Gerber Variable Scale
date: label: date made
content: ca 1946
notes: label: Description
content: H. Joseph Gerber founded the Gerber Scientific Company in Hartford, Connecticut in 1948 to help produce his scientific instruments, especially the Gerber Variable Scale. In later years the company produced a wide array of equipment including computer controlled fabric cutter and precision lens grinding equipment. The Gerber Variable Scale was a mechanical computational device that consisted of two springs that expanded and contracted together to give proportional scales. These scales were used to multiply curves by constants and perform computations on graphs and curves to help reduce oscillograph and telemetry data. This is an early model variable scale made in the late 1940's, given to Eddie Gipstein—Gerber's first employee—as a going away present when he took a new job. The mathematics collection in the Division of Medicine and Science contains many more examples of scale rules, and the Archives Center has a large Gerber collection.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view (case)
place: label: associated place
content: United States: Connecticut, South Windsor
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Mechanical and Civil Engineering
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content: Industry & Manufacturing
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content: American Enterprise
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content: Science & Mathematics
label: Exhibition
content: American Enterprise
label: Exhibition Location
content: National Museum of American History
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: H. Joseph Gerber
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1994.3104.01
label: nonaccession number
content: 1994.3104
label: catalog number
content: 1994.3104.01
objectType: label: Object Name
content: variable scale
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 12 in x 1 1/2 in x 3/4 in; 30.48 cm x 3.81 cm x 1.905 cm