Ship Side Light, Patent Model
date: label: date made
content: 1853
label: patent date
content: 1853-07-21
name: label: inventor
content: Hidden, Enoch
notes: label: Description
content: Among its many products, wealthy merchant Enoch Hidden's New York City brass foundry made ship's portholes, also called side lights. Hidden received patents in 1848 and 1853 for improvements to side lights, and this is the model he submitted to the Patent Office for the latter one.
label: Description
content: Portholes admit light and air into a ship, but need to be watertight and sturdy to withstand heavy weather. For this reason they are typically round, cast in strong metal, fitted with thick glass, and provided with screws or bolts to fasten them securely shut. Hidden's porthole features special screws that cannot be completely removed from the frame and lost. Where the brass porthole frame passes through the side of the vessel, a lead ring prevents water from seeping between the frame and the wooden hull. Additionally, the light frame-the porthole's window pane-pivots in projecting ears, which allow it to sit firmly in a rubber seal when closed, but "to be hauled from its seat" when opened "so as to allow the plane of the light to be placed at any angle to the main frame, thus freely admitting of ventilation." Hidden's patent was reissued twice, to himself in 1863 and to his son in 1864.
label: Description
content: Enoch Hidden (ca. 1795-ca. 1865) ran a prominent brass foundry in Manhattan. He was father-in-law to the renowned New York shipbuilder William H. Webb.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: associated place
content: United States: New York, New York City
label: Associated Place
content: United States: New York
topic: label: Subject
content: Patent Models
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Maritime
label: See more items in
content: America on the Move
label: See more items in
content: Transportation
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: TR.308552
label: catalog number
content: 308552
label: accession number
content: 89797
label: patent number
content: 9,811
objectType: label: Object Name
content: patent model, light, ship side
label: Object Type
content: Patent Model
label: Other Terms
content: patent model, light, ship side; porthole; Maritime
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: brass (frame material)
label: Physical Description
content: wood (backboard material)
label: Physical Description
content: glass (window material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 9 1/2 in x 8 1/2 in x 2 3/4 in; 24.13 cm x 21.59 cm x 6.985 cm