DC -- Natl Museum of American History -- Exhibit: Invention and the Patent Model:
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Description of Pictures: Invention and the Patent Model
June 20, 2013 – April 20, 2014
Between 1790 and 1880, the U.S. Patent Office required a three-dimensional working model of each submission to demonstrate how the invention worked and to compare it against previously patented inventions. The models reflect technological needs during the 19th century, as well as the social roles and division of labor between men and women. This case highlights 20 models from the museum’s collections, including the model for Samuel Morse's telegraph patent.
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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.
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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
SIAHPA_131214_02.JPG: Sewing machine patent model, 1870
This model, made to accompany William T. Smith's application for a patent (No. 99,743), is beautifully decorated -- far beyond Patent Office requirements.
SIAHPA_131214_12.JPG: Toaster, 1930s
Manufacturers employ industrial designers to make products more enticing. The style of this otherwise commonplace toaster was influenced by the 1925 Exposition of Decorative Arts in Paris.
SIAHPA_131214_16.JPG: Presentation vase, 1893
This silver Tiffany vase features the Transportation Building that architect Louis Sullivan designed for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
SIAHPA_131214_24.JPG: Cannon, 1864
John Ericsson, Swedish American
Ericsson's improvement in the construction of "Ordnance" was one of may inventive achievements, including the design for the battleship USS Monitor during the American Civil War.
SIAHPA_131214_31.JPG: Telegraph, 1846
Samuel FB Morse, Massachusetts
Morse is renowned for his telegraph. This relay, a component of his model for an "Improvement in Electro-Magnetic Telegraphs," enabled the transmittal of a current over long distances. Morse developed the code used with this system.
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2013 photos: Equipment this year: I mostly used my Fuji XS-1 camera but, depending on the event, I also used a Nikon D7000 and Nikon D600.
Trips this year:
three Civil War Trust conferences (Memphis, TN, Jackson, MS [to which I added a week to to visit sites in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Tennessee], and Richmond, VA), and
my 8th consecutive San Diego Comic-Con trip (including sites in Nevada and California).
Ego Strokes: Aviva Kempner used my photo of her as her author photo in Larry Ruttman's "American Jews & America's Game: Voices of a Growing Legacy in Baseball" book.
Number of photos taken this year: just over 570,000.
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