Mousetrap
date: label: date made
content: 1923 - 1933
label: patent date
content: 1858-11-30
name: label: referenced
content: Mason, John Landis
label: maker
content: Ball Brothers Company
notes: label: Description
content: This canning jar with a funnel-shape one-way entrance cap used metal prongs to prevent mice from escaping. Since the U.S. Patent Office was formally established in 1838, it has granted more than forty-four hundred mousetrap patents, more than any other invention. John Mast heeded Ralph Waldo Emerson’s advice to, “Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door” and in 1899 built the familiar snap trap which received its patent in 1903. Simple and effective, Mast’s trap is the best-selling mousetrap of all time; however inventors are still attempting to improve upon Mast’s design. The Patent Office grants about 40 patents for mousetraps a year, and it receives almost ten times as many patent requests!
label: Description
content: The simple mousetrap is a testament to American ingenuity. Inventors and innovators have sought to deal with the mice in different ways - some traps are “beheaders,” some “imprisoners,” and some are “mashers.” No matter the design, the mousetrap has an undeniable grasp on the American imagination, with board games, gambling apparatus, and even movies being based on this pervasive mammal and the attempts to capture it.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Indiana, Muncie
label: found; possibly used
content: United States: Maryland, Gaithersburg
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Domestic Life
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content: Industry & Manufacturing
label: See more items in
content: Domestic Furnishings
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content: Artifact Walls exhibit
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Steven A. Clyburn
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1985.0847.01
label: accession number
content: 1985.0847
label: catalog number
content: 1985.847.01
objectType: label: Object Name
content: trap, mouse
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: glass (jar material)
label: Physical Description
content: metal, iron (wires material)
label: Physical Description
content: metal, steel (screw cap material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 9 in x 4 in x 4 in x 5 in; 22.86 cm x 10.16 cm x 10.16 cm x 12.7 cm