Calendar Medal for 1853/1854
date: label: date made
content: ca 1853
name: label: maker
content: Hyde, Joshua Burrows
notes: label: Description
content: An example of the calendar medal published by J. B. Hyde of New York for last six months of 1853 and the first six months of 1854. The calendar for July through December, 1853, is in a table on one side of the disc and the calendar for January through June, 1854, on the other side. The top part of each table contains a column listing the months, seven columns listing the days of the week (different arrangements of the letters S, M, T,W, T, F, S), and a column listing the numbers of days in the month. Below this is a table of the numbers from 1 to 31, arranged in numerical order in consecutive rows (the last four squares in the last row of the table have stars). Hence one can read, for example, that in July of 1853, a month with 31 days, the first fell on a Friday and the 31st on a Sunday.
label: Description
content: A mark at the top of the 1854 side reads: CALENDAR FOR (/) 1854 (/) ISSUED SEMI-ANNUALLY. A mark at the bottom of the front reads: J. B. HYDE 162 FULTON ST. N.Y. PUBLISHER. A mark at the top of the 1853 side reads: ENT : ACCOR : TO ACT OF CONGRESS IN (/) THE YEAR 1851 BY I. B. PERSON (/) 1853. A lower mark around the rim reads: IN THE CL’K’S OFFICE OF THE DIST. COURT OF THE SOUTHERN DIST. OF NEW YORK
label: Description
content: “Person’s pocket medal calendar for 1854,” as distributed by J. B. Hyde, was exhibited at the New York Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations, an international fair held in New York City in 1853 and 1854.
label: Description
content: The object came to the Smithsonian from the collection of Henry Russell Wray.
label: Description
content: The publisher of the calendar is most probably the Connecticut-born patent advocate and inventor Joshua B. Hyde (1809-1887). After a few years studying at the American Military, Scientific, and Literary Academy in Norwich, Vermont, Hyde pursued business in Louisiana and in Europe before establishing an international agency for the sale of foreign inventions at 162 Fulton Street in New York City. He would remain in New York for the rest of his life.
label: Description
content: References:
label: Description
content: [Advertisement], <I>Greenough’s American Polytechnic Journal</>, vol. 3, #1, January, 1854, p. 79.
label: Description
content: American Institute of the City of New York, <I>Transactions</I>, 1853, p. 505.
label: Description
content: William Arba Ellis, comp., <I> Norwich University, 1819-1911, her History and Graduates, Her Roll of Honor</I>, vol. 2, Montpelier, Vt: Capital City Press, 1911, esp. pp. 147-148.
label: Description
content: New York Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations, <I> Official Catalogue of the New-York Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations</I>, New York: G. P. Putnam & Co., 1853, p. 91.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: New York, New York City
topic: label: Subject
content: Mathematics
label: Subject
content: Calendar
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Mathematics
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: MA.316922.3
label: catalog number
content: 316922.3
label: accession number
content: 228694
objectType: label: Object Name
content: calendar medal
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: brass (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: .2 cm x 3.3 cm x 3.3 cm; 3/32 in x 1 5/16 in x 1 5/16 in