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Read Flip! How the Frisbee Took Flight on Epic

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Read Flip! How the Frisbee Took Flight on Epic

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Frisbee - The Strong National Museum of Play

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Inducted Year: 1998 The Frisbee story starts in college. Late 19th-century students at Yale and other New England universities played catch with pie plates (some say it was cookie tin lids) made by the nearby Frisbie Baking Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut. They yelled “Frisbie!” to warn passers…

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History of Can Openers: The First US Can Opener | Feed Your Mind by Kitchen Mama

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With James Watt's groundbreaking invention of an efficient steam engine came a handful of follow up inventions that drastically changed the American life. The first of these was the steamboat. Steamboats use a steam engine to actively propel the boat instead of passively relying on the wind or current to carry the boat. The American John Finch was the first to make a steamboat voyage in 1787, and American Robert Fulton improved the steamboat and made established it as an effective means of commercial shipping in inland America. The steamboats used a steam engine to either directly turn a paddle wheel partially submerged in the water or to rotate an underwater propeller (Bellis "Steamboat").
Steamboats gave merchants the ability to ship goods both up and down rivers. This greatly reduced the costs and time required to move goods, allowing port cities to flourish more than ever. In addition to revolutionizing the internal waterways, the steamboat cut the transatlantic travel time from roughly 2 months to a little over 2 weeks ("On the Water").

Sources
Bellis, M. The History of Steamboats. About.com Inventors. Retrieved April 11, 2014, from http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blsteamship.htm

On the Water. - Maritime Nation, 1800-1850: Enterprise on the Water. Retrieved April 11, 2014, from http://amhistory.si.edu/onthewater/exhibition/2_3.html

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With James Watt's groundbreaking invention of an efficient steam engine came a handful of follow up inventions that drastically changed the American life. The first of these was the steamboat. Steamboats use a steam engine to actively propel the boat instead of passively relying on the wind or current to carry the boat.

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Read The Invention of the Cotton Gin on Epic

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Read The Invention of the Cotton Gin on Epic

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Who Was Eli Whitney?

Eli Whitney studied at Yale before going on to invent the cotton gin, a device that highly streamlined the process of extracting fiber from cotton seeds. With the patent for his device being widely pirated, Whitney struggled to earn any recompense for his invention. He later went on to pioneer "interchangeable parts" systems of production.

Early Life

Eli Whitney was born on December 8, 1765, in Westboro, Massachusetts. He grew up on a farm, yet had an affinity for machine work and technology. As a youth during the Revolutionary War, he became an expert at making nails from a device of his own invention. He later crafted canes and ladies' hatpins, recognizing opportunity when it arose.

Creating the Cotton Gin

In 1789, Whitney started to attend Yale College and graduated in 1792, with some deliberation about becoming a lawyer. Upon graduation, Whitney was hired to be a tutor in South Carolina. On his way to his new position via boat, he met Catherine Greene, the widow of a Revolutionary War general. Once Whitney found out that his agreed-upon tutoring salary was to be halved, he refused the job and instead accepted Greene's offer to read law at her Mulberry Grove plantation. There he met Phineas Miller, another Yale alum, who was Greene's fiancé and manager of her estate.

Greene soon learned of the lack of a money crop in the immediate area, with the market for tobacco declining. Though green-seed cotton was widely available, it took hours of manual labor to properly clean the seed and extract the fiber. With Greene's support, Whitney worked through the winter to devise a machine that was able to quickly and efficiently clean the cotton using a system of hooks, wires and a rotating brush.

When Whitney demonstrated his new cotton gin ("gin" being short for engine) to some colleagues-with the device producing more cotton in an hour than what could be produced by multiple workers in a day-the reaction was immediate. Local planters took to the widespread planting of green-seed cotton, immediately straining existing modes of production.

Pirated Patent and Slavery

Whitney and Miller patented the gin in 1794, with the aim of producing and installing gins throughout the South and charging farmers two-fifths of resulting profits. Their device was widely pirated, however, with farmers creating their own version of the gin. Whitney spent years in legal battles and by the turn of the century agreed to license gins at an affordable rate. Southern planters were ultimately able to reap huge financial windfalls from the invention while Whitney made almost no net profit, even after he was able to receive monetary settlements from various states.

By the mid-1800s, Southern cotton production had risen by a stratospheric amount from the previous century, with more than a million bales of cotton being produced by 1840. With people needed to harvest the crop, greed fueled an industry-stifling and dehumanizing slaveholding culture, with around a third of the U.S. Southern population enslaved by 1860.

Interchangeable Parts

During his difficulties in receiving compensation for the cotton gin, Whitney's next big venture would involve the production of arms and champion the interchangeable-parts system. With a potential war with France on the horizon, the government looked to private contractors to supply firearms. Whitney promised to manufacture 10,000 rifles within a two-year period of time, and the government accepted his bid in 1798.

At the time, muskets were generally assembled in their entirety by individual craftsmen, with each weapon having its own distinct design. Setting up base in Connecticut, Whitney devised milling machines that would allow laborers to slice metal by a pattern and produce one particular, specific part of a weapon. When put together, each part, though made separately, became a working model.

Whitney still faced many challenges with this new system. After the first few years of production, he was able to produce only a fraction of the promised order. It took 10 years for him to complete the manufacture of 10,000 arms. Yet even with the delay, Whitney soon received another order for 15,000 muskets, which he was able to supply in two years.

There is record of other inventors having come up with the idea of interchangeable parts, and there is some skepticism on how truly interchangeable each musket piece was that came from the initial Whitney millers. Nonetheless, Whitney is credited with pushing Congress to support weapons production and helping to propagate a manufacturing system that's influenced modern assembly lines. His pursuits have often led him to be called "the father of American technology."

Whitney also constructed a group of worker residences that would come to be known as Whitneyville, Connecticut. He instituted a series of ethical guidelines meant to promote harmonious employee-employer relations, with roots in Puritanical beliefs. The guidelines he presented would later be ignored as industrialization took on a harsher regard for worker well-being.

Personal Life and Death

In 1817, Whitney wed Henrietta Edwards. The couple would have several children, with Eli Whitney Jr. continuing to work in his father's manufacturing business as an adult. The elder Whitney died on January 8, 1825, in New Haven, Connecticut.

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Eli Whitney studied at Yale before going on to invent the cotton gin, a device that highly streamlined the process of extracting fiber from cotton seeds. With the patent for his device being widely pirated, Whitney struggled to earn any recompense for his invention. He later went on to pioneer "interchangeable parts" systems of production.

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Lollipops are a tasty treat enjoyed by both children and adults alike. They have been a long-time favorite for many people, but the history of lollipops dates back to ancient history. They come in all shapes, sizes and delicious flavors and have been around for thousands of years to satisfy the world's sweet tooth.

First Appearance

Lollipops first appeared a few thousand years ago, when cave people collected honey from beehives with a stick. In an effort to avoid wasting the honey, they most likely licked the stick, thus creating the world's first lollipop.

Archeological findings confirmed that ancient Chinese, Arab and Egyptian people produced fruit and nut confections they candied in honey . Honey acts as a natural preservative, a stick was added to make this combination easier to eat.

Lollipops in Production

As time went on, limited amounts of honey and very low sugar production almost destroyed this tradition until the 17th century, when sugar became more plentiful. Street vendors in London around this time sold manually made "lolly pops" in large quantities. From a linguistics standpoint, "lolly" meant "tongue" and "pop" meant "slap," meaning that the lollipops we know and love are essentially "tongue slaps."

Old English lollipops and the lollipops of today differed in that the old lollipop recipe required the candy to be soft rather than hard. As the candy evolved, the formula changed and by the start of the 20th century, modern lollipops had begun to come into their own. Of the candy makers who saw the potential of lollipops and planned to monetize the candy, George Smith was perhaps one of the most famous American candy makers. Smith created the first modern version of the lollipop in 1908. Smith named his candy Lolly Pop after his favorite racehorse with the same name.

Rise in Popularity

After Smith secured the patent on his candy and the name in 1931, production exploded. Companies like the McAviney Candy Co. and Racine Confectionary Machine Co. introduced machines that put these hard candies on the ends of sticks at astonishing rates - as many as 2,400 sticks per hour. Modern machines put these to shame, but for the time, the product levels were amazing.

Children and adults alike continue to enjoy lollipops today, as the candy remains extremely popular among people of all ages. As a candy that has already existed for thousands of years, you can bet this sweet treat isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

At CIMA Confections, we have an array of delicious lollipops available in 30 mouth watering flavors . From sour to sweet to spicy, there are lollipops for everyone. Check out our full line of products and order some for yourself today!

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Lollipops are a tasty treat enjoyed by both children and adults alike. They have been a long-time favorite for many people, but the history of lollipops dates back to ancient history. They come in all shapes, sizes and delicious flavors and have been around for thousands of years to satisfy the world's sweet tooth.

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https://todayincthistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/TICTH-0221-2022-WEB-1st-Telephone-Directory-Published.mp3

Thanks to Connecticut inventor and innovator George Coy, the city of New Haven can lay claim to a number of "firsts" related to the early development of the telephone. Within two years after Alexander Graham Bell first patented the revolutionary communication device, Coy and his company had implemented a number of innovations - like the switchboard and the telephone directory - which would define the way the entire world came to use the telephone.

In January 1878, Coy launched the world's first commercial telephone exchange from his New Haven company headquarters, which gave telephone users access to multiple recipients via a central switchboard. Before Coy's exchange went into operation, any two parties who wished to converse via telephone had to have their phones directly connected to each other. Since connecting any one telephone to multiple households and businesses directly was an expensive and cumbersome operation, telephones were both costly and impractical for most people. Their early use was limited to prosperous businesses and the private homes of the technologically curious and wealthy. But Coy's switchboard would, in relatively short order, change that. By using Coy's exchange, callers only needed one line installed between their phone and the New Haven District Telephone Company's central office, because from there, an operator could transfer their call to any other party on Coy's phone exchange.

A replica of the world's first telephone directory, published on Feb. 21 1878 by the New Haven District Telephone Company.

The New Haven District Telephone Company (NHDTC) ran its business model as a subscription service; subscribers paid $1.50 a month to have easy and instant access to the phone lines of every other subscriber. On February 21, 1878, less than a month after their groundbreaking telephone exchange was launched, the NHDTC issued the world's first telephone directory: a one-page sheet listing all 50 of its subscribers. The subscribers included only nine residential phone owners, the early adopters among the city's wealthy elite. Three physicians were listed, and two dentists, all undoubtedly hoping to reach clientele who could afford one of the new communications devices. Only one subscriber had multiple listings: the New Haven Flour Co., with phones listed at each of its four city locations . The police and post offices were both reachable by phone , as were four meat and fish markets. As the automobile had not yet been invented, their were also two hack and boarding stables among the subscribers.

To modern eyes, the most curious feature of this, the world's first telephone directory, is its complete lack of any telephone or identification numbers. Since every call was connected manually by a central switchboard operator and the subscriber list was small, no such numbers were necessary.

Within nine months, though, the number of NHDTC subscribers increased nearly eightfold, and the company published a telephone book. The book, a 40 page pamphlet, contained the names of the company's 391 subscribers as well as a step-by-step primer on how to properly operate a telephone receiver, since the technology was still novel and unfamiliar to most users. In 2008, one of the only known surviving copies of this telephone book sold at auction for over $170,000 - a testament to the lasting impact George Coy and his New Haven telephone company had on the way the modern world connects and communicates, today in Connecticut history..

Further Reading

Kat Eschner, " The First Telephone Book Had Fifty Listings and No Numbers," Smithsonian Magazine

Laura Smith, " The World's First Telephone Directory, " UConn Archives

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February 21: The World's First Telephone Directory Had Only 50 Names

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Thanks to Connecticut inventor and innovator George Coy, the city of New Haven can lay claim to a number of "firsts" related to the early development of the telephone. Within two years after Alexander Graham Bell first patented the revolutionary communication device, Coy and his company had implemented a number of innovations -- like...

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Epic reaches 75 million kids in class and after school.

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Epic reaches 75 million kids in class and after school. Built on a collection of 40,000+ popular, high-quality books from 250+ of the world's best publishers, Epic safely fuels curiosity and reading confidence for kids 12 and under. Get Started

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Read National Geographic Readers: Alexander Graham Bell on Epic

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Epic reaches 75 million kids in class and after school.

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Read National Geographic Readers: Alexander Graham Bell on Epic

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Epic reaches 75 million kids in class and after school. Built on a collection of 40,000+ popular, high-quality books from 250+ of the world's best publishers, Epic safely fuels curiosity and reading confidence for kids 12 and under. Get Started

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Read Who Invented the Telephone?: Bell vs. Meucci on Epic

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Epic reaches 75 million kids in class and after school.

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Read Who Invented the Telephone?: Bell vs. Meucci on Epic

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Epic reaches 75 million kids in class and after school. Built on a collection of 40,000+ popular, high-quality books from 250+ of the world's best publishers, Epic safely fuels curiosity and reading confidence for kids 12 and under. Get Started

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Epic reaches 75 million kids in class and after school.

Built on a collection of 40,000+ popular, high-quality books from 250+ of the world's best publishers, Epic safely fuels curiosity and reading confidence for kids 12 and under.

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Epic reaches 75 million kids in class and after school. Built on a collection of 40,000+ popular, high-quality books from 250+ of the world's best publishers, Epic safely fuels curiosity and reading confidence for kids 12 and under. Get Started

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Before the Industrial Revolution, there was a time lag in almost everything that took place in the United States. It took weeks and sometimes months just to send a letter or pass information. It took...

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Silly Putty was invented by accident. During World War II, engineer James Wright was working for the U.S. War Production Board, trying to create an inexpensive substitute for synthetic rubber at a General Electric lab in Connecticut. When he dropped boric acid into silicone oil, he got a substance that was stretchier and bouncier than rubber, with a weird added feature: When you flattened it against a newspaper or comic-book page, it picked up a perfect copy of the print it touched.

Cool though that was, Wright's discovery turned out to be no better than the synthetic rubber that already existed. The government didn't want his "nutty putty," but a few years later, businessman Peter Hodgson noticed what a hit the stuff was at a party. He renamed it "Silly Putty" and marketed it as a toy, packaging it in colorful plastic eggs because he put it out around Easter time.

Silly Putty become one of the 20th century's most popular toys ... and then people started coming up with practical uses for it, like picking up dirt and lint, and sticking it to a wobbly leg to make a table more stable. Astronauts on the Apollo 8 moon mission even used the goo to keep their tools secure in zero gravity!

Although Silly Putty is very stretchy, it also breaks cleanly and, strangely enough, even shatters if hit with enough force. In 1989, a graduate student at Alfred University in New York state dropped a 100-pound ball of Silly Putty from the roof of a campus building to see what would happen: Would it bounce, break, or just turn into a giant pancake? The massive ball dropped, bounced about eight feet into the air, and then shattered when it hit the ground the second time!

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Weird Science: The Accidental Invention of Silly Putty - Kids Discover

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Silly Putty was invented by accident. During World War II, engineer James Wright was working for the U.S. War Production Board, trying to create an inexpensive substitute for synthetic rubber at a General Electric lab in Connecticut.

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The Polaroid Camera: Where did it come from? | Stuff of Genius

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When Edwin Land's daughter asked why she couldn't see a photograph immediately after it was taken, inspiration struck. Learn how this prolific inventor polarized light and made every camera user an amateur film developer in this episode. Stuff of Genius tells the story behind everyday inventions.

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Small, light, portable, cheap, exchangeable type ... the Blickensderfer 5 that comes onto the market in 1893 is light years ahead. This is apparent the moment it is put next to a cumbersome, conventional machine of its day. The Blick is certainly being awarded the 'Golden Palm' for the first portable typewriter.

Portable

Travelling salesmen and small and medium-sized enterprises, all greet Blicks curious typewriter with open arms. It has a huge breakthrough in 1896. Its secret? It replaces all the separate type bars that a Remington has, with one central wheel. Much cheaper with less parts that can break down. The evidence? Countless machines that, like mine, excellently endure the ravages of time.

International

At least a hundred exchangeable types, with characters for foreign languages such as Greek, ensure international success. Moreover, the typists can see what they are typing - something that is still impossible on the conventional machines such as the Remington, Smith Premier or Yost. The letters on the type wheel are inked by ink cushions. The result? Sharper results than with a ribbon. The disadvantage? Having to ink the cushions often.

Self-willed keyboard

Blickensderfer is also stubborn in other areas. His machines are all given their own keyboards that bring the most often occurring letters closest to the typist. The lower row reads as 'DHIATENSOR'. With his 'scientific keyboard' Blick turns up his nose at the 'universal' QUERTY keyboard.

Yet later, he has to give in to QUERTY users who do not want to switch. Blick delicately asks them to sign a form. In this they state that they "have been warned that the universal keyboard is less efficient ..."

Aluminum chassis

Blickensderfer keeps on improving his machine for decades and reduces its weight with the aluminum versions. This is the material with which a competitor builds the first portable machine with type bars in 1906: the Standard Folding. This makes it very difficult for the Blick.

Tied up in knots

Blickensderfer dies in 1917, after which the management in no time get tied up in knots. Because, however brilliant, the Blick has one great disadvantage: it is not equal to machines with type bars as regards speed. The inconceivable happens: the Blick company neglects the brainchild of its own inventor and invests in the rival: a machine with type bars.

Ten years later, Remington buys the production line of the defunct Blick and produces a clone of the Blick 5: the Rem-Blick. Read on>

The Blick 5 (right) and its thirty years younger brother, the Rem-Blick, at last reconciled:

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Small, light, portable, cheap, exchangeable type ... the Blickensderfer 5 that comes onto the market in 1893 is light years ahead. This is apparent the moment it is put next to a cumbersome, conventional machine of its day. The Blick is certainly being awarded the 'Golden Palm' for the first portable typewriter.

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History of Typewriters | The Henry Ford's Innovation Nation

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Windham Textile and History Museum - The Mill Museum

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The patenting of the sewing machine by Massachusetts native and Connecticut transplant Elias Howe in 1846 touched off a technological, industrial, and social revolution in the United States. By making possible the manufacture of inexpensive clothing, it greatly sped up the pace of American industrialization (which had begun only a few decades earlier with the inventions of the , , , and cotton gin) and led to the building of newer, larger, and more modern textile mills, such as the Willimantic Linen Company's great granite Mill Number Two and modern brick Mill Number Four. By changing the way that clothing was manufactured, it spelled the end of cottage industry and the old putting out system and ushered in the age of the sweatshop. By appealing to middle class homemakers, it facilitated the Cult of Domesticity and provided middle class women with the opportunity to prove that they could master complex machinery. Widely available a half century before typewriters or automobiles, more than any other machine the sewing machine came to symbolize American women's work in the modern machine age. This article is intended to accompany the Windham Textile and History Museum's sewing machine collection, which focuses on sewing machines manufactured in the state of Connecticut.

People have been sewing for a long time. They began using bone needles with eyes to stitch animal skins together at least 2,000 years ago, during the last Ice Age; started making needles from iron about 4,000 years ago, at the very beginning of the Iron Age; and first used thimbles in China about 2,000 years ago, during the Han dynasty. But the sewing machine itself is a fairly recent invention, less than 200 years old. For thousands of years, people - mostly women - were forced to sew slowly and laboriously by hand. (Below: Ancient sewing needles, from the Heraklion Museum. Public domain, Wikipedia Commons.)

The first attempts to make sewing machines failed, largely because inventors (all of whom were men) tried to make machines that could mimic the motions of hand sewers. Early attempts at sewing machines used only strand of thread and needles with eyes on the blunt ends, which were pushed completely through the cloth, grasped by a pincer or clamp on the other side, and then pushed back through again. Such motions proved too complex for 18th- and early-19th-century technology.

Barthelemy Timmonnier. The breakthrough finally came in 1830, when a French embroiderer, Barthelemy Thimonnier (1793-1859), invented an embroidery machine that employed a modified traditional hooked embroidery needle with the hook near the point to sew a basic chain stitch. Although the stitches made by Thimonnier's machine were too weak to produce strong seams for sewing garments, it was nevertheless the first step towards what would be one of the key components of the working sewing machine: a needle with its eye in the pointed end. (Below: Bartelemy Thimonnier French postage stamp; embroidery hooks.)

Four years later, in 1834, Walter Hunt, an eccentric New York City mechanic who also invented the safety pin, designed a crude sewing machine that employed not one but two strands of thread - an upper strand carried by a curved needle with its eye in the pointed end and a lower strand delivered by a shuttle - to make a chain stitch. The cloth was held vertically by clamps. The needle pushed the thread through one side, but unlike earlier attempts at making sewing machines, the needle did not go all the way through the cloth; instead, it formed a gap on the far side between the curved needle and the straight thread, through which a shuttle pushed a second thread. The needle then withdrew, pulling the loop tight. These were crucial breakthroughs, but Hunt's sewing machine did not work well. The vertical design was clunky. There was no automatic feed and no presser foot. Hunt set it aside to tinker with later, and never bothered to patent it.

Like Hunt, Elias Howe was a mechanic and tinkerer with little in the way of a formal education. Howe's father was a farmer in Massachusetts, but had relatives in business who would later invest in Elias's invention. Traditional New England was in decline in the early 1800s, and life on a hardscrabble Massachusetts farm would have been difficult. A sickly child, Elias had little energy and walked with a cane. His father apprenticed him to a textile factory , but the work was exhausting and he gave the job up. At the age of 18, Howe left home (it was during the Panic of 1837) and moved to Cambridge, MA to seek his fortune and easier work. (Below: Statue of Elias Howe in Bridgeport, CT.)

Alas, Howe did not find life in Cambridge any easier. He apprenticed as a mechanic with his cousin, Nathaniel Banks. But the work was predictably exhausting, and so the next year (1838), Howe moved on to apprentice to Ari Davis, a master mechanic who specialized in making chronometers and other precision instruments.

It was while working for Davis that Howe first heard about sewing machines. Boston-area mechanics were all talking about how to create such a machine, and there was a general belief that whoever could build a functioning sewing machine would make his fortune. (It is not surprising that Boston and New York were the epicenters for American attempts to invent a working sewing machine. Both cities were firmly connected to the wider Atlantic economy and community, and word of European attempts to invent sewing machines would have circulated in both cities. It is also not surprising that much of the later activity in this article took place in Connecticut, which was located "between New York and Boston.") (Below: Elias Howe U. S. Postage Stamp.)

Howe worked for Davis and other mechanics sporadically, while also working in his spare time on trying to invent a sewing machine. He became more focused in 1841 when (age 22) he married and began to father children (he would have three).

In 1846 (age 27) Howe patented a sewing machine. It featured a lockstitch (an improvement over Hunt's chainstitch), a needle with the eye in the point (the needle, like Hunt's, was curved, not straight), a horizontal alignment with a shuttle beneath the cloth (an improvement over Hunt's vertical arrangement), and an automatic feed. These were all important improvements. The problem, though, was that Howe's machine was clunky didn't work any better than Hunt's. It jammed, the needle got caught, and it required almost constant fiddling. It was also heavy and clumsy. Howe sought to market it as an industrial machine, and sell it to tailors and factories, which could afford to hire mechanics to constantly adjust and tinker with the machine to keep it (semi) working. Most tailors, though, thought it was too expensive and not worth the trouble: they could hire hand sewers cheaper. (Below: Elias Howe's patent model. Public domain. Smithsonian Institution.)

Without a ready market for his finicky sewing machine, Howe and his older brother Amasa went to England to seek financing. Neither succeeded. Elias returned to the United States in 1849, settling in Connecticut. His wife (who had worked to support him) died the next year. Things were dire.

Thus, as of 1850 Howe had a patent for a sewing machine that did not really work and which nobody wanted. He had no money and was still sickly. Even worse, other mechanics were starting to make sewing machines, some of which worked better than his. (Below: Detail from Howe sewing machine, 1872, Windham Textile and History Museum.)

One of those mechanics was Isaac Singer. Born in 1811 in Pittstown, NY, Singer was (like Hunt and Howe) a mechanic, although with even less training. (He was also an actor, but not a good one.) Singer was also aggressive, loud mouthed, a bully, a serial liar, and completely self-absorbed - in short, he was a sociopath. During his lifetime Singer had several wives and mistresses (and most of his marriages were illegal, as he neglected to get divorces from his earlier wives), and fathered at least 24 children.

Singer left home early. Finding his way to Ohio, he worked for a while with a company that was building a canal. He invented and patented a rock drill, and sold the rights to his employer for $2,000 ($46,000 in today's money). He then blew it all creating an acting troupe, with himself as the lead actor. While doing this, he abandoned his first wife and took up with his second.

The acting troupe failed. At age 38, Singer moved with his second wife and their eight children to New York, where he rented a shop and set to work trying to invent a wood-block cutting machine for use in printing. When the boiler blew up and demolished the building, he slipped out of town and went to Boston, to try his luck there. It was in Boston that Singer heard about attempts to invent a sewing machine.

Singer repeatedly formed relationships with men and women whom he could bully. In Boston, he teamed up with a well meaning but weak-willed mechanic, Orson Phelps, who owned his own shop. He bullied Phelps into doing much of the work. (Below: Isaac Singer's patent model for a sewing machine, 1851. Public domain. Smithsonian Institution.)

Singer's sewing machine was only a bit better than Howe's. Like Howe, he conceived of it as an industrial machine. Singer was good at designing big, powerful, clunky machines, but not at making delicate precision instruments like sewing machines. The machine he patented in 1851 was heavy, clumsy, and incapable of doing delicate work. But it did include some crucial improvements over Howe's design. Singer made the shuttle move in a straight line, rather than a circle. And his needles were straight, not curved.

Lacking financing, Singer teamed up with banker Edward Cabot Clark - who turned out to be the one person that Singer was never able to bully. Together, Singer and Clark began manufacturing sewing machines for tailors in a factory in New York. The market turned out to be limited, however - as Howe had already discovered, tailors were not interested in big, noisy, clunky machines that needed constant tinkering. It was cheaper for them to hire hand sewers. Singer and Clark sold only a few machines.

Allen Wilson and Nathaniel Wheeler

By 1850, several mechanics (Hunt, Howe, Singer, and a few others) had developed sewing machines, but none of them worked well. Enter Allen Wilson.

Like Hunt, Howe, and Singer, Wilson was another mechanic with little formal education. And like the others, he was also eccentric: in Wilson's case the oddity was that he was intensely shy, introverted, and lacking in self-esteem. He was also, as it turned out, quite brilliant.

Moving to Massachusetts, Wilson took a job as a mechanic. In his spare time, he began working on trying to invent a sewing machine, although he knew nothing about Hunt, Howe, or Singer. He found a local investor, who soon gave up on him.

At this point, Wilson moved to Connecticut. Here he found luck: a brand new magazine, the New York City-based Scientific American, helped him apply for a patent (something they did for other inventors, too), which he received in 1850. But, alas, Wilson still needed money to begin manufacturing, and he ended up being bilked of by two New York City shysters, who cheated him and stole his patent.

Desperate for work, and with a family to support, Wilson gave up trying to invent a sewing machine and took a job as a mechanic with a Connecticut-based manufacturer, Nathaniel Wheeler, who owned a machine shop in Watertown, CT. Wheeler, too, was unusual: he was both impeccably honest and a shrewd businessman. When Wheeler discovered who his new employee was, he talked Wilson into going back to tinkering with sewing machines. Wilson worked out the last remaining practical problems, patented his improvements, and built something Hunt, Howe, and Singer had not - a sewing machine that actually worked! (Below top: Allen Wilson's patent model for a sewing machine, 1852. Public domain. Smithsonian Institution.) (Below bottom: Advertisement for Wheeler and Wilson Silent Feed Lock-Stitch Sewing Machines, n.d., Windham Textile and History Museum.)

The two men founded Wheeler and Wilson, a partnership, in 1852 in Watertown, CT. Wheeler supplied the capital, Wilson the engineering know how and his patents for the rotary hook (1851) and the four motion feed (1854). In 1856 the company moved to Bridgeport. By the 1870s it was one of the world's largest manufacturers of sewing machines, second only to Singer. The Singer Company bought it out in 1908, long after all the original principals had passed away. (Below: Wheeler and Wilson sewing machine, 1875, Windham Textile and History Museum.)

In 1873 The Christian Weekly published a tour of the Wheeler and Wilson Sewing Machine Company's factory in Bridgeport, CT. The article contained several sketches of workers forging metal parts for the company's machines. According to the article:

"The works of this manufactory ... cover in round numbers seven acres of ground. Their business employs in its various connections as mechanics, salesmen, and agents, from six to seven thousand men and women. If we estimate, as is usually done, four persons to each family represented, we have a population of nearly ... thirty thousand, a good-sized inland city ... supported by this industry. There is a post office in the establishment, and a very pleasant sight it was to see the men at noon gathering here for their letters and papers." (Below: Wheeler and Wilson instruction manual, c. 1872, Windham Textile and History Museum.)

So, by the mid-1850s, several different manufacturers were (with varying amounts of success) making and selling sewing machines. Most of them had patents of some sort. Howe was almost completely a failure at actually making and selling sewing machines, but he had the oldest and best patent. So, with his brother Amasa's help, in 1849 he sued the other companies for patent infringement. His case looked cut-and-dried.

Then Singer's partner, Edward Clark, found out about Hunt's prior, non-patented invention. Seeking out Hunt, Clark persuaded him to sue Howe, claiming that Howe had stolen the idea from him (and he may have been right, as there is some evidence that Amasa Howe had once visited Hunt in New York). In the end, however, Howe won on a 19th-century technicality: as a "free thinker," Hunt could not in good faith take the required religious oath that his testimony was "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help him God," and so his case was thrown out by the courts. Howe won. (Below: Wilcox and Gibbs sewing machine, c. 1895, Windham Textile and History Museum.)

The Sewing Machine Combine

Thus, in 1854 Howe had won. But really, all he won was the right to order the other manufacturers to cease and desist. He still couldn't make a sewing machine that actually worked.

So in 1856 Orlando Potter, the President of the Grover and Baker Company, called a meeting in New York of all the main sewing machine manufacturers and would-be manufacturers. Baker suggested forming a "patent pool," where all of them (including Howe) would pool their various patents. In addition, Howe would be paid a generous annual stipend. All the companies in the pool would all be able to manufacture sewing machines. All would have access to Howe's, Singer's, and Allen Wilson's patents - the latter of which actually allowed sewing machines to function and be marketable. (Below: Detail from a Finkle and Lyon sewing machine, 1871, depicting the company's factory in Middletown, CT, Windham Textile and History Museum. Finkle and Lyon were not part of the patent pool, but paid the combine license fees for the right to to manufacture sewing machines, as did another Connecticut-based company, Weed in Hartford.)

Until Elias Howe's original patent for the sewing machine expired in 1877, production and sales were dominated by the companies that joined with Howe in 1856 to form the Sewing Machine Combination, the first of the massive 'trusts' that dominated American - and global - industry in the Gilded Age: A. B. Howe (owned by Elias's brother, Amasa), Singer, Wheeler & Wilson, and Grover & Baker. Other manufacturers had to pay license fees to the combine. (Below: Finkle and Lyon sewing machine, 1871, Windham Textile and History Museum.)

At $15 per machine the license fees steep enough to discourage competition. Still, 36 different companies produced sewing machines in these years, and sales increased briskly each decade, from about 2,500 machines in 1853, to around 50,000 in 1863, to more than 667,500 in 1873.

In 1877, Howe's original patent expired - as did the Combine. (Below: Detail from Wilcox and Gibbs sewing machine, c. 1875, Windham Textile and History Museum.)

The Howe Sewing Machine Companies

So what happened to Elias Howe?

He got rich off royalties. And he took advantage of the patent pool to form two companies (one owned and operated by his brother Amasa, the other by his sons-in-law the Stockwell brothers) in New York and Bridgeport that manufactured functioning, serviceable home sewing machines.

Howe settled into a life as a philanthropist, which would be how his fellow Bridgeporters would know and remember him. During the Civil War (1861-65), he funded the formation of the 17th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry regiment, joining himself as a private. Too sickly for combat, he did light duty behind the lines. He died two years after the war ended, in 1867, only 48 years old. (Below: Treadle from Howe sewing machine, 1872, Windham Textile and History Museum.)

The Singer Sewing Machine Company

Singer's partner, Edward Clark, quickly bought him out. Now very rich (he continued to collect royalties from the company), Singer retired to a life of luxury and notoriety. When his wife caught him with one of his mistresses, Singer fled to England to avoid the repercussions - where he soon took up with another mistress. Singer died in England in 1875, age 64, worth $13 million, but generally despised by all who knew him. Almost all of the major business innovations that would eventually make the Singer Company the number one manufacturer of home sewing machines were Clark's ideas, not Singer's. (Below: Howe sewing machine, 1872, Windham Textile and History Museum.)

Indeed, under Edward Clark, the Singer Company became the world's largest sewing machine manufacturer, even though most of the important technological advances had been made by Wheeler and Wilson.

Why? There were several reasons. In 1856 the Company began making home sewing machines: at $100 a machine ($2,724 in today's money), these were expensive, though. So the Clark introduced mass production and interchangeable parts, lowering the cost 50%. Eventually, the Company was able to sell a new home sewing machine for $10 ($273 in today's money). The Company also introduced installment plans, marketed aggressively overseas, and marketed directly to women consumers. It also pioneered electric machines and cabinets that doubled as attractive furniture. (Below: Detail from Wilcox and Gibbs electric sewing machine, Windham Textile and History Museum.)

Merrow Sewing Machine Company

Although based today in Wareham, Massachusetts, the , which manufactures industrial sewing and crochet machines, got its start in Mansfield, Connecticut. In 1838 the Merrow family founded the first knitting mill in the United States in the village of Merrow, on the banks of the Willimantic River in northern Mansfield. Two years later, the Merrows added a machine shop to build machinery for their factory. (below: Very early Merrow industrial crochet machine, burned in a fire, c. 1890, Windham Textile and History Museum.)

In 1877 the Merrow Company patented the first crochet machine. To accommodate its steady growth, the company relocated to Hartford, Connecticut, in 1892. It continued to grow. In 1964 it opened a subsidiary, Franklin Industries, in Georgia, and in 1972 acquired the Arrow Tool Company in Wethersfield, Connecticut. The company moved to Newington, Connecticut, in 1982, and to Wareham, Massachusetts, in 2004. (Below, Merrow Machine Company, Mansfield, CT, c. 1880, Windham Textile and History Museum.)

Number of Sewing Machines Licensed by the Sewing Machine Combine under the Howe Patent, 1854-76 (Some Data Missing)

Singer (New York, NY) - 1,875,439

Wheeler & Wilson (Bridgeport, CT) - 1,196,498

Howe (New York, NY) - 754,783

Grover & Baker (Boston, MA) - 358,776

Weed (Hartford, CT) - 231,108

Wilcox & Gibbs (New York, NY) - 195,880

Domestic (Norwalk, OH) - 167,804

American (Philadelphia, PA) - 121,470

Florence (Florence, MA0 - 107,942

Gold Medal (Orange, MA) - 94,463

Wilson (Cleveland, OH) - 92,099

Remington (Ilion, NY) - 76,124

Finkle & Lyon (Boston, MA) - 53,378

Empire (New York, NY) - 34,921

Aetna (location unknown) - 32,895

Davis (Watertown, NY) - 31,805

Blees (Bordentown, NJ) - 14,068

Secor (Bridgeport, CT) - 9,589

Elliptic (New York, NY) - 7,740

Bartram & Fanton (Danbury, CT) - 5,987

Shaw & Clark (Biddeford, ME) - 5,692

Parham (location unknown) - 4,963

Leavitt (Boston, MA) - 3,909

Ladd & Webster (Boston, MA) - 3,252

Keystone (location unknown) - 2,919

Goodspeed & Wyman (Winchendon, MA) - 2,126

Bartlett (New York, NY) - 1,614

Bartholf (New York, NY) - 1,102

McKay (location unknown) - 738

Centennial (Philadelphia, PA) - 514

Folsom (Winchendon, MA) - 280

Thompson (location unknown) - 147

Union (Chicago, IL) - 124

Sewing Machine Manufacturers that Have Been Located in Connecticut, Including Brand Names

Atwater (Berlin, CT) - Atwater

Bartram & Fanton Company (Danbury, CT) - Bartram & Fanton

D. W. Clark (Bridgeport CT) - Cherub, Foliage

Goodbody Company (Bridgeport, CT) - Goodbody Sewing Shears

Greenman & True Manufacturing Company (Norwich, CT) - Greenman & True

Merrow Machine Company (Hartford, CT)

Nettleton & Raymond Company (Bristol, CT) - Hendricks

Parkers, Snow, Brooks & Company (West Meriden, CT) - Landfear

Secor Sewing Machine Company (Bridgeport, CT) - Secor, Fairy

Smith & Egge Company (Bridgeport, CT) - Little Comfort, Reliable

Stockwell Brothers (Bridgeport, CT) - Howe

Victor Sewing Machine Company (Middletown, CT) - Victor

Watson Company (Bristol, CT) - Watson

Weed Sewing Machine Company (Hartford, CT) - Family Favorite, Manufacturer's Favorite, General Favorite, Hartford

Wheeler & Wilson Manufacturing Company (Bridgeport, CT) - No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, No. 4, No. 5, No. 6, No. 7, No. 8, No. 9

The Willimantic Linen Company and the Sewing Machine

The invention and perfection of the sewing machine by Elias Howe, Isaac Singer, and others in the 1840s and 1850s vastly increased the market for smooth, sturdy, and uniform factory-made thread. Hand spun thread was too weak and irregular for the new machines. In 1864 in Willimantic, Connecticut, the Willimantic Linen Company, founded in 1854, erected a massive new granite mill, Mill No. 2, expressly for manufacturing sewing machine thread.(Below, the Willimantic Linen Company mills in c. 1890.)

According to an 1880 article about the Willimantic Linen Company in Scribner's Monthly:
"While hand-sewing, as a matter of convenience and ease, called for an even thread, the introduction of very wide-spread use of the sewing-machine has called for the same qualities as absolutely essential. Sewing-machines now take ninety per cent of the thread that is made, and in order to do their own work these automatic seamstresses must be satisfied or they summarily strike. It was just as sewing-machines began to come into use that the manufacture of Willimantic thread on an extensive scale began, and the whole bent of the business there has been to supply a proper thread for machine use, since any thread that suits a machine suits anywhere.... The best incidental evidence of the success of the Willimantic efforts is found in the fact that at [the 1876 Centennial Exposition] at Philadelphia, where all the sewing-machines of the world came into competition on their own merits, all but two of them used the Willimantic thread."
To make sure that its product was strong enough, the Willimantic Linen Company twisted six strands of spun thread together into a single strand of "six-cord" sewing machine thread. The Company wound the thread onto both wooden spools and paper bobbins, the latter of which were sold primarily to sweatshops for use in industrial-size sewing machines. The Company advertised its thread as "the best thread for sewing machines." By the 1890s, thanks to the heavy demand for thread for sewing machines, the Willimantic Linen Company was a financial success and one of the largest thread mills in the world.

The Rise of the Middle Class and the Cult of Domesticity

The nineteenth century in America saw the emergence of the modern middle class. With it came dramatic changes in family life. Typically, middle-class families owned their own homes, lived in new suburbs, and could get along with only one breadwinner, usually the husband-father. Unlike working-class and agricultural families, where the wife-mother almost always contributed to the family economy by earning wages or laboring on the farm, in middle-class families she usually was a full-time homemaker, primarily responsible for preparing meals, making and mending clothes, cleaning the homes, and caring for the children. (Below: Wilcox and Gibbs electric sewing machine, Windham Textile and History Museum.)

Despite the fact that most middle-class American families actually remained quite patriarchal throughout the 1900s, nineteenth-century Americans created the fiction of the so-called "cult of domesticity," the myth that it was women, not their husbands, who actually controlled the homes, which therefore became extensions of their tastes and wishes. (Below: Detail from Wheeler and Wilson sewing machine, Windham Textile and History Museum.)

When middle-class women acquired and furnished sewing rooms - complete with sewing machines - society generally regarded it as proof that the cult of domesticity actually existed, and that these sewing rooms were manifestations of women's increasing power within the home. However, the new mythology ignored the fact that the decision to buy a new sewing machine was usually made by husbands, who controlled the family bank accounts, and not by their wives. True liberation would not come until later, in the twentieth century. (Below: Wheeler and Wilson sewing machine, 1875, Windham Textile and History Museum.)

(Below: 1950s sewing machine manufactured for G. Fox department store in Hartford, CT.)

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Sewing Revolution: The Machine That Changed AmericaWritten and Researched by Jamie H. Eves, Beverly L. York, Carol Buch, and Michele Palmer IntroductionThe patenting of the sewing machine by Massachusetts native and Connecticut transplant Elias Howe in 1846 touched off a technological, industrial, and social revolution in the United States.

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Invention Of Sewing Machine | History Of Sewing Machine | Educational Videos For Kids

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The Henry Ford's Innovation Nation with Mo Rocca

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The Invention of the Sewing Machine | Innovation Nation

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A can opener (North American and Australian English) or tin opener (British English) is a mechanical device used to open metal tin cans. Although preservation of food using tin cans had been practiced since at least 1772 in the Netherlands, the first can openers were not patented until 1855 in England and 1858 in the United States. These early openers were basically variations of a knife, though the 1855 design continues to be produced.

The can opener consisting of the now familiar sharp rotating cutting wheel that runs round the can's rim to cut open the lid was invented in 1870, but was considered very difficult to operate for the ordinary consumer. A more successful design came out in 1925 when a second, serrated wheel was added to hold the cutting wheel on the rim of the can. This easy-to-use design has become one of the most popular can opener models.

Around the time of World War II, several can openers were developed for military use, such as the American P-38 and P-51. These featured a robust and compact design with a pull cutting blade hinged to a corrugated handle with a pivot. Electric can openers were introduced in the late 1950s and met with success. The development of new can opener types continues with a recent redesign of a side-cutting model.

Food preserved in tin cans was in use by the Dutch Navy from at least 1772. Before 1800, there was already a small industry of canned salmon in the Netherlands. Freshly caught salmon were cleaned, boiled in brine, smoked and placed in tin-plated iron boxes. This canned salmon was known outside the Netherlands, and in 1797 a British company supplied one of their clients with 13 cans. Preservation of food in tin cans was patented by Peter Durand in 1810. The patent was acquired in 1812 by Bryan Donkin, who soon set up the world's first canning factory in London in 1813.

By 1820, canned food was a recognised article in Britain and France and by 1822 in the United States. The first cans were robust containers, which weighed more than the food they contained and required ingenuity to open, using whatever tools available. The instruction on those cans read "Cut round the top near the outer edge with a chisel and hammer." The gap of decades between the invention of the can and can opener may be attributed to the functionality of existing tools versus the cost and effort of a new tool.

Twist key can opener
in use

Also called Tin can key can-opener. During the 1800s, the canning process was mechanised and refined, with can walls becoming thinner. The twist-key can-opener was patented by J. Osterhoudt in 1866. There still was no general-purpose can-opener, thus each can came with a spot-welded or soldered-on twist-key can-opener which snapped off after fatiguing the metal by bending at a thin region. Each food-type had its own can-type, and came with its own can-opener-type. Tinned fish and meat were sold in rectangular cans. These cans were fitted with a twist-key that would roll around the top of the can, peeling back a pre-scored strip. Coffee, beans, and other types of meat were packaged in cylinders with metal strips that could be peeled back with their own kinds of built-in keys that would roll around the top of the can. Cans of milk used puncture devices.

General-purpose can openers first appeared in the 1850s and had a primitive claw-shaped or "lever-type" design. In 1855, Robert Yeates, a cutlery and surgical instrument maker of Trafalgar Place West, Hackney Road, Middlesex, UK, devised the first claw-ended can opener with a hand-operated tool that haggled its way around the top of metal cans.

In 1858, another lever-type opener of a more complex shape was patented in the United States by Ezra Warner of Waterbury, Connecticut, US. It consisted of a sharp sickle, which was pushed into the can and sawed around its edge. A guard kept the sickle from penetrating too far into the can. The opener consisted of several parts which could be replaced if worn out, especially the sickle. This opener was adopted by the United States Army during the American Civil War (1861-1865); however, its unprotected knife-like sickle was too dangerous for domestic use. A home-use opener named the "Bull's head opener" was designed in 1865 and was supplied with cans of pickled beef named " Bully beef". The opener was made of cast iron and had a very similar construction to the Yeates opener, but featured a more artistic shape and was the first move towards improving the look of the can opener. The bull-headed design was produced until the 1930s and was also offered with a fish-head shape.

The first rotating wheel can opener was patented in July 1870 by William Lyman of Meriden, Connecticut, US and produced by the firm Baumgarten in the 1890s. The can was to be pierced in its centre with the sharp metal rod of the opener. Then, the length of the lever had to be adjusted to fit the can size, and the lever fixed with the wingnut. The top of the can was cut by pressing the cutting wheel into the can near the edge and rotating it along the can's rim.

The necessity to pierce the can first was a nuisance, and this can opener design did not survive. In 1920, Edwin Anderson patented a can opener with pivoted handles with which to hold the can in one hand while a key-type handle geared to a cutting wheel is turned with the other cutting the outside of the lip, a side can opener, unlike the gramophone-like orientation of most contemporary can openers, in effect a hand-held pliers version of the Swanson Can-Opener. In 1925, the Star Can Opener Company of San Francisco, California, US had improved Lyman's design by adding a second, serrated wheel, called a "feed wheel", which allowed a firm grip of the can edge. This addition was so efficient that the design is still in use today.

Whereas all previous openers required using one hand or other means to hold the can, can-holding openers simultaneously grip the can and open it. The first such opener was patented in 1931 by the Bunker Clancey Company of Kansas City, Missouri and was, therefore, called the "Bunker". It featured the now standard pliers-type handles, when squeezed would tightly grip the can rim, while turning the key would rotate the cutting wheel, progressively cutting the lid along the rim. The cutting wheel is coupled to a serrated feed wheel as in the Star design and rotated in the opposite direction by interlocking cogwheels reducing friction. The Bunker company was absorbed by the Rival Manufacturing Company, also of Kansas City, in 1938.

A new style of the can opener emerged in the 1980s. Whereas most other openers remove the lid by cutting down through the lid from the top just inside the rim, removing the top and leaving the rim attached to the can, these use a roller and cutting wheel to cut through the outside seam of the can. The can is left with a relatively safe, non-jagged edge, and the top can be set back on top as a cover, although it does not provide a seal. The feed wheel teeth have a somewhat finer pitch than those of earlier designs and reside at the bottom of a V-shaped groove, which surrounds the rim on three sides at the point of action.

Church key initially referred to a simple hand-operated device for prying the cap (called a " crown cork" or "bottle cap") off a glass bottle; this kind of closure was invented in 1892. The first of these church key style openers was patented in Canada in 1900.

The shape and design of some of these early "church key" opener's fulcrum hole resembled a large old key's dual-node keyring hole. In 1935, steel beer cans with flat tops appeared, and a device to pierce the lids was needed. The same opener was used for piercing those cans. Made from a single piece of pressed metal, with a sharp point at one end, it was devised by D. F. Sampson, for the American Can Company, who depicted operating instructions on the cans. The church key opener is still being produced, sometimes as part of another opener. For example, a "butterfly" opener is often a combination of the church key and a serrated-wheel opener. Beer and soda cans began in the mid-1960s to feature pop-tabs, which were rings attached to cans. These tabs eliminated the need for church keys to open the cans.

Several can openers with a simple and robust design have been specifically developed for military use. The P-38 and P-51 are small can openers with a cutter hinged to the main body. They were also known as a " John Wayne" because the actor was shown in a training film opening a can of K-rations. The P-38 can opener is keychain-sized, about 1.5 inches (38 mm) long, and consists of a short metal blade that serves as a handle (and can also be used as a screwdriver), with a small, hinged metal tooth that folds out to pierce the can lid. A notch just under the hinge point keeps the opener hooked around the rim of the can as the device is "walked" around the rim to cut the lid out. A larger version, called P-51, is somewhat easier to operate. P-38 was developed in 1942 and was issued in the canned field rations of the United States Armed Forces from World War II to the 1980s. The P-38 and P-51 are cheaper to manufacture and are smaller and lighter to carry than most other can openers. The device can be easily attached to a keyring or dog tag chain using the small punched hole.

Official military designations for the P-38 include "US Army pocket can opener" and "Opener, can, hand, folding, type I". As with some other military terms (e.g., ), the origin of the term is not known with certainty. The P-38 and P-51 openers share a designation with the Lockheed P-38 Lightning and North American P-51 Mustang fighters, however this is coincidental. The most likely origin of the name is much more pedestrian; the P-38 and P-51 measure 38 mm (1.5 in) and 51 mm (2.0 in) in length respectively.

P-38s are no longer used for individual rations by the United States Armed Forces, as canned C-rations were replaced by soft-pack MREs in the 1980s. They are, however, included with United States military "Tray Rations" (canned bulk meals). They are also still seen in disaster recovery efforts and have been handed out alongside canned food by rescue organizations, both in America and abroad in Afghanistan. The original US-contract P-38 can openers were manufactured by J. W. Speaker Corp. (stamped "US Speaker") and by Washburn Corp. (marked "US Androck"), they were later made by Mallin Hardware (now defunct) of Shelby, Ohio and were variously stamped "US Mallin Shelby O." or "U.S. Shelby Co."

A similar device that incorporates a small spoon at one end and a bottle opener at the other is currently employed by the Australian Defence Force and New Zealand Army in its ration kits. The Field Ration Eating Device is known by the acronym "FRED". It is also known as the "Fucking Ridiculous Eating Device".

Another similar device was included with British Army "Operational Ration Pack, General Purpose" 24-hour ration pack and "Composite Ration Pack" rations. At one time they were manufactured by W. P. Warren Engineering Co., Ltd. The instructions printed on the miniature, greaseproof paper bag in which they were packed read: "Their design is similar, but not identical, to the P-38 and P-51 can openers."

Most military ration can openers have a very simple design and have also been produced for civilian use in many countries. For example, small folding openers similar to the P-38 and P-51 were designed in 1924 and were widely distributed in the Eastern European countries.

In Slovenia a somewhat rounded version of a P-38 is known as " sardine can opener", because in the 1990s such openers were usually packed with cans that did not feature the pull-top pre-scored lid. A non-folding version of the P-38 used to be very common in Israeli kitchens, and can still be found in stores, often sold in packs of five.

A fully automatic can opener by Mark Sanders

The first electric can opener was patented in 1931 and modeled after the rotating wheel can opener design. Those openers were produced in the 1930s and advertised as capable of removing lids from more than 20 cans per minute without risk of injury. Nevertheless, they found little success. Electric openers were re-introduced in 1956 by two American companies. Klassen Enterprises of Centreville brought out a wall-mounted electric model, but this complex design was unpopular too. The same year, Walter Hess Bodle invented a freestanding device, combining an electric can opener and knife sharpener. He and his family members built their prototype in his garage, with daughter Elizabeth sculpting the body design. It was manufactured under the "Udico" brand of the Union Die Casting Co. in Los Angeles, California, US and was offered in Flamingo Pink, Avocado Green, and Aqua Blue, popular colors of the era. These openers were introduced to the market for Christmas sales and found immediate success.

1. ^ "Lifting the lid on the tin can opener" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 26 July 2011.

2. ^ Ridely, Matt (14 September 2012). "Don't Look for Inventions Before Their Time". The Wall Street Journal.

3. ^ "9 Types of Can Openers for Safer, Faster, & Easier Cooking". worstroom.com. WorstRoom Home Design. 18 November 2020.

4. Esther Inglis-Arkell - Nov 27, 2017 1:58 pm UTC (27 November 2017). "Don't lose a finger: The 200-year evolution of the can opener". Ars Technica.

5. ^ Stern, Daniel (27 January 1921). "American Artisan". Keeney Publishing Company - via Google Books.

6. "Star Can Opener Co. v. Bunker-Clancey Mfg. Co., 41 F.2d 142 | Casetext". casetext.com. Archived from the original on 27 January 2020.

7. ^ "Western Canner and Packer". Miller Freeman Publications of California. 27 January 1924 - via Google Books.

8. ^ "Star Can Opener Advertising San Francisco Vintage Kitchen | Etsy". 26 January 2020. Archived from the original on 26 January 2020.

9. ^ "Official Gazette of the United States Patent Office". The United States Patent Office. 27 January 1943 - via Google Books.

10. Mario Theriault (2001) ^ Great Maritime Inventions 1833-1950, Goose Lane, p. 21 ISBN 0-86492-324-4

11. ^ Short History of the Beer Can (part 2) Archived 20 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine. Streeter.org. Retrieved on 20 March 2013.

12. ^ Jonathan Lighter, ed. (1994). Historical Dictionary of American Slang. Vol. 1, A-G. New York: Random House. p. 422. Archived from the original on 4 December 2018.

13. ^ P-38 Engineering Drawing Archived 17 February 2020 at the Wayback Machine. Georgia-outfitters.com. Retrieved on 20 March 2013.

14. ^ Greame Hardiman. "The Malayan Emergency. 2RAR 1956/57". 2RAR. Digger History: an unofficial history of the Australian & New Zealand Armed Forces. I remember the spoon come tin opener that was in later years nicknamed "Fred" (Fucking ridiculous eating device)

15. ^ "Black Berets". Ration Pack. Australian Defence News & Opinion - MilitaryPeople.com.au. 2007. Archived from the original on 11 May 2010.

Media related to Can openers at Wikimedia Commons

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A can opener (North American and Australian English) or tin opener (British English) is a mechanical device used to open metal tin cans. Although preservation of food using tin cans had been practiced since at least 1772 in the Netherlands, the first can openers were not patented until 1855 in England and 1858 in the United States.

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Connecticut History | a CTHumanities Project - Stories about the people, traditions, innovations, and events that make up Connecticut's rich history.

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On January 5, 1858, Waterbury native Ezra J. Warner invented the first US can opener. The idea of storing food in cans dates back almost 50 years earlier when Peter Durand of England patented a can made of wrought iron with a tin lining. To open these cans, which could be as thick as 3/16 of an inch, it was suggested that they be "cut around at the top with a chisel and hammer." Amazingly, it took decades-and Ezra Warner's design-for a practical can opening tool to be made. By that time, the iron cans were just starting to be replaced by thinner steel cans.

Warner designed a pointed blade that, when pressed into the can, was prevented from penetrating too far into the contents by a guard. The guard then swung out of the way and a second curved blade (or sickle) cut around the top of the can with a saw-like action, which, unfortunately, left quite a jagged edge. Though never a big hit with the public, Warner's can opener served the US Army during the Civil War (1861-1865) and found a home in many grocery stores, where clerks would open cans for customers to take home. A plus to Warner's design was that it consisted of several parts which could be replaced if worn out.

The can opener wasn't Warner's first invention. He had received a patent in November of 1850 for a Mode of Fastening Hooks and Eyes upon Cards, a useful holder for a standard Waterbury product.

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The First US Can Opener - Today in History: January 5 - Connecticut History | a CTHumanities Project

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On January 5, 1858, Waterbury native Ezra J. Warner invented the first US can opener. The idea of storing food in cans dates back almost 50 years earlier when Peter Durand of England patented a can made of wrought iron with a tin lining.

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History of Hydro Power | What is Hydro Energy | History of water wheel

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Connecticut History | a CTHumanities Project

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On September 6, 1776, the first functioning submarine, called the Turtle, attacked the HMS Eagle anchored in New York Harbor. Designed by Saybrook native and Yale graduate David Bushnell, the Turtle was a one-man vessel that submerged by admitting water into the hull and surfaced by pumping it out by hand. The oak carved egg-shaped submarine was armed with a torpedo made from a keg of powder that would be attached to an enemy ship's hull and gave Americans a secret weapon against the British-one that could potentially destroy British ships in New York Harbor.

On the night of September 6 and 7, the Turtle, operated by Army volunteer Ezra Lee, made its way through the dark waters of the Harbor and conducted the attack. Problems arose, however, when the boring device operated from inside the submarine failed to penetrate the ship's hull. The torpedo was eventually abandoned and Lee emerged unhurt. The abandoned torpedo detonated about an hour after it was released but did no harm. The Turtle would attack again, only to be discovered. It was subsequently captured by the British, and sunk with the sloop upon which it was being transported.

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The Turtle Submarine - Today in History: September 6 | Connecticut History | a CTHumanities Project

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On September 6, 1776, the first functioning submarine, called the Turtle, attacked the HMS Eagle anchored in New York Harbor. Designed by Saybrook native and Yale graduate David Bushnell, the Turtle was a one-man vessel that submerged by admitting water into the hull and surfaced by pumping it out by hand.

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warhistoryonline.com-Turtle of 1776  The First Submarine Ever Used In War.pdf

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Beneath the Surface of History: The Submarine

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The Invention And Development of Submarines I THE GREAT WAR Special

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Patented in 1957, the lightweight ball saved players’ arms and more than a few windows

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Wiffle Ball: Born and still made in the USA