Device for Propelling Canal Boats Patent Model
date: label: Date made
content: 1871
label: patent date
content: 1871-12-12
name: label: patentee
content: Fowler, Harvey
label: inventor
content: Fowler, Harvey
notes: label: Description
content: This patent model represents Harvey Fowler's 1871 "Improvement in Propulsion of Canal Boats," that received patent number 121,712 on December 12, 1871. The patent describes a process wherein a pronged foot below the boat is brought into repeated contact with the bottom of a canal through the action of a complex assembly of weighted levers, elastic bands, and hinged connecting arms.
label: Description
content: In September 1870, Harvey Fowler, a clerk in the U.S. Treasury Department's Bureau of Statistics, patented a "Mechanical Hand-Motor," an arrangement of weighted pendulums and coiled springs meant to give "motion to machinery, or to the driving-wheels of a car or carriage." In December 1871, Fowler received a patent for a marine application of his motor, the "Hand Propeller for Canal Boats." Harvey also received patents 121,713 and 121,714 for further improvements in the propulsion of Canal Boats.
label: Description
content: Fowler continued to think about the use of weights and levers to generate mechanical motion over the next decade. In May 1880 he took out a want ad in the Washington Post. "Perpetual motion machine now in operation...partner wanted," it read. A curious reporter showed up at Fowler's workshop, 633 F Street, N.W., to investigate, and his visit gives us an unusual portrait of the inventor. He "was evidently an old man, although a fresh, unwrinkled, almost boyish face gave him a youthful appearance, while the old-fashioned, broad-brimmed hat and the black clothes shining with age imparted a Quaker-like air of honesty and respectability. His voice, mild and gentle, confirmed these impressions and when he talked he fumbled in a tremulous fashion among the tools and scraps on his work table." The advertised perpetual-motion machine was "a mass of jointed sticks running in all directions....Here and there is a wheel and then two pieces connected by rubber bands." It was not working during the reporter's visit. Fowler "briefly explained how it would work when it was right and the possibility seemed to give him as genuine satisfaction as if it was running smoothly at that very minute, and the applause of the world was already his." Fowler's inventing came to an end the next year when he was committed to the Government Hospital for the Insane. "His mind has become deranged," the Post reported, "through his efforts to produce a perpetual motion machine."
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: associated place
content: United States: District of Columbia, Washington
topic: label: Subject
content: Patent Models
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Maritime
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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: 1999.0086.02
label: catalog number
content: 1999.0086.02
label: accession number
content: 1999.0086
label: patent number
content: 121,714
objectType: label: Object Name
content: patent model, boats, device for propelling canal
label: Object Type
content: Patent Model
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: wood; metal (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 17 in x 11 1/2 in x 5 in; 43.18 cm x 29.21 cm x 12.7 cm