splenda) was discovered by accident in 1976 by Shashikant Phadnis at Queen Elizabeth College (now part of King’s College London), who was told to “test” a chlorinated sugar compound, but allegedly though he was asked to “taste” it, thereby discovering its exceptional sweetness.

We should all be grateful for their sloppy laboratory procedures, and they should be glad the didn’t accidently discover a new poison.

On September 14, 1886, G,K, Anderson received U.S. Patent No. 349,026 on an Inking Ribbon For Type Writing Machines:

The typewritter ribbon, once ubiquitous in office environs, was long ago replaced by toner cartridges. However, before the age of popup windows and blinking lights, typists needed a warning that they were coming to the end of their ribbon. George Anderson provided that warning by coloring the ends of the ribbons differently, so the typist would notice the change in color and change the direction of the ribbon or replace it.

On September 13, 1870, U.S. Patent No. 107,304 title “Wrench” issued to Daniel C. Stillson (1826-1899), a mechanic at the Walworth Company, in Cambridge, Massachusetts:

This was improvement to the original pipe wrench that Stillson patented on October 12, 1869, (U.S. Patent No. 95,744):

In some places pipe wrenches are still called “Stillsons.”

Stillson’s pipe wrench is often confused with a monkey wrench, but (1) a pipe wrench usually has serrated or toothed jaws; (2) the upper jaw moves on a pipe wrench, while it is the lower jaw that moves on a monkey wrench; (3) the handle of a monkey wrench is usually round and made of wood; and (4) while monkey wrenches are more versatile, pipe wrenches (because of the serrated jas, grip pipes better.