Precipitating Jar
date: label: date made
content: ca 1921
name: label: maker
content: Whitall Tatum Company
notes: label: Description (Brief)
content: This object is a precipitation jar made by Whitall Tatum Company.
label: Description (Brief)
content: Precipitation reactions occur when the mixture of two solutions results in the formation of a solid, known as the precipitate. Precipitating jars are designed to facilitate the separation of the precipitate from the liquid. Their shape is similar to a beaker, but with the top of the vessel being narrower than the bottom. The sloping sides of the jar encourage the precipitate to settle at the bottom. In contrast, a traditional beaker’s vertical sides typically must be washed to collect all of the precipitate.
label: Description (Brief)
content: Whitall Tatum Company was among the first American glass companies to manufacture chemical glassware, starting as early as the late 1870s. Based in Millville, New Jersey, the company’s factory produced chemical and other glassware for over 150 years, finally closing its doors in 1999.
label: Description (Brief)
content: Whitall Tatum donated this object to the Museum in 1921, at the request of Charles Whitebread, assistant curator in the Division of Medicine. Whitebread planned to use the object as a part of an exhibit to illustrate pharmaceutical methods used in the manufacture of medicine. He hoped to “illustrate some of the operations to which crude drugs are subjected to get them into a form suitable for administration.” The methods he planned to display included: vaporization, distillation, sublimation, comminution, desiccation, sifting, levigation, precipitation, dialysis, expression, percolation, solution, lotion or displacement washing, decantation, collation or straining, filtration, and separation of immiscible liquids.
label: Description (Brief)
content: Sources:
label: Description (Brief)
content: Crookes, William, J. Traill Taylor, William Blanchard Bolton, and Thomas Bedding. The British Journal of Photography. H. Greenwood, 1895.
label: Description (Brief)
content: Harrison, Charles. Cumberland County, New Jersey: 265 Years of History. The History Press, 2013.
label: Description (Brief)
content: National Museum of American History Accession File #67053
label: Description (Brief)
content: Remington, Joseph Price. The Practice of Pharmacy. J.B. Lippincott Company, 1917.
label: Description (Brief)
content: Rosenfeld, Louis. Four Centuries of Clinical Chemistry. CRC Press, 1999.
label: Description (Brief)
content: Whitall Tatum & Company. “Whitall Tatum & Co. Glass Ware,” 1879.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
topic: label: Subject
content: Science & Scientific Instruments
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Medicine
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content: Science Under Glass
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content: Science & Mathematics
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Whitall Tatum Company
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: MG.M-01269
label: catalog number
content: M-01269
label: accession number
content: 67053
objectType: label: Object Name
content: precipitating jar
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: glass (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 9 1/2 in x 5 1/4 in; 24.13 cm x 13.335 cm