I’ve been reading and researching old patents—really old patents—for years. They’ve given me an entry point into the types of history you might expect—technology, corporate, and industrial histories. But, they’ve also introduced me to interesting personal and family histories and fascinating stories of art, war, and crime, among so many other topics.
PATENTEDHISTORY is my effort to share the stories I've discovered along the way.
The '245 patent issued two days after Lee surrendered at Appomattox, virtually ending the Civil War, and on the day Lincoln delivered what would become his final public address. It's directed to a carriage bolt, a fastener that became an important product as the country moved into Reconstruction.
I don’t know much about William Bock or Bock Laundry Machine Company, but I do know that I need to learn more about both. Mr. Bock appears to have worked with Michael Owens in bringing his first fully automated bottle making machine to life. Bock Laundry Machine Company appears to have been quite successful, too, and is known in legal circles for a Supreme Court case from the 1980s relating to impeachment of a civil witness with evidence of prior felony convictions regardless of any unfair prejudice that may result. Mr. Bock’s earliest patents relate to glass-blowing machines. Bock and Owens both have multiple patents from the late 1800s and early 1900s that are assigned to the Toledo Glass Company, but Bock’s name never seems to be mentioned in the popular history of industrial glass-making in Toledo.
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The drawings in this patent for an early aerial photography system are relatively simple, and even seem a bit silly with a camera suspended from a kite string. But looks can be deceiving. Turns out, Mr. Eddy was famous for his photographic and meteorological experiments with kites. In fact, on May 30, 1895, Eddy took the first kite-based photograph in the Americas (seven years after the first ever kite-based photographs, taken by Arthur Batut). Mr. Eddy professionally as an accountant and journalist, but it’s clear his passion was in science and technology…and inventing. Ironically, it’s difficult to find the early Eddy kite photographs online.
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This is the last, I believe, of the Victor Travers hammock patents, ending a period of about fourteen years of hammock-related invention and innovation by Mr. Travers and his company. Perhaps reflective of the ending of that period, this patent is directed at something that is, at best, an incremental improvement on a Travers application filed just over a week before the application underlying this patent. In his 492,852 patent, Mr. Travers describes a spreader that can be folder, and illustrates a spreader having a series of segments attached at pivot points. Here, he shows an alternative arrangement of spreader segments…and attaches a canopy to the spreader. He even reused the main drawing from that earlier patent, although the female figure is reading a different book in the figure in this patent (it actually has a title, where the book in the figure of the earlier patent does not). And the title of that book is one of my favorite historical patent puzzles. What is it? Is it a real book? My best guess at the title is, in Latin, Mars Pre Ut Vivas, which roughly (and perhaps not accurately) translates to “May you live dancing.”
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This patent is directed to a hammock spreader that can be “readily folded for packing and other purposes.” It is notable for its intricate main drawing, which is reminiscent of an image of a woman lounging on a hammock that the Travers Brothers Company used in its corporate letterhead.
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This patent for a holder reflects a bit of a departure from the holder disclosed in U.S. patent no. 240,866, an earlier patent of Mr. Travers. The holder of the earlier patent was actually manufactured (I have one), but I have not seen any evidence that the holder of this application was ever made. Also interesting, this patent shows a bit of patent strategy. Mr. Travers filed two applications on December 12, 1887 - the application underlying this patent and the application underlying U.S. patent No. 381,863, which issued alongside this patent on April 24, 1888. This patent claims the holder that appears to be shown in the other patent, although it is difficult to tell if all details of the holder are included in the other patent. To avoid any prior art effect of the disclosure in that application on claims for the holder in this application, Mr. Travers and his attorney filed both applications on the same day, a strategy (and legal necessity) that is still used today.
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