"the bend of the wire to grip the sheets together. Paper clips usually have an oblong shape with straight sides, but may also be triangular or circular, or have more elaborate shapes. The most common material is steel or some other metal, but moulded plastic is also used. Some other kinds of paper clip use a two-piece clamping system. Recent innovations include multi-colored plastic-coated paper clips and spring-fastened binder clips. According to the Early Office Museum, the first patent for a bent wire paper clip was awarded in the United States to Samuel B. Fay, in 1867. This clip was"
"originally intended primarily for attaching tickets to fabric, although the patent recognized that it could be used to attach papers together. Fay received U.S. patent 64,088 on April 23, 1867. Although functional and practical, Fay's design along with the 50 other designs patented prior to 1899 are not considered reminiscent of the modern paperclip design known today. Another notable paper clip design was also patented in the United States by Erlman J. Wright in 1877. This clip was advertised at that time for use in fastening newspapers. The most common type of wire paper clip still in use, the Gem"
"office environments, technology, and equipment became part of the cultural focus on increasing productivity. This awareness gave rise to chairs designed specifically for these new administrative employees: office chairs. This caught the attention of Otto von Bismarck, who is credited with popularizing the office chair by distributing them throughout parliament during his time in office. American inventor Thomas E. Warren (b. 1808), designed the Centripetal Spring Armchair in 1849 which was produced by the American Chair Company in Troy, New York. It was first presented at the 1851 Great Exhibition in London. The office chair was strategically designed to increase"
"United States Congress abolished the legal requirement for them in 1870, but the U.S. Patent Office (USPTO) kept the requirement until 1880. On July 31, 1790 inventor Samuel Hopkins of Pittsford, Vermont became the first person to be issued a patent in the United States. His patented invention was an improvement in the ""making of Pot Ash by a new apparatus & process."" These earliest patent law required that a working model of each invention be produced in miniature. Some inventors still willingly submitted models at the turn of the twentieth century. In some cases, an inventor may still want"
"office wondering how customers might move more groceries. He found a wooden folding chair and put a basket on the seat and wheels on the legs. Goldman and one of his employees, a mechanic named Fred Young, began tinkering. Their first shopping cart was a metal frame that held two wire baskets. Since they were inspired by the folding chair, Goldman called his carts ""folding basket carriers"". Another mechanic, Arthur Kosted, developed a method to mass-produce the carts by inventing an assembly line capable of forming and welding the wire. The cart was awarded patent number 2,196,914 on April 9,"
"Centripetal Spring Armchair The Centripetal Spring Chair or Armchair was a 19th-century American office chair, and one of the first modern designs for office chairs. Designed in 1849 by the American inventor Thomas E. Warren (b. 1808), the chair was produced by the American Chair Company in Troy, New York. Made of cast iron and varnished steel with wood and velvet upholstery, it measured 107 × 61 × 71 centimeters with headrest and armrests, and had a seat height of 48 centimeters. The chair exhibited all features of today's office chairs except adjustable lumbar support: it allowed tilt movement in"
"Resolute desk The ""Resolute"" desk is a nineteenth-century partners' desk used by several presidents of the United States in the White House Oval Office as the Oval Office desk. It was a gift from Queen Victoria to President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880 and was built from the English oak timbers of the British Arctic exploration ship . Franklin Roosevelt requested the addition of a door with the presidential seal to conceal his leg braces. Many presidents since Hayes, except Johnson, Nixon, and Ford, have used the desk at various locations in the White House. The desk was removed from"
"President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880. Desk A desk or bureau is a piece of furniture with a flat table-style work surface used in a school, office, home or the like for academic, professional or domestic activities such as reading, writing, or using equipment such as a computer. Desks often have one or more drawers, compartments, or pigeonholes to store items such as office supplies and papers. Desks are usually made of wood or metal, although materials such as glass are sometimes seen. Some desks have the form of a table, although usually only one side of a desk is"
"1791, eleven in 1792, and ten in 1793 before February, which is when the following patent act was adopted. There is little available information regarding the subject matter of these patents, because all of these records along with other documents of the Patent Office were destroyed in the Patent Office Fire of 1836. The first patent was granted on July 31, 1790, to Samuel Hopkins for his invention of ""Making Pot and Pearl Ashes."" Potash was used as an ingredient in several fields of manufacturing, such as making glass and soap, dying cloth, and producing both saltpeter and gunpowder. Samuel"
"invented this procedure. The first modern suction cup patents were issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office during the 1860s. TC Roche was awarded U.S. Patent No. 52,748 in 1866 for a ""Photographic Developer Dipping Stick""; the patent discloses a primitive suction cup means for handling photographic plates during developing procedures. In 1868, Orwell Needham patented a more refined suction cup design, U.S. Patent No. 82,629, calling his invention an ""Atmospheric Knob"" purposed for general use as a handle and drawer opening means. Suction cups have a number of commercial and industrial applications: On May 25, 1981, Dan"
"desk so that work can be stopped and the desk closed without having to put away everything, as is the case for the Wooton desk. The ""Moore Office Queen"" was patented in 1878 in Indiana in the United States by the Moore Combination Desk Company. The Office Queen has a modern descendant called the armoire desk. The ""Moore Insurance Desk"" is nearly twice as big as the ""Office Queen"" and combines a standing desk and a normal ""sitting"" desk in a single piece of furniture. It was patented in 1882. Like the ""Office Queen"" it opens up by means of"
"Electric pen Thomas Edison's electric pen, part of a complete outfit for duplicating handwritten documents and drawings, was the first relatively safe electric-motor-driven office appliance produced and sold in the United States. Edison recognized the possible demand for a high speed copying device after observing the incredible amount of document duplication required of merchants, lawyers, insurance companies, and those of similar occupations. To satisfy this demand, Edison invented the electric pen, which uses a perforating function inspired by the printing telegraph. Edison and his associate Charles Batchelor observed that as this device punctured the paper, a mark was left underneath"
"1841, and granted on 17 January 1842). 1849 – Patent for a machine folding envelopes (application filed on 30 August 1848, and granted on 27 October 1849). 1850 – Patent for a machine allowing to simultaneously write and hide what one is writing so as to protect confidentiality (application filed on 9 September 1850, and granted on 2 November 1850). 1853 – Patent for improving envelopes (application filed on 19 July 1853, and granted on 24 August 1853). 1855 – Paris World's Fair: Bronze Medal. In December 1855, ""Le Magasin Pittoresque"" reviewed the Fair, and focused on the inkpot exhibited"
"had been recognized by the U. S. Patent Office. The first was an index-wheel machine, like that patented by Burt on July 23, 1829. The second was the bar-machine first patented by John B. Fairbanks on September 17, 1850. The third was the plate-machine first patented by Oliver T. Eddy on November 12, 1850. The fourth was the key-wheel machine first patented by John Pratt on August 11, 1868. A complete working model of Burt's ""typographer"" was in the model room of the Patent Office from the time of the patent until the great Patent Office fire of December 15,"
"mid-nineteenth century as both the British and American patent records clearly document. Patents do not necessarily mean first use but can only be used to evaluate and estimate trends. 1849, T. E. Warren of the United States Of America received patent 6740 which a complex leaf spring used in seating and was utilized by the American Chair Company for seating on trains. 1850, Alexander Oechslin received an Austrian patent for an “improvement in spiral spring upholstery.” Between 1855 and 1900 hundreds of wire spring patents were issued in Great Britain and the United States for seating and bedding. These British"
"The first patent was issued to James H. Van Houten of Savannah, Georgia on August 1, 1861 for a ""breech-loading gun"". One of the more well-known Confederate patents (at least based on the results) was Patent No. 100, granted to John Mercer Brooke for the design of the Confederate ironclad ship ""Merrimack"", more properly known as the CSS ""Virginia"". Confederate Patent Office The Confederate Patent Office was the agency of the Confederate States of America charged with issuing patents on inventions. The Chief Clerk during its entire existence was Rufus R. Rhodes of Mississippi who resigned his post at the"
"his invention at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and continued to work on these and other various paper fasteners throughout the 1880s. In 1868 an English patent for a stapler was awarded to C. H. Gould, and in the U.S, Albert Kletzker of St. Louis, MO also patented a device. In 1877 Henry R. Heyl filed patent number 195,603 for the first machines to both insert and clinch a staple in one step, and for this reason some consider him the inventor of the modern stapler. In 1876 and 1877 Heyl also filed patents for the Novelty Paper"
"Lloyd Loom The Lloyd Loom process was patented in 1917 by the American Marshall B. Lloyd, who twisted kraft paper around a metal wire, placed the paper threads on a loom and wove them into what was to become the traditional Lloyd Loom fabric. Lloyd Loom chairs quickly became very popular in the United States and in 1921, Marshall B. Lloyd sold the British rights to W (William) Lusty & Sons, who used the Lloyd Loom fabric to create a range of furniture simpler in design than the American originals. At the height of its popularity, in the 1930s, Lusty"
"of New York, he was awarded the institute's Great Medal of Honor for his invention; shortly after, he was also awarded the Elliott Cresson Medal by the Franklin Institute. He refined the technique for various purposes, and in 1877 took out a patent (US patent 252,279) for sharpening files, which he marketed as ""Liquid Grindstone"". Further patents and developments followed. His first company was formed with his brother in Philadelphia—B. C. & R. A. Tilghman—for the production of chilled iron shot for the stone industry. Around 1879, Benjamin moved to London forming a new company, Tilghman's Patent Sand Blast Co."
"""The Francis Typewriter"" (1857), ""The Hansen Machine"" (1865), ""The Livermore Printing Device"" (1863), ""Peeler Writing Machine"" (1866), and ""The Sholes and Glidden Typewriter"" (1867) invented by three men (C. Latham Sholes, Samuel W. Soule, Carlos Glidden). Thomas Edison is even given credit for an electrified version in 1872. The Board of Electors at the National Shorthand Association of Detroit recognized Burt as: The machine was a rectangular wooden box wide, high, and long. It mechanically worked by depressing a rotating lever so that an inked letter made contact with paper. A gauge that was designed in a circular clockwise fashion"
"1871 he joined his father in working for the Union National Bank as an assistant cashier. Upon his father's death in 1874, Loud assumed his position as cashier, and remained in that post until his resignation in 1895 for health reasons. Keenly interested in inventing, on October 30, 1888, Loud obtained the first patent (US #392,046) for a ballpoint pen when attempting to make a writing instrument that would be able to write on leather products, which then-common fountain pens could not. Loud's pen had a small rotating steel ball, held in place by a socket. In the patent, he"
"Box Manufacturing Co. of Philadelphia, PA, However, the N. P. B. Manufacturing Co.'s inventions were to be used to staple boxes and books. The first machine to hold a magazine of many pre-formed staples came out in 1878. On February 18, 1879, George McGill received patent 212,316 for the McGill Single-Stroke Staple Press, the first commercially successful stapler. This device weighed over two and a half pounds and loaded a single 1/2 inch wide wire staple, which it could drive through several sheets of paper. The first published use of the word ""stapler"" to indicate a machine for fastening papers"
"by the U.S. War Department by the Federal Armories during the first half of the 19th century. This technology, along with the establishment of a machine tool industry, enabled the U.S. to have large-scale manufacturing of sewing machines, bicycles and other items in the late 19th century and became known as the American system of manufacturing. Factory electrification in the early 20th century and introduction of the assembly line and other labor-saving techniques created the system called mass production. In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first U.S. patent for the telephone. Thomas Edison's research laboratory, one of the"
"has since developed into the radio and early mobile phones. Early fax machine – The telautograph, the precursor to the modern day fax machine, was invented in 1888 by the American scientist, Elisha Gray who at one point in time contested Alexander Graham Bell's invention of the telephone. The telautograph was a device which could send electrical impulses to the receiving pen of the device, in order to be able to recreate drawings to a piece of paper while a person simultaneously wrote them longhand on the other end of the device. In 1900 Gray's assistant, Foster Ritchie, improved upon"
"men agreed that American Kardex should purchase Rand Ledger. The new company, Rand Kardex, was the largest office supply company in the United States. James Rand, Sr. became the company chairman, while James Rand, Jr. was its president and general manager. James Rand Jr. soon began expanding the company through acquisitions. He bought companies including Index Visible, Safe-Cabinet, Dalton Adding Machine, Baker-Vawter Ledger, and Library Bureau, which was probably the first company to sell filing cabinets commercially (in 1900) and may have invented them. In its brief existence, the company was first known as Rand Kardex and then, after the"
"from the Civil War era share many features with modern chairs, including high seating, upholstery, and a footrest. The first factory-manufactured chairs date to around 1850. The first one-piece reclining barber chair with an attached footrest was patented in 1878 by the Archer Company of Saint Louis. Archer quickly followed it with a chair that raised and lowered mechanically. Eugene Berninghaus of Cincinnati improved on Archer's design with the first reclining ""and"" revolving chair, the Paragon. Theodore Koch of Chicago incorporated all of these innovations into his chairs, selling more than 35,000 chairs in the period before 1885. In 1897,"
"opening envelopes and unfolding papers was troublesome and inefficient. However, the concept of vertical filing was clearly practiced as early as 1895 when a U.S. patent (533053) was issued to W.A. Cooke, Jr. for A Receptacle for Letters or Other Papers. After World War II, the Home-O-Nize Company was established in Muscatine, Iowa to provide returning veterans with jobs. Founded to produce steel kitchen cabinets, the company soon encountered the reality of the limited availability of steel. So the company began to make products for others. Finally a small amount of steel was secured and the company started manufacturing steel"
"paragraph. Bell testified that he added those seven sentences in the margin of an earlier draft of his application ""almost at the last moment before sending it off to Washington"" to his lawyers. Bell or his lawyer could not have added the seven sentences to the application after it was filed in the Patent Office, because then the application would not have been suspended. In 1887 Gray invented the telautograph, a device that could remotely transmit handwriting through telegraph systems. Gray was granted several patents for these pioneer fax machines, and the Gray National Telautograph Company was chartered in 1888"
"instruments, most celebrated being the organette. His first patents for the instrument were granted in 1877 and 1878, and these were followed by a device for cutting the slots in the paper rolls used in the organette. A company to manufacture this instrument was founded in 1879, where he served as its president until his retirement in 1883. In 1864, his improvements to the calendar clock led to an 1865 patent and the formation of the Ithaca Calendar Clock Company in 1868. Their working capital was $8,000, and manufacturing accordingly started on a small scale. The clock proved a success"
"In 1843 there was an acrimonious dispute between François Bourdon of France and James Nasmyth of Britain over who had invented the machine. Bourdon had built the first working machine, but Nasmyth claimed it was built from a copy of his design. Steam hammers proved to be invaluable in many industrial processes. Technical improvements gave greater control over the force delivered, greater longevity, greater efficiency and greater power. A steam hammer built in 1891 by the Bethlehem Iron Company delivered a 125-ton blow. In the 20th century steam hammers were gradually displaced in forging by mechanical and hydraulic presses, but"
"until approximately 1830. In 1818 he invented and patented a type of mantel clock, known as the lighthouse clock and regarded as the first alarm clock produced in America. Originally known as the ""Patent Alarm Timepiece"", they have become known as lighthouse clocks (a 20th-century term) for their obvious similarities. The design of the cases were based on the Classical art then in vogue; Neoclassicism and Empire. Some of these clocks, however, are less formal and reflect the vernacular interest in painted furniture, particularly Windsor chairs. It is worth mention, an unusual exemplary displayed in one of the bookshelves of"
"the ballpoint pen that left paper smudge-free. 1888 Telautograph The telautograph, an analog precursor to the modern fax machine, transmits electrical impulses recorded by potentiometers at the sending station to stepping motors attached to a pen at the receiving station, thus reproducing at the receiving station a drawing or signature made by sender. It was the first such device to transmit drawings to a stationary sheet of paper. The telautograph's invention is attributed to Elisha Gray, who patented it in 1888. 1888 Touch typing 1888 Salisbury steak 1889 Flexible flyer A flexible flyer or steel runner sled is a steerable"
"mechanical device that moves a second pen parallel to one held by a writer, enabling the writer to make a duplicate of a document as it is written. Polygraphs appeared in the 17th century but did not become popular until 1800. Hawkins & Peale patented a polygraph in the US in 1803, and beginning in 1804 Thomas Jefferson collaborated with them in working on improvements in the machine. He used a polygraph for the rest of his life. However, polygraphs were not practical for most office purposes and were never widely used in businesses. Hawkins & Peale lost money producing"