1838 Parsons's Patent Model of a Cloth Shearing Machine
date: label: model constructed
content: before 1838-11-25
label: patent date
content: 1838-11-25
name: label: inventor
content: Parsons, Seth
notes: label: Description
content: Cloth Shearing Machine Patent Model
label: Description
content: Patent No 1,015, issued November 25, 1838
label: Description
content: Seth Parsons of Hoosick Falls, New York
label: Description
content: Seth Parsons’s Patent No. 1,015 was an improvement on his earlier patent, 3082x, granted in 1819. The later patent resembled the earlier one but differed from it by its ability “to shear broad and narrow cloths, the machine operating upon [the cloth] in its passage back and forth both ways without changing it from end to end, thereby saving much time . . .” Also claimed in the patent specification was the motion of a brush that would brush up the nap in either direction, and a few other minor construction details.
label: Description
content: Parsons’s Patent No. 3082x had claimed to be an improvement on Samuel Dorr’s 1794 patent cloth shearing machine, which was called the “wheel of knives.” The “wheel of knives” refers to the shearing cylinder that was wrapped with blades in a spiral pattern. Parsons said of his improvement that it could be “composed of frame of suitable size, about 3 feet 7 inches long; 2 feet 4 inches wide and 4 feet high. Instead of knives on a large circle it should be a small one, about 2-1/2 inches in diameter . . .”
label: Description
content: In the 1820 Manufacturers Census, there is a reference to Parsons’s first shearing machine being used by a woolen manufacturer, Shearwood and Goreham, from Rensselaer County, New York. This earlier machine is also mentioned in an account of the Patent Office fire of 1836 as being one of several models of valuable improvements in shearing and napping cloth. At the twelfth Exhibition of American Manufacturers, in 1842, Parsons and Wilder were awarded certificates of Honorable Mention for their improved cloth shearing machines.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
topic: label: classified
content: Patent Models
label: classified
content: Invention
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Textiles
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content: Patent Models, Textile Machinery
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content: Textiles
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content: Patent Models
publisher: label: Related Publication
content: Janssen, Barbara Suit. Patent Models Index
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: TE.T18569
label: accession number
content: 1978.2538
label: catalog number
content: T18569.000
label: patent number
content: 001015
objectType: label: Object Name
content: shearing machine, cloth
label: Object Name
content: cloth shearing machine patent model
label: Object Type
content: Patent Model
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: wood (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: metal (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 23 1/2 in x 22 in x 15 in; 59.69 cm x 55.88 cm x 38.1 cm