Cathetometer
date: label: date made
content: 1896 - 1923
label: date made
content: 1896 - 1924
name: label: maker
content: Wm. Gaertner & Co.
notes: label: Description
content: A cathetometer is an upright ruler equipped with a telescope that is designed to measure the vertical difference between two points with great accuracy. The form was introduced in Paris around 1815 and the name around 1847.
label: Description
content: This example was made by William Gaertner, a German immigrant who, in 1896, established a shop in Chicago for manufacturing astronomical and other instruments of precision. A quarter century later Gaertner would be honored for “having emancipated American educational and scientific institutions from their dependence on foreign made scientific instruments.”
label: Description
content: This is one of Gaertner’s heaviest and most accurate cathetometers. It was also one of the most expensive, costing $400 when new. The signature—WM GAERTNER & CO. CHICAGO, USA—indicates that it was made between 1896 when the firm began in business under that name, and 1924 when it became the Gaertner Scientific Corp.
label: Description
content: The silvered scale is graduated to 0.05 inches and read by vernier to 0.001 inches; it is also graduated in millimeters and read by vernier to tenths.
label: Description
content: Ref: D. J. Warner, “Cathetometers and Precision Measurement: The History of an Upright Ruler,” <i>Rittenhouse</i> 7 (1993): 65–75.
label: Description
content: Wm. Gaertner & Co., <i>Instruments of Precision</i> (Chicago, 1919), pp. 28–29.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Illinois, Chicago
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Physical Sciences
label: See more items in
content: Science & Mathematics
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: PH.336364
label: catalog number
content: 336364
label: accession number
content: 1978.0230
objectType: label: Object Name
content: cathetometer
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: iron (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: brass (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 79 in x 34 in x 34 in; 200.66 cm x 86.36 cm x 86.36 cm