Existing comment:
"Franklin-type" split bifocal spectacles
(probably English), ca 1760
Of the type worn by Benjamin Franklin
Ingenious Dr. Franklin:
When Franklin saw an unmet need, he often created or adapted a device to satisfy it. Visitors to Franklin's house recorded the useful "curiosities" they saw there, such as the chair/stepstool, table/firescreen, "long arm" pole (to reach books), and, as Franklin's friend Manassah Cutler observed, "his great armed chair, with rocker and a large fan placed over it, with which he fans himself... with only a small motion of his foot." Franklin is credited with inventing bifocals, or "double spectacles," as he called them.
"I therefore had formerly two Pair of Spectacles, which I shifted occasionally... I had the Glasses cut, and half of each kind associated in the same Circle... I have only to move my Eyes up or down, as I want to see distinctly far or near."
-- Letter from Benjamin Franklin to George Whatley, 1785 |