General Electric unpolarized, ungrounded cube tap
date: label: date made
content: ca 1960
name: label: maker
content: General Electric Company
notes: label: Description (Brief)
content: General Electric unpolarized, ungrounded electrical cube tap, ca. 1960. An adapter to connect three 2-prong cords to a single outlet. Molded on both sides: "GE / UL / 15A 125V / Made in U.S.A.". Bakelite housing, brass prongs.
label: Description (Brief)
content: Cube taps are miniature multi-outlets and serve as a quick and easy way of connecting electrical devices to a single source of power without the need to install new, permanent wiring. As such they have often been abused by overloading, and so embody stories of electrical safety as well as convenience. Aside from their physical attributes, cube taps embody a large body of literature relating to the development and adoption of electrical standards, so we document these ubiquitous yet important devices in Electricity. This particular unit shows a special feature of interest. The unit is unpolarized, both the prongs and slots are of the same width, allowing three similar cords to be inserted without regard to the electrical circuit. Electrical circuits are designed and wired such that one wire is “hot” (carrying the current in from the source) while the other wire is “neutral” (carrying the current away to ground). Which plug of a cord connected to which circuit wire was of little matter when most appliances could operate without regard to current flow. But as more devices required a specific electrical flow the need for “polarization” became more important. During the latter 20th century production and sale of unpolarized devices ceased in favor of polarized devices in which one prong is wider than the other, forcing users to plug the device in the correct way. This unit dates from just prior to the phase out of unpolarized adapters. Since cube taps can last for years in service that presented safety problems. Some users, frustrated by their inability to plug new polarized cords into unpolarized cube taps like this one, would file off metal from the cord’s wider plug to make it fit.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Electricity
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2021.0040.14
label: catalog number
content: 2021.0040.14
label: accession number
content: 2021.0040
objectType: label: Object Name
content: electrical adapter
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 1 in x 1 1/2 in x 2 1/4 in; 2.54 cm x 3.81 cm x 5.715 cm